Charles Campen purchased the Quay street site, conveniently close to the town's Fitzroy River wharves, on 16 August 1860.

Until the financial downturn of 1866 Clewett had worked as a trainee surveyor under Frederick Byerley, Engineer of Roads of the Northern District.

By the late 19th century, commerce in Rockhampton was very competitive with up to twenty-seven separate firms providing services such as shipping, mercantile or stock and station agents.

The independence of these firms, supported strongly by local manufacture of ironmongery, timber joinery and items such as soap and cordial, was a reflection of the self-sufficiency that Rockhampton's community leaders expressed politically through a concurrent movement towards secession.

This changed from the early 1890s when large southern firms, attracted to the area by the wealth of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and Rockhampton's rural hinterland, established branches in Rockhampton, supplanting many local stock and station agents, wool produce brokers and others in the chain of commerce.

Newspaper advertisements from 1887 for John M Headrick & Co. identify the ship used to transport the company's goods, emphasising this local firm's direct links to suppliers overseas.

After service in the Boer War, Thompson returned to his business, served as president of the Rockhampton Chamber of Commerce and, in conjunction with DW Jackson, as mercantile, insurance, shipping and forwarding agents.

The firm also supplied stock and station requirements, groceries, wines, spirits, beers, tobaccos, cigars, cigarettes and butchers' requisites.

In 1909, following the introduction of steam trams in Rockhampton, which opened up new areas for housing, Felix Clewett was amongst the first to develop residential estates in the Allenstown vicinity.

This company, formed in Brisbane, manufactured the Gold Crest brand of produce and conducted a wholesale grocery business from the Quay Street site.

[1] Running along the short, south-western edge of the allotment is Quay Lane, which forms part of a system of such laneways that inhabits the city centre's orthogonal grid and services its primary streets.

The front face of the building, approximately nine metres wide, is symmetrically arranged and its classical details are modelled using cement render.

[1] Vertically, the building is divided into three basic parts by pilasters on each end and a central section sitting proud of the flanking walls.

The central section of facade, approximately two metres wide, is surmounted by a tall projection of the parapet on which sit two decorative urns.

[1] A cornice-like stringcourse, running the full width between the outermost pilasters, creates a strong horizontal line on the facade to Quay Street.

A simple label mould frames the semicircular fanlight atop this door, its ends resting on the tops of pilasters that extend to street level.

[1] The long south-eastern facade of the building is punctured by a number of small, square windows opening from the upper storey, and some service pipes.

Thought to be constructed in the mid-1880s, for Felix Clewett, the former Clewett's building is important in demonstrating the pattern of mercantile trading in a major regional centre of Queensland, representing a phase of commercial development and growth in Rockhampton during the late 19th century precipitated by trade at the port and the success of the Mount Morgan gold mines during the 1880s.

The former Clewett's building exhibits integrity as a two-storeyed warehouse and store at the same time contributing to the continuity and character of the 19th century commercial streetscape of Quay Street.