This cottage has been owned by a succession of shoemakers. The first was John George Collier. He probably built the original building about 1856 and extended it in 1862. Not much is known about Collier but he seems to have left the district after selling the property.

Collier sold it to Joseph Currie in 1864. Currie set up his shoe shop on the block next door (117 Main South Rd). In 1892 widower Currie married his second wife Hannah Jeffery (Hannah was a widow who had been married three times before - she is best known by her first married name, Hannah Hoskin), but she died later that same year. When Currie died in 1903 the house and shop were acquired by John Fowler, who was also a shoemaker and had his shop in Yankalilla at the Adelaide road corner. He possibly bought the house for his daughter Harriet Putland (wife of George Putland), who inherited it on the death of her father in 1905.