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Adversity & Resilience: Transport
Business gears up to serve motorists
Before World War I, motor cars had been a novelty, but by the 1920s, they were an established part of life, affecting both work and leisure.
Large garages were established in Ipswich to cater for the new market including Johnston who took over the Old Flour Mill, Runge, Faulkners and Cribb & Foote.
The Roberts family showed an interesting and probably typical progression. A.E. Roberts had started a coachworks in Ipswich, manufacturing horse-drawn vehicles. Early motorists came to him to have bodywork repairs carried out by their blacksmith and his son Bert soon adopted the motor trade, building bodies for the new bus service started by Jack Little among other projects.
Bert became a Ford dealer and opened a garage in a strategic position at the Fiveways, leasing the land from the Council.
Wheelwright and coach-builder J. Thomas started business in 1921, and the firm made a similar progression to motor body building and motor trimming, later adding panel beating and spray painting. This firm remains in business today, having moved to Churchill after a fire destroyed the old premises in 1978.
Businesses and industries in general were mechanising rapidly, changing from horse-drawn delivery vehicles to trucks.
Funeral directors Dowden bought a motor hearse in 1926 and racehorse owner Cr Easton of “Buttonsville” at Clifton Street Booval is said to have bought the first horse float in Queensland in 1928. [1]
