Joseph Foord emigrated from England with his wife and four young daughters in 1852, probably to try his luck on the goldfields.

He must have been reasonably successful because in 1860 he and his family moved to Horsham where he established refreshment rooms and stables at what is now 94-100 Wilson Street.

In those early days of Horsham, this was Horsham's centre with the Langlands' store acting as the focal point.

The store, established in 1849, was on the north-east corner of Hamilton and Darlot Streets (74 Hamilton Street).

According to the reminiscences of Mary Bodey, published in 1914, the town was, "mostly in the block between Wilson and Hamilton ... Firebrace and Darlot Streets".

On 24 July 1861, Joseph was granted a publican's licence, only the fourth such licence to be granted in Horsham.

He called his hotel the "Welcome Inn".

The new licence allowed him to expand his business but he may have been a little too keen to do so as, in January 1863, he was prosecuted for keeping his hotel open on Christmas Day.

Undeterred, in 1864 he applied for, and was granted, permission to erect a billiards hall. In those days, it was almost a commercial necessity to provide good billiards playing facilities at a hotel.

Joseph's daughters were by now growing into adulthood and in 1866 his two eldest daughters married local men.

Emma, his eldest, married William Ede, bearing him six children until William tragically died at 35 years of age in 1878.

Joseph's second eldest, Winifred, married the already famous John Langlands, Horsham's major store-keeper. John was a Justice of the Peace, a councillor on the newly formed Wimmera Shire Council, and was managing the family store after his father, George, had died suddenly in 1861.

Winifred bore John 14 children, 12 of whom survived.

Winifred, known as Minnie, died in February 1889 soon after giving birth to her 14th child. She was 40 years of age.

John Langlands went on to marry Winifred's widowed sister, Emma, meaning Joseph Foord became John Langlands' father-in-law twice over.

Horsham was changing from a village into a town.

In 1860, when Joseph Foord first arrived, the whole district had a population of less than 1000 but by the mid-1860s the population had doubled.

In Horsham itself, people began to build further to the north, mainly along Firebrace and Darlot Streets.

The main reason for the population growth was the land settlement Acts of Parliament. Victoria's immigration explosion, from people seeking gold in the 1850s, caused the Victorian Government to look at ways to encourage wider settlement into farming areas.

Acts proclaimed in the mid to late 1860s allowed for the sub-division of the huge tracts of land that had simply been appropriated by the early squatters.

Parcels of farmland were made available for selection. These parcels could be leased for three years by anyone who satisfied the requirements of the Lands Department. After three years, the selection could be purchased outright for only £1 per acre.

People began to stream into the Wimmera.

Joseph Foord was already on the spot. He closed the Welcome Inn and selected farmland in an area now known as Riverside and River Heights. He sold the hotel in 1869 to someone with a remarkably similar surname, Henry William Frood, a policeman.

In 1873, Frood sold to Robert Clark, a store-keeper and prominent landholder. Clark, a strong temperance man, demolished the hotel and over the next two years built the Union Flour Mill in the northern part of the allotment (now 29-33 Darlot Street), which he ran with two of his sons.

For many years Clark had suffered from painful arthritis. In February 1890 he committed suicide.

The flour mill was closed in 1895 and later demolished. The milling machinery was moved to Ballarat in 1899 and the land was subdivided.

The original hotel site, on the north-east corner of Wilson and Darlot Streets (100 Wilson Street), was sold to the Wimmera Fruit Supply and Preserving Company in January 1901.

Arthur Wynne purchased the site in 1914 and established "A Wynne, Coach Builder" (later A Wynne & Son).

Wynne demolished the original timber building in 1937 and rebuilt in brick. The name became "A Wynne & Son Motor Body Repair Specialists". After Arthur died in December 1944 the business continued until June 1954.

Brooklands Motor Accessories (later Brooklands Auto Parts), which occupied a smaller building next door, purchased the property and continued their business until about 1990. The premises are currently occupied by Trev's Bargain Emporium.