Shops in Rowville

While going through some old records recently I came across notes I had made of a conversation with the late Frank Finn in November 1999.

Frank was disputing an article I had written about the Gilligan family having established Rowville’s first shop at the corner of Stud and Bergins Road. At the time I contended with Frank that what he was claiming as previously established shops were more in the nature of stalls selling a very limited range of products. Gilligan’s shop, on the other hand, was a purpose-built store that sold a wide range of goods.
However, I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to make up your own mind.
I have added some explanatory notes in italics to Frank’s story.
Bryan Power

“Gilligan’s was not the first shop in Rowville. My Mum and Dad (Kitty and Jack Finn) had a shop in a lean-to on their house in Stud Road where the service station is now (on the north corner of Bergins Road) and they sold to the Australian soldiers and later to the American soldiers. Australian soldiers picked out the apples by stabbing them with their bayonets. My father put bottles of lemonade in a Hessian bag in the creek to keep them cool.
Kitty Finn sold scalded cream there and at a stall in Ferntree Gully Road too. Later she was helped by Irene Gilligan.
The Manleys had a shop on the property where their house was (on the north-east corner of Stud and Wellington Road). Later the Baileys had a tea room there.
Rudolfo Bartoli ran the canteen at the POW camp. He made the case for a clock – a ship’s chronometer – brought back from the war by my brother Bill. Stewart Finn (Frank’s younger brother) has the clock now.
My father Jack used to collect the food scraps from the POW camp for his pigs. He’d pick out knives and forks tossed out with the food and put these on top of the pig sties. They were found and he was taken to court and fined for being in possession of Defence Department property.
Miss Bergin had a weatherboard building about 18 feet x 12 feet erected and used that as a shop (on the south-east corner of Stud and Wellington Roads). She sold lollies and ice creams and local produce. I was given ice cream with other kids after school one day when she closed down the shop. The ice cream was kept in large green canvas bags with ice.
‘Fluffy’ Golding had a stall up at the swimming pool at Heany Park
I remember fishing for tadpoles in a dam near Fordham’s (in Bergins Road) when a small blackfellow – one of the black trackers – spoke to me. He wore a peaked cap like a tram conductor. The black trackers often visited the Fordhams. When I was going home Granny Fordham called out to me, ‘Tell your father that Peter Pan won the Cup’.
Stewart was photographed as a baby for one of the Ferntree Gully papers at a stall at Ferntree Gully. He was in a box with a sign: ‘Chooks for Sale’.
The deal Gilligans had with my father was that they would exchange houses – the Rowville one for the Gilligan’s in Moonee Ponds. Later the Gilligans realized that the Moonee Ponds house was worth more so they paid for the Rowville house in cash. Later they moved this house further up (to the south along) Stud Road after being flooded when the creek rose.”