Frederick George

3/07/1882

Frederick Goss practised in both Adelaide and Sydney, making his name by selling a range of standard designs sketched in a series of published pattern books.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Gosses hailed from the Lower Mid-North of South Australia. Francis Goss married Elizabeth Mahood, née Lord, whose first husband had died within three months of their union. Frederick, born near Manoora, was the youngest of their seven children, three girls and four boys (BDM). As a result of learning draftsmanship in the Adelaide office of the architects, Williams & Good (NAA, p. 1), Frederick becomes proficient enough, aged only 17, to win prizes in architectural drawing when showing exercises at the Century Exhibition of 1900 sponsored by the Chamber of Manufactures. Fellow prizewinners in that year included John Tillett, Louis Smith, Hubert Cowell and Guy Makin (AO, 14.4.1900, 28).

It is likely that his middle brother, William, employs him at the Pulteney Street showroom of Fearn & Goss, suppliers of fireplace requisites and, later, acetylene lighting equipment (Directories). It is more certain that he spends time at Cue in the Murchison district of West Australia where his eldest brother, Hubert, managed a general store while prospecting for gold (MT, 3.4.1900, 4). By 1908, however, it transpires that Frederick is working in the office of Jackman & Treloar, Estate Agents. The post is perhaps owed to his sister's husband, Sydney Treloar, a younger brother of the director, C.H. Treloar (Directories; BDM). Within a year or so, he is running - from the same office - his own architectural business, one which he then transfers to two rooms rented in the Royal Exchange. Here, he is also given to be the manager of Goss's Bicycle Express Messenger Service, an agency sooner or later handed to his father. Among the denizens of the 90 or more suites within the Royal Exchange, Frederick will have encountered his fellow professionals, Charles Lorraine and Charles Parsons, as well as the sub-professional Chapman & Hanson and Poynton & Claxton, architectural 'fixers' (Directories).

During the 18 months following his first publicly-tendered commission, Goss calls tenders for 13 more. These jobs vary from shop-dwellings at Pinnaroo to additions at Mitcham, with several medium-sized houses in between (A, 8.9.1909, 2; 12.10.1909, 2). A plain bungalow with verandahs along two sides is built for a Yorke Peninsular grazier at Kingswood (CT 826-32) but some advertised projects do not proceed, e.g., terraced cottages in Parkside and a corner house in Toorak, and others cannot in any way be substantiated. In fact, Goss's business was not as prosperous as it appeared. In October 1910 he was applying for positions in the district councils of his native neighbourhood and beyond: Alma Plains, Terowie and Gladstone (WP, 20.10.1910, 3; PT, 21.10.1910, 4; AE, 28.10.1910, 2). All these applications are rejected, so he perseveres, charging 'from 1 guinea' for 'plans and specifications prepared by a practical man'. By early 1911, he has enterprisingly produced a range of 'Modern Designs' (EJ, 25.2.1911, 7) which he urges prospective house-builders to inspect at the Royal Exchange. Bids to build individual houses are then invited from contractors at the steady rate of one every two months.

Near the beginning of 1912, Frederick marries Jean Struss Thomson (BDM) and publishes Artistic Australian Homes, 'a book containing 100 Plans, Elevations and over 100 notes and advice to those about to build. Invaluable to Builders, Estate Agents, Architects and anyone contemplating building. All Australian Homes' (A, 3.4.1912, 2; SLSA 1.). 'Goss & Lee, Architects' ask the princely sum of £12.10.0 for the bound volume of 200 line drawings in black and white, but batches of unbound plans could be had at prices a little above pro rata. Mr Lee, who arrives otherwise unannounced, may have been a draftsman involved in developing and drawing the examples. He and Goss operate jointly, executing only two buildings - a Kensington Gardens house (A, 16.5.1912, 2) for a wholesaler is neither bold nor entirely bland - before parting company. Although the book remains in the names of Goss and Lee until the end of the year, in July 1912 Goss takes a new partner, John Leslie Armstrong (A, 5.7.1912, 2; 14.2.1914, 2), and similarly credits him with co-authorship. Optimism is restored, and Mrs Goss gives birth to Noel Frederick in September.

Unfortunately, Goss & Armstrong does not thrive, either. Over the next eight months, only five commissions comprising eight houses are realised before Goss is working alone again; the dissolution of the new partnership is publicly notified in February 1914 (A, 14.2.1914, 2). In the interim, Goss personally accounts for five more contracts both in the city and as far afield as Crystal Brook. Few copies of the overpriced book can have been sold. Potential clients were consequently encouraged to study it free of charge in the architect's office. More enquiries from the country are solicited and, soon, Goss is offering 'Advice free. Estimates free.' Largely unexceptional, the 100 designs are difficult to distinguish from standard builders' and speculators' houses of the period. Some examples are imitative of the work of architects such as the Danckers, Conrads and Boyces. Despite being built in 1910, one house in Rose Park (CT 850-101) to the order of Priest & James, Land Agents, closely resembles 'No. 427'. Customised plans make identifications harder.

