Benjamin Lovett Senior was born in Victoria and came to Walcha in the early 1880s, where he worked as a road and bridge contractor before opening his first store, which he had taken over from Sam Bow and George Wing Gin in 1902.
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By 1905, Benjamin had moved to new premises on adjacent land.
Both stores were at the eastern end of Fitzroy Street, the first where John Stuart’s home is now and the second where John has since built a brick workshop and storage facility.
In addition to menswear, dress materials, kitchenware and hardware, Lovett’s also sold sweets and soft drinks which proved to be a major attraction to the children attending the nearby Walcha Public School, which was then on the site of the present hospital.
During the 1920s, Benjamin Junior and his brother Arthur commenced trading as Lovett Brothers and added radios, gramophones, records, pianos, player piano rolls, banjos, mandolins and accordions to the range of goods that were available at the store.
Lovett Brothers opened their “New Service Store” in Derby Street in the mid-1920s.
It carried the same range of goods as before, but with the added attraction of sporting goods and a men’s hairdressing saloon.
The hairdressing saloon was at the rear of the building and was accessible both through the store and by means of a side entrance to the property.
The business was one of many beset by financial trouble in the hard times of the early 1930s. It was forced into bankruptcy in March 1934 with all of its heavily discounted stock sold off by September 1934.
The Fitzroy Street store was re-opened later and was active during the years of the Second World War with advertisements for a range of menswear and boys clothing appearing in the Walcha News during 1944.
Hardware items were being advertised by January 1945 while white goods were added to the stock-in-trade during the 1950s.
Three generations of the Lovett family managed the family stores; Ben Senior was followed by his sons Ben Junior and Arthur, and they in turn were followed by Ben Junior’s son Ron, who was much better known around the town as “Bokes”.
Bokes and his wife Beryl had the store from the 1950s until it was closed on September 30, 1969.
The Walcha News of October 2 of that year reported on the closure of Lovett’s Store, saying among other things: “Lovett’s were the first store in Walcha to sell and service radio when broadcasts became available in the early 1920s”.
