Family History NSG Memoir Postscript Part 1

1926 to 1976

Gaze Bond Carden and Munn, Barristers and Solicitors

Jubilee Brochure

Mr Noel Shaftesbury Gaze started practice under the name of Noel S. Gaze Esquire in September 1926, not a favourable time to start in any business, for ahead were the years of the Depression.

This was the era of the radio and the tram; when ladies still wore long frocks but were rapidly succumbing to the apparel of the 'flapper'; it was a time when the motor car, motorbike, electricity, flush toilets, typewriters and telephones were all 'new-fangled' gadgets.

Mr Gaze started his practice in one small office on the 2nd floor of the Security Building (next to John Courts' old building on Queen Street). The office consisted of one windowless room about six foot square, lit by a naked light bulb, and heated by a gas heater that was prone to exploding.

The first document that Mr Gaze produced was a will for his father and this earned the firm's first ten shillings.

In those early days, Mr Gaze and Mr K N H Browne (a solicitor on the first floor) shared the services of Mr Les Greendale who was employed primarily as a law clerk, though on occasions he was called upon to do some typing. Mr Greendale remained with Mr Gaze until the beginning of the war.

In 1938, Mr Gaze employed his first permanent lady-typist, Miss June Chapman, who worked at first on  a sharing basis with Mr Browne and thereafter for Mr Gaze solely until 1947 and then on a casual basis until 1952.

After Miss Chapman left, Miss Win Mansfield and then, when she left, Miss Marie Martin, joined the firm. These girls were employed to do everything, from typing to making the tea.

In 1945, Mr Grahame Bond began work for Mr Gaze as a law clerk. With such a small staff, the atmosphere in the office was informal; Mr Bond recalls that one day he accidentally discovered one of the office girls changing her clothes behind a curtain - Mr Bond was not certain who was the more embarrassed - himself as a blushing adolescent or the petticoat-clad girl!

(Early in the war years Mr Browne died, and Mr Gaze moved his office down one level to Mr Browne's old office. By that stage Mr Gaze had graduated to a front-window office directly above Mr Browne's. Both offices provided excellent views of parades up Queen Street. - FG)