| Creator: |
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| Earliest: |
1923 |
| History : |
Clements LANGFORD was born on 25 March 1853 at Portsea, England and arrived in Tasmania in 1864, and Melbourne in 1868. He was apprenticed to the builder David Mitchell in 1869 and won first prize for architectural drawing at the Richmond School of Design in 1874. In 1877-1878 he worked as a carpenter and established a small business with Robert Hutchison in Richmond in 1881. The firm operated under Langford’s name from 1886 and was incorporated as Clements Langford Pty Ltd in 1923. By 1930 the firm encompassed 'shop and office fitters, plumbers, painters [and] decorators', and boasted large joinery, timber-machining and plumbers' shops. The firm flourished from the end of World War I until the ‘credit squeeze’ of the early 1960s. Langford undertook an eclectic range of contracts including premises for Makower, McBeath & Co. Pty Ltd, additions to the university medical school, the Bryant & May factory, Centreway, Hoyts' Theatre in Bourke Street, the Melbourne Sports Depot, the Myer Emporium, Scott's Hotel, the Comedy Theatre, Ball & Welch's store, the Safe Deposit Building, the Adelaide Steamship Co. building, the Dunlop factory at Montague, the Australian Mutual Provident Society's new Melbourne office and the Herald Building. The spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral were built by the firm, with construction completed after the death of Clement Langford in 1930, by his son, George.
Source: Mark Richmond, 'Langford, Clements (1853 - 1930)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volume, Melbourne University Press, 2005, pp 227-228. |
| Activities/Occupation: |
Builders |
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