Buckley & Nunn

Buckley & Nunn was a store in Melbourne, Australia. It first opened its doors in 1851 as a drapery store and, in its , competed creditably as a department store with Myer (1900). It occupied a succession of buildings in Bourke Street until it was taken over by David Jones in 1982.

Popular as a retailer of fashionable garments, its 1914 mail-order catalogue promoted elegant frocks. In 1939, female nightwear was shown in shop windows. In fact, similar displays had caused pedestrian congestion on the footpath from as early as 1912, seen in photos of the day. In the 1920s, the store's tea room was reputedly a fashionable meeting place for ladies.

Buckley & Nunn was co-founded by Mars Buckley (1825?– 9 October 1905) and his partner, Crumpton John Nunn (1828–1891). Buckley was born at Mallow, County Cork, Ireland and emigrated to Victoria in 1851 with his wife, Elizabeth Maroon, née Neville, and their child. Buckley came with goods to sell at the Ballarat and Forest Creek goldfields, which proved profitable. On the arrival of another consignment of goods in 1852 he began business in partnership with English-born Nunn as Buckley & Nunn. Nunn soon returned to England to manage that end of the business.

Buckley & Nunn's first store was a drapery store in a wooden building, 9 ft (2.7 m) by 30 ft (9.1 m), with a yearly rental of £250. The next few years saw great expansion and Buckley took larger premises for £3000 a year and bought the land for £22,000, acquiring a Bourke Street frontage of 27 ft (8.2 m), soon extended to 162 ft (49 m) with a depth of 300 ft (91 m) to Post Office Place. In 1859 Buckley gave evidence to the select committee on the tariff. At that time he was employing 20 women and importing most of his goods through Dalgety. In the 1860s he established direct communications with the main British firms, and the store made annual profits of about £40,000. In 1866 Buckley helped to found the Commercial Bank of Australia.

After the death of Nunn by suicide in 1891, Buckley sold the business to Robert Reid, who sold it on in London in 1892 for £300,000. The business was now called Buckley & Nunn Pty Ltd.

...
Wikipedia