Bean Brothers' expansion into leather goods and boot uppers was interrupted by a dramatic fire at its King William Street retail premises on 26 November 1867. The blaze was investigated at an inquest associated with the Supreme Court and was judged almost certainly to have been deliberately started. Irregularities in the testimony placed George Thomas Bean under suspicion, creating the extraordinary spectacle of a family-run tannery and leather empire confronting an apparent act of internal sabotage.
No conviction followed: the inconsistencies in the evidence were not enough to prove that G. T. Bean had started the fire. The retail business was subsequently sold by Arthur Bean before September 1868, while the premises later changed hands again and suffered another fire in December 1870, this time originating in the adjoining Adelaide Photographic Company's property. The episode became part of the Bean enterprise's pattern of unstable partnerships, contested ownership, and repeated fire-related disruption, but the arson accusation itself remains an allegation rather than a resolved criminal finding.
