Dean and Smith history in Barraba

14th October 2025

History Notes

In a couple of weeks descendants of the Dean and the Smith families are to visit Barraba to find more information about their ancestors.  Both William and Sarah Dean and James C.  and Eva Smith lived in the town of Barraba for the rest of their lives after purchasing a flourishing general store in 1900.

We have in our possession a copy of the advertisement acknowledging the change of ownership from Excell & Malcolm to Messrs. Dean and Smith.  The former owners were hoping that Dean and Smith would be able to carry on the existing friendly relations with the customers.  The advertisement which covered a large part of the page in the Barraba and Manilla News dated 11th August 1900 stated that W.H. Dean had a reference of twelve years with an Armidale firm and J.C. Smith had a five-year reference with the same business.  Dean and Smith started their business with a special discount sale on 11th August 1900.

Although I have not yet found the actual notice when Dean & Smith took over, I am pretty sure that Dean & Smith took over on 1st August 1900.  In the early years it seems that the store was run by the new owners with little reference to any government department.

However, things changed in 1913 when it seems that the business became a company.  Shareholders named in the account book seemed to be Mr Dean and Mr Smith, their wives, Eva Smith and Sarah Dean together with J. Scholes from Armidale and G. Parker-Jones of Bondi and Edward P.M. Sheedy, public accountant of Sydney.  The first recorded meeting was held on 2nd December 1913.

As well as running their Barraba shop, both Mr Dean and Mr Smith joined several other Barraba farmers/businessmen in a Queensland property known as Nelia Ponds and later also Glen Lyon.  This venture seemed to be quite profitable at first but later the company withdrew from the venture and it is thought that the profits from the venture enabled homes such as Bronte, Nelia and Wonga were able to be built.

Hopefully there will be more on these families next week.

News for October 2025