Who worked in your street? Dry cleaners at 4 John Street

By Lyn Collingwood, July 2025, from Bulletin 5/2025

Evidence of its industrial past can still be glimpsed at 4 John Street. Dry cleaners and dyers operated there from 1908 until the 1950s.

The French connection

Eugene Viau and his wife Leontine landed in Sydney on the Polynesian in June 1901 and applied for naturalisation soon after. They claimed to have operated as dyers and dry cleaners in London and Paris; that one of their celebrity customers was Sarah Bernhardt who had entrusted her theatrical costumes to their care; and that their ‘Viau delicate and artistic system’ preserved colour and lustre with no shrinkage. In partnership with James Henry Bowden and Samuel Hedskis Bowden, they established a steam-cleaning factory at 40 City Road Darlington but in 1905 open vats of benzine caught fire and the iron-roofed weatherboard building burned to the ground. The business partnership with the Bowdens was dissolved and the business briefly relocated to the Strand Arcade before moving to 4 John Street where Madame Viau ‘personally supervised all operations’.

In 1909 the couple were joined by their former employee Ernest Lemoine. The next year, Ernest and his new wife Leontine née Fougère took over the John Street steam works and office plus a receiving depot in the Queen Victoria Markets. They specialised in treating fragile items: dyeing chiffon and lace and cleaning feathers, gloves, ball dresses, cloaks and theatrical costumes.

The Lemoines advertised as ‘French dry cleaners’ and imported furniture from their homeland. In 1911 the battleship Liberté with its cargo of gunpowder blew up in Toulon Harbour. Leontine Lemoine contributed to the disaster fund. In 1913 she organised building additions at John Street and at 61 Boyce Street. During the First World War, she ran the dry cleaning business while her husband was said to be on active service. Ernest was back in Glebe by December 1918 when an arrest warrant was issued for the arrest of fellow countryman Leon Ravet, a seaman speaking little English, who was charged with embezzling £1 from him.

The Lemoine business expanded postwar, with a branch near the Milsons Point wharf and receiving depots at Campsie and Haberfield. Ernest advertised his laundry wagon and household items for sale in 1925 and the Glebe building was put up for auction the following year. The Lemoines’ subsequent movements are unknown, although a woman named Leontine Lemoine died at Toulon in 1946.

Alfred and Violet Walsh

Alfred Lawrence Walsh and Violet Elizabeth née Sieben were at 4 John Street with their growing family by 1928. Alfred had formerly been in partnership with Walter Edward Harris as dry cleaners and dyers Walter E Harris & Company at 150 Oxford Street Hyde Park.

Tragedy struck when the family was on a camping holiday at Mittagong in October 1931. Peter William Alfred Walsh was shot in the head when he wandered in front of his father who was shooting at a bottle in the river. The two-year-old was treated by a local doctor but later died in Bowral Hospital. He was buried Catholic at Woronora Cemetery.

The following September, Samuel Joseph Carroll and James Knight broke into Walsh’s shop and stole clothing. The labourers were given jail sentences of 12 months and two years. In 1940 Alfred Walsh nominated as a candidate for Glebe Council. As the number of nominees far exceeded the 12 aldermen required, a poll was conducted, Walsh was apparently unsuccessful and his name disappears from the Glebe public record after 1941.

George Quigley

George Arthur Quigley was in business at 4 John Street by 1946. Specialising in heavy-duty cleaning and dyeing, he invited householders to ‘brighten up’ their carpets, lounge covers and curtains. Quigley withdrew from his partnership with Wesley Pitt in Prefect [sic] Dry Cleaners at Woonona in 1951 and probably retired the next year after winning a lottery prize.

George and Florence Quigley lived in Beach Street Coogee. George died in 1981, predeceased by his wife in 1969. Both were buried Presbyterian in Randwick General Cemetery.

Trade & Carpet Dyeing Company

The next business at 4 John Street occupied the small factory from 1952; by 1960 it had moved to Waterloo. The Trade & Carpet Dyeing Company treated wearing apparel, furnishings, carpets and rugs, and employed women and junior girls to handle orders and do small repairs

Long-term neighbours

Cab driver turned labourer Terence McGovern lived with his wife Bridget at 2 John Street from 1904, perhaps earlier. Their oldest daughter Mary Anne Thistleton died in the house in 1917, followed by Terence in July 1919. His widow died there in April 1930, survived by four daughters and four sons. The family’s local church was St James and their final resting place was the Catholic section of Rookwood Cemetery.

On the other side, at number 6 was the family of William and Caroline Smith, from 1904 – perhaps earlier. The widowed ‘Carrie’ Smith died in 1933; her daughter Jessie Marie Cole remained in the house until her death in 1953. The family worshipped at the Presbyterian Church on Bridge Road.

On the opposite side of John Street was a millet broom factory owned by Lewis Grant Abrams who lived at Cranbrook, 48 Wigram Road. Originally situated in Pyrmont, the firm underwent several changes of product and name: The Co-operative Broom and Brush Company, Abrams’ Broom and Brushes Ltd, Abrams’ Brooms Ltd and Abrams’ Ltd. In 1918 the factory was contracted to supply blacking and polishing brushes to the military. A Glebe alderman and keen cricketer, Lewis Abrams died in 1928 and was buried in Waverley Cemetery. His son Grant, managing director of the broom factory, added the box-making Selby Case Company to the site.

Abrams’ factory closed in 1982. The building was demolished by Leichhardt Council and the land remediated to form John Street Reserve.

Sources: NSW cemetery records; NSW electoral rolls; NSW Registry of Births, Deaths, Marriages; NSW State Records; Sands Directories; Trove website.