[GOLD RUSH] Decorative billhead for the Miner's Store of John S. Cragg, Wholesale & Retail Ironmonger, 11 Swanston St. South, Melbourne. Dated 12 October 1854. de R. QUARRILL & CO. [QUARRILL, Reuben, 1828-1904]

Melbourne : R. Quarrill & Co., Lithographers, 74 Collins St. West, [1854]. Lithographed billhead, 195 x 240 mm, with vignette view of the premises of John S. Cragg's Miner's Store at the Yarra end of Swanston Street; manuscript date of 12 October 1854, with entries recording the sale of a soup tureen and ladle for £1 10/- to the ship Shirley (an American merchant vessel), endorsed as 'paid' by one of Cragg's employees; a very well preserved document. An attractive and very scarce ephemeral printing from Melbourne at the height of the gold rush. Reuben Quarrill (1828-1904) was active as a lithographer in Melbourne for only a short period, in 1853-4. He is best known for a series of lithographic views of Melbourne, Williamstown and Geelong, several of which at least were drawn by Edmund Thomas. Quarrill then worked as a commission agent and later turned to journalism, ending his career as the editor of the Geelong Advertiser. Ironmonger John S. Cragg's notice appeared in The Argus, 16 February 1854, advising the Melbourne public that he was moving his business, The Miner's Store, from 21 Swanston Street to new premises at 11 Swanston Street (four doors closer to Prince's Bridge). In the illustration on this billhead, the facade of his stone building has the address 'No. 11 from No. 21' below the name Miner's Store. The American ship Shirley, out of Salem, Massachusetts, was a merchant clipper of 910 tons owned by Stone, Silsbee & Pickman. She arrived in Port Phillip on 1 October 1854, and was berthed at Nelson Place (Williamstown) until she departed Melbourne for Callao on 17 October 1854.