D. & W. Murray Limited

D. & W. Murray was a drapers shop in Adelaide founded by brothers David Murray (28 December 1829 – 6 January 1907) and William Mackintosh Murray (c. 1831 – 25 November 1920), which became the wholesale draper D. & W. Murray Limited, with warehouses in three States, then Goode, Durrant & Murray second in importance only to G. & R. Wills.

The Murray brothers were born in Anstruther, Fife, Scotland, sons of William Murray. They had some experience in the retail and wholesale drapery trade, which included supplying retailers in the young colony of South Australia. In early 1853 the brothers arrived in Adelaide, and began operating a retail drapery store in what had been H. D. Hilton's printing shop, King William Street, "a few doors from Hindley Street". with access on Gilbert Place.

By 1858 they had moved to larger premises at "Cohen's Corner" (later T & G Building), on the south corner of King William and Grenfell streets, previously "Prince's crockery shop". They needed a warehouse to support their burgeoning wholesale trade, so took over the adjoining King William Street building, which had been Monteith & Muirhead's wheat store until that company was found insolvent in 1860. It was not long before two storeys were added to the building, for which they ran foul of the Council, as the walls were not 15 inches (380 mm) thick as their regulations stipulated. The company had two arms: wholesale and retail. Seeing their strengths and opportunities lay in the wholesale, they sold their retail business in February 1862 to James Whiting.

In May 1866 William Murray left for England to take over their London office, whose premises were in Fenchurch Building, the Barbican, then from 1890 at 28 Finsbury Street. Apart from a few short visits he never returned to Australia.

They had a store on Grenfell Street, near King William Street, which in 1872 became a suite of offices for Francis Clark and Sons and the basement a wine cellar for the related firm of Clark & Crompton.

In April 1867 they took over the lease on Levi & Watt's newly-built warehouse at 96 King William Street (previously the site of Coglin's woodyard, and now the Commonwealth Bank ). The property had been passed in at auction, and purchased by Philip Santo for an English investor. By September the move had been effected and their old building taken over by auctioneer Louis Barnard. In February 1868 a serious fire destroyed most of the stock, but prompt action by the hose units prevented it spreading to the Napoleon Bonaparte Hotel adjacent.

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