History: Mudgee Dickinson and Sons

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1870

There are several good houses of business in Mudgee; perhaps the loading establishment is that of Mr. Dickson, known by the name of Dickson and Sons. This property is on an extensive scale and takes some going over, having frontages to four sides of two streets. The main score is visible over the lower dwellings of the town for a long distance round, being no less than 132 feet long by 30 wide in two storeys, the upper floor being devoted to iron mongery, furniture, and the lower to grain and produce. A well-planned system of sublocution as adopted, the office being on the other side of the street, the speaking tube is carried across under the road which saves time and sometimes checkmates a dubious customer. Among the attachments which the large store has formed, are a cabinetmaker's shop, where cedar from the Richmond is made into neat furniture ; and a chaff-cutting shed, where a two horse-power vertical engine cuts both wood and chuff, carrying the chaff away into the store by a canvas bolt. A store, fifty feet long, faces the large one on the opposite side, filled with groceries, teas, and oilmen's stores, and .adjoining is a building set apart for glass and Staffordshire-ware, under both these, to their respective lengths and breadths, are collars devoted (and they are not the only devotees neither), to wines, spirits, and tobaccos.
The retail shops face Market-street, the drapery and hosiery department being on your left, the grocery on your right, and show-room in the center. Mr. Dickson also brews his own gas from fat, and has a very nice little plant for the purpose which, however, is found too small for the promises requiring illumination. The meter is eight feet in diameter and four feet three inches deep, and 208 cubic feet of gas are produced from thirty pounds of fat, the plant costing £200 some seven years since. The weekly expense is 8s ex labour. The machine is too small, requiring too frequent manufacture. A larger machine would be less expensive. The number of men employed about this ¿business is in all thirty1 .

1880

2 October 1880

Dickson and Sons Market Street Mudgee 1880

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