By Kerry Davis and Heather Wade, 2022.
No 15 Hayward Street, Equest and Lifestyle Realty, March 2022.
Arthur Ewald Roesner established a blacksmithing and wheelwright business on the site in 1906.[1] He sold it to William Frederick Mincham in October 1921.[2]
The National Bank of Australasia Limited came to Harvey in 1929. Initially it opened a branch on 14 January under the management of Mr GR Bartley, presumably in rented premises.[3] In February of the same year, Mr J Johnstone, a Harvey contractor, commenced building the bank premises of two rooms (the bank and the Manager’s office) and a Manager’s residence on the former site of Mincham’s blacksmith shop. Mincham’s business premises had been removed and re-erected to the back of the block.[4] Although the article says to the back, it appears that it was moved to the side as shown in the photo below.
To the right of the Hairdressers in a stand-alone building is The National Bank of Australasia c1935,
William Mincham’s blacksmith shop can be seen to the right of the bank.
National Bank to the right of the car. Photo per Memories of Harvey.
Dixon Motors commenced advertising in the Harvey Murray Times in 1950 and in 1951 advertised they were situated at the rear of the National Bank. They were agents for Vauxhall cars, Westralian motor cycles, Mortlock’s motor cycles and Bedford trucks and had a workshop as part of the business.[5]
The building at 15 Hayward Street that stands today was constructed in 1957 and replaced the earlier wooden bank building. At that date the bank still retained the name of The National Bank of Australasia, a Melbourne based bank founded in 1858. In 1982 it merged with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney to form the National Australia Bank (NAB).
The National Bank in the early 1970s. Photo courtesy of Harvey Districts Historical Society, Federation Display.
February 2011, photo by Kerry Davis.
By the late 1980s NAB had moved into the Upton Centre on Uduc Road. In the 1990s, 15 Hayward Street was occupied by a dental practice but in 1997 NAB returned to its 1957 building.
On 23 August 2018, NAB closed its doors in Harvey, citing changing banking practices by its customers.[6]
Equest & Lifestyle Realty moved into the building in October 2018 and remains there today.[7]
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[1] Bunbury Herald, 3 August 1906, p. 2.
[2] South Western Times, 4 October 1921, p. 2.
[3] Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express, 16 January 1929, p. 2
[4] South Western Times, 23 February 1929, p. 5.
[5] Harvey Murray Times, 24 October 1952, p. 11.
[6] Harvey-Waroona Reporter, 30 May 2018.
[7] Email, 18 February 2022, from Lee and Kath Green, Equest & Lifestyle Realty.