Harry Boan

Henry ("Harry") Boan (1860–1941) was an Australian businessman and politician, who was best known for establishing the Boans department store in Perth, Western Australia.

Boan was born at Jones Creek near Dunolly, Victoria on 4 November 1860. He was the son of English born Jewish parents Thomas, a miner and road contractor, and Rachel Isaacs. Thomas and Rachel had previously lived in California before coming to Australia in about 1850 in relatively poor circumstances. When Harry was about 16 he left home and worked as a messenger in Flegeltaub's Ballarat warehouse on wages of 10s. per week including lodging. He was later promoted to a position of town-traveller at £2 10s. per week but soon resigned. From here he moved between jobs in Melbourne and later Sydney, Brisbane, Toowoomba and Charters Towers including positions at 'Anthony Hordern's' and 'David Jones's'.

In 1886, his parents gave Henry and his brother Ernest, £200 of their savings which the brothers used to open a business called 'Boan Bros Ltd' in Broken Hill in western New South Wales in 1890. The business expanded rapidly and soon became the leading drapery in the prosperous town. However, by the mid-1890s Broken Hill was suffering a downturn, and in 1895 Harry sold his share of the business to Ernest.

Harry and another brother Benjamin moved to Perth, which was undergoing an economic boom with gold discoveries around Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. The brothers purchased a site on the edge of the city which was directly opposite the Perth railway station. They borrowed £62,000 and within a few months had built and opened a single-storey emporium on the site and named it 'Boans Bros.'. The store opened on 7 November 1895 with spectacular results, almost selling out.

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