Capitulating, Goss allows Artistic Australian Homes to be distributed by commercial booksellers who set the price at just 3/6, in line with other, mostly Californian, books of model bungalows on the market (A, 28.3.1914, 2). In June 1914, within three months of this move, it is declared, '… The phenomenal sale of the first edition necessitates a second edition being published' (A, 10.6.1914, 11). Royalties, perhaps 6d per copy, finally roll in and requests to oversee - at a premium - the construction of designs under copyright may have multiplied. A cottage design is even reproduced in Manly, N.S.W. But Goss's ascendancy is retarded by three damaging legal disputes, the controversy of which he escapes by enlisting in the Field Engineers of the A.I.F. (A, 3.8.1915, 10). Two of his immediately pre-war jobs were shared by John Tillett whose architectural career was recognised to be on the brink of collapse. Goss and Tillett also jointly entered competitions to design an institute and a Friendly Society’s hall at this time (PRG 353, SLSA).

Like so many others before him, Goss is sent via Egypt and Marseilles to the Western Front where he joins the Sappers of the 6th and 13th Companies (NAA, pp. 1, 4). Being of a slight physique, he sickens often and, after hospitalisation in September 1916, is detained in England by the Education Services of the A.I.F. to give instruction in the use of heavy artillery and to map the graves of Australian soldiers buried in English cemeteries (NAA, passim.). For several months prior to demobilisation late in 1919, Goss is given employment in London where he learns the technique of printing ink drawings on linen by exposing them to sunlight (NAA, pp. 20, 22).

Upon his return to Adelaide on Christmas Eve 1919, Lt Goss tries to resume where he left off at the Royal Exchange but the intervening years have rendered his artistic home designs obsolete. However, he remains long enough, so it appears, to supplant Miss Beryl Nixon, a photographer, who had been running a plan-printing service at the Exchange (Directories 1912-19). When relaunching this business under his own name in Flinders Street in 1921
(B 1847), Goss is also representing a Victorian firm which manufactures additives for septic tanks (VHT, 31.3.1922, 2). Nevertheless, his experience lay in building and between 1924 and 1929 the opportunity is grasped to develop at least three houses on four lots in the newly-opened area of Toorak East [Heathpool]. One house is erected on behalf of a mechanical engineer, Mr Stevenson, with whom Goss combines to sell Stevenson's Portable Totalisators to racing clubs (A, 15.5.1924, 14; CT 1330-15). Another house, opposite, he and his family occupy. (Young Noel, lately attending Prince Alfred College, shows promise of becoming a journalist) (CTs 1187-135, 1320-48; M, 19.10.1929, 30). Two further joint ventures are then entered to promote gambling machines for installation at places of entertainment. These divert funds from Goss Ltd, a family company registered late in 1925 to control the heliography, or sun-printing, operation which is diversified into stationery and artists' supplies. Goss's unmarried sisters and Sydney Treloar are drawn into this concern only to be forced to wind it up four years later (N, 22.12.1925, 11, 2.12.1929, 10) at the first sign of the Great Depression.

A decade spent in obscurity passes before a commission to build flats in Mosman and a house in Manly (Con., 4.10.1939, 20) worth £1100 - twice his customary budget - inclines Goss to revive his architectural consultancy in Sydney. He reverts to his strategy of 25 years earlier to publish an up-to-date booklet, Modern Australian Home Designs, making it available, however resignedly, post-free to any addressee within New South Wales (SMH, 29.11.1939, 18; SLSA 2.). The newer pattern book of some 75 designs is issued from Goss's office in Pitt Street in three separate parts: 'Suburban Homes built in Brick (i), in Asbestos Cement and Weatherboard (ii), or over Two Storeys (iii)'. 'Fibro' models display the rounded corners and horizontal emphasis typical of the Art Déco craze of the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Although requests for extra architectural services in connection with the published sketches are far from evident - jobs do trickle in from Warrawee (1941) and Bullaburra (1942) - Goss professes to be fully occupied facilitating innumerable projects and therefore in a position to give free advice to members of two prominent building societies (CFJ, 26.9.1940, 7). But while his booklets remain in print into the 1950s, Goss's already obscure professional presence in Sydney enters the realm of opacity; he dies in 1947 (NAA, p. 16).

Giles Walkley

Citation Details:
Walkley, Giles, 'Goss, Frederick George', Architecture Museum, University of South Australia, 2019, Architects of South Australia: [http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=157]