The Civet Cat

While doing some genealogical research on my wife's side of the family, I found some records of a James Martin owning a shop on Brisbane's King Street (now the Queen Street Mall) called The Civet Cat.

He was originally the store manager for Eleazor Davis, who owned a parent store in Sydney. Eleazor was the father of the architect Herbert Nathaniel Davis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Nathaniel_Davis

Most of the words come from this 1865 article in the The Brisbane Courier:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1280005

The Sydney store was destroyed by fire in December 1865, which seems to have triggered transfer of ownership to James in 1870. James went on to run the store until he sold it at auction in 1885.

As late as 1917 he was still being referred to as the owner of the Civet Cat.

Sadly there are no photos of the store, but I have used the photo of a store sign in Kensington, UK, taken by Mike Quinn and used here under Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0:
https://www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=2714491

The Shabbat verse is a tribute to Eleazor's Jewish heritage.

Of course the use of real Civet Cats in the perfume industry of the 1700s and 1800s is horrendous and sadly the industry still continues in Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet_(perfumery)

More on the history and current state of the Civet trade:
https://naturalnicheperfume.com/animal-scents/sustainable-utilisation-of-the-african-civet/

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