One hundred and fifty years ago, you could find advertisements on your small change.
Between 1849 and 1863, 62 Victorian businesses issued ‘tokens’, metal pieces made for businesses, which were used instead of official coins. This sheet looks at two Melbourne grocery stores that issued tokens: Annand, Smith & Co. of Collins Street, and Hide & De Carle of Elizabeth Street. These two businesses only lasted for a few years, but their tokens have endured.
Who were these men that put their names in people’s pockets?
The first Australia token to be used as currency
Photographer: Rodney Start. Source: Museum Victoria
Annand, Smith & Co., Family Grocers
On 20 October 1849 a notice appeared in the Argus, saying that because of the shortage of copper coins in Melbourne “…Annand has had coined at Birmingham a large supply of penny pieces, having on one side… the inscription ‘Annand, Smith & Co., family grocers, Melbourne’.” George Annand needed change for his grocery store and as The Argus pointed out, his penny pieces, known as tokens, were also “a most active …advertisement” for his business.
Annand, Smith & Co. was a partnership between George Annand and Robert Smith.
In 1847 Smith opened a grocery store in Little Bourke Street where Annand soon joined him. The store changed address twice, first moving to Little Collins Street, then to 73 Collins Street, on the corner of Queen Street. The partnership was finished by 1852.
Melbourne Daily News was not impressed when Annand, Smith & Co. issued their tokens. On 30 October 1849 the Daily News published a story about the ‘cheap method of advertising adopted by a certain grocery firm’ and told of a possible law suit against Annand.
George Annand
Born in Banffshire, Scotland about 1794, George Annand is known to have come to Melbourne by 1844. Annand was a Melbourne City Councillor from 1847 to 1852. In 1853 Annand was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council and retired the next year. He died in 1856, at his home in Hawthorn.
Robert Smith
Robert Smith was an Englishman. Like Annand he was in Melbourne by 1844. As well as his partnership with George Annand, Smith was involved in several other businesses. He later moved to New Zealand where he died in 1885.
Hide & De Carle, Grocers & Wine Merchants
From1857 to 1861Thomas Hide and Edward De Carle ran a Grocery store on the east side of Elizabeth Street, near Bourke Street. The partners then went their separate ways, drawn in different directions in their search for fortune.
The section of Elizabeth Street opposite Hide & De Carle’s grocery store.
Source: State Library of Victoria
Edward De Carle
Edward De Carle is thought to have been in Melbourne from 1849, and is said to have got his start in business by taking goods to the gold fields on a cart pulled by Newfoundland dogs. De Carle was the leading partner in Melbourne’s first shopping arcade, the Queen’s Arcade, in October 1853. In 1862 he moved to New Zealand, where he also issued tokens.
Hide & De Carle issued a huge number of these tokens in 1857 and 1858
Photographer: Rodney Start. Source: Museum Victoria
Thomas Hide
Thomas Hide came to Victoria from England. By 1853 he was advertising his services as an auctioneer in Melbourne. In July that year he opened a General store at 11 Bourke Street. He moved his store to Swanston Street, then to 68 Elizabeth Street, before he entered into partnership with De Carle. Hide later kept a grocery store in South Melbourne.
Change for the times
The few facts available about these four men give some idea of the pace of life in early Melbourne. They all came to try and make their fortunes. The face of the town was being remade weekly, and they moved businesses around to try and get an advantage. They were involved in a wide range of business activities, because the opportunities for making a fortune were constantly evolving. And there wasn’t enough small change, so they had tokens made and got their names out into the streets, carried in people’s pockets.