Collection SummaryMoney’s Motor Garage
1929-1956
Reconstruction DescriptionBetween 1929 and 1956, the Money family ran a bus and motor garage business on the corner of Liverpool Road and Smithfield Street, Smithfield (now the south-western corner of the Cumberland Highway and The Horsley Drive). Buses ran between Smithfield and Fairfield from about 1918, when Charlie and Stan Gordon picked up passengers in horse buses from Fairfield railway station.
Samuel Foster Money drove buses for the Gordons before he bought the business in 1929. Born in Suffolk, England, Sam joined the Merchant Navy as a young man, and after a voyage to Australia in 1906, he jumped overboard and swam ashore in Melbourne. From the early 1930s, Sam Money lived at Smithfield Road and by 1932 he had opened his garage and service station. Sam Money became very interested in the development of the district, becoming Mayor of Smithfield-Fairfield council in 1938, and holding executive positions in many other community organizations.
Sam and his wife Francis Mable (May) Barry had four children: Kathleen, Sam jnr., Reginald (Reg) and Dorothy (Dot). Sam jnr. was known as ‘Prinnie’ and in 1936, as the eldest son, he took over the business from his father. The garage became a meeting place for locals where Sam and his customers and friends played Euchre at a card table in the corner of the workshop. Sam and Molly lived with their family next to the garage, until 1956, when their house was moved to 630 The Horsley Drive, Smithfield, next to Maisie Morris’ house (now the Museum).
In the 1940s Sam Money had two buses, one diesel and one petrol, and a hire car that met its fate by being crushed by a falling telegraph pole in 1957. Money’s motorbuses took people to the pleasure grounds along Prospect Creek and George’s River, where groups had enjoyed picnics and social gatherings since the 1920s. Fairfield resident Bill Galton, remembers that as Sam’s bus arrived at the Victoria Hotel, Smithfield, he would honk his horn to alert pub patrons that the bus was leaving.
Sam Money junior sold the motor garage to Mobil in 1956, who built a larger service station on the site which survives today.
