Phone +61 2 9337 5999 | ||
 | ||
Address 52 Vaucluse Rd, Vaucluse NSW 2030, Australia Similar Milk Beach, Nielsen Park, Hermitage Foreshore Walk, Hermit Bay, Hermitage Foreshore Reserve | ||
Strickland House is a historic house in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse. It is listed on the Australian Register of the National Estate, and the New South Wales State Heritage Register.
Contents
History and description
Strickland House was the home of John Hosking, Sydney's second mayor. The house was designed by John Hilly and built in the 1850s, when it was known as "Carrara". It is a Victorian Italianate mansion virtually intact and consists of three storeys of sandstone, which was unusually painted, and features verandahs with Doric columns. Set close to the harbour foreshore, it has extensive views across the water. In 1914 the house with 12 acres (4.9ha) was acquired from the then owner, Arthur Wigram Allen, with funds from the Foreshores Resumption Scheme, introduced by the NSW Government in 1911 to buy back privately owned land for harbourside parkland. In 1915, the house was officially opened as Strickland Women's Convalescent House. In 1989 the State Government closed down the hospital and proposed to sell off some three-quarters of the land for private development. In the face of strong public opposition, this plan was abandoned, as were other proposals such as to use the property as a boutique hotel. In 1994 Premier John Fahey declared all the grounds an Urban Park. In January 2012 the NSW Government gazetted that the NSW State Heritage Register listing for Strickland House had been extended to cover the entire property. Currently (2012) the grounds are open to the public during daylight hours 7 days a week. The house is used for films, advertising etc., but is open to the public one day a year during the National Trust's Heritage Festival. It can be seen from the track along Hermitage Reserve, which is part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales No 11 Monday, 30 January 2012
The Residents
John Hosking (1806-1882) the Mayor of Sydney commissioned John Frederick Hilly in 1856 to build Strickland House (then called Carrara). An advertisement was placed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 April 1856 for contractors to erect the walls of the house.
Hosking was born in 1806 in England. His father was the Principal of a day school and was invited in 1809 to come to Sydney to run the Female Orphan School in George Street. He returned to London ten years later when John was 13 years old. When John was 20 he decided to return to Australia with his brother and opened a store in Pitt Street. He went into business with John Terry Hughes who was the nephew of Samuel Terry, an extremely wealthy merchant and landowner. In 1829 he married Samuel Terry’s daughter Martha and the couple had three daughters. The family lived at Strickland House until 1876 and then moved to Penrith to live with one of their daughters.
An advertisement was placed in the newspapers in 1877 which described in detail the house and surrounding gardens of the property. Some of the description is as follows.
"The property as a whole can scarcely be equalled in the colonies. Ample accommodation, excellence of designs, and substantial workmanship, combine to produce a home replete with all that is essential to comfort, convenience, and respectability."Henry Moore (1815-1888) moved in to Strickland House in 1879 with his wife Elizabeth and seven of his adult children. He was born in London in 1815 and came to Australia as a child with his father Captain Joseph Moore who became a merchant. After leaving school he entered his father’s firm which was a large importing company. In 1839 he married Elizabeth Scholes Johnson and the couple had nine children – three sons and six daughters. He bought a large wharf at Darling Harbour which was later called Moore’s Wharf. He was also an agent for the P & O shipping line. In 1868 he became a Member of the NSW Parliament and retained this position for almost 20 years.
An account of life at Strickland House and the Moore family in the 1880s was given by one of the housemaids when she wrote of her life in later years. She said:
"I was quite excited as I walked up to the big white house. Just outside the front door as if they were guarding the house were two enormous carved marble dogs bigger than lions. The large front hall was also of marble. The grounds were beautiful and beautifully kept. There were four gardeners, besides the coachman and the groom and in the house a cook, lady’s maid, two parlour-maids, three house maids, kitchen maid, laundry woman and maid. Life at the house was very gay. I grew fond of the three young ladies. They entertained a great deal. They were famous for keeping open house. The Master Mr Moore was a dear old man. He had come out and settled in Australia in the early days. He owned a wharf at Miller’s Point in Sydney and was reputedly very wealthy, the result of his successful business in whaling ships. He was certainly very generous with his money."When Henry Moore died in 1988 the house was sold to the Allen family. Arthur Wigram Allen and his brother Boyce Allen were the owners. Boyce Allen lived in the house with his family for over ten years.
Boyce Allen (1856-1945) was born in Glebe in 1856. His father was George Wigram Allen a prominent solicitor and politician who owned Toxteth Park in Glebe which is now St Scholastica's College. He was one of eleven children, six boys and five girls. His brother Arthur Wigram Allen was also a solicitor and they went into partnership in a legal firm. Arthur was a very enthusiastic photographer and many of his photos depicting scenes of Sydney are still used in exhibitions.
In 1888 Boyce married Isabella Dundas who was the daughter of Joseph Dundas a Scottish landowner who lived in Carron Hall in Stirlingshire. She came to Sydney to visit her relative Admiral Henry Fairfax who at that time was living at Admiralty House. It was during this short visit that she met Boyce Allen and shortly after they married. The couple moved to Strickland House immediately after their wedding. They had six children three boys and three girls. A niece of Boyce Allen described the family and the house in her memoirs. She said:
"Carrara (Strickland House) was about 8 miles from town and 4 miles from where we lived. It looked west across Rose Bay and had one of the most beautiful views in Sydney. The white stone house had curved and pillared verandahs and two great stone dogs on which I loved to ride, stood either side of the porch. The unkempt lawn ran down steeply to a small private beach and the garden melted into paddocks and natural bush. Wentworth House and Vaucluse House were about the only private homes beyond it before reaching the military settlement at South Head. We loved to drive out to Carrara to play and bathe with our cousins. Primrose and Marian were a little older than Joyce and Dundas was the same age as Denis."Between 1899 and 1902 the house was let to Wilfred Alexander Inman who used the house as a school which later became Tudor House School in Moss Vale. A photo of Inman and his wife Mary with their pupils in 1899 is shown.
Wilfred Alexander Inman (1862-1950) was born at Spital Old Hall in Bebington, Cheshire in 1862. His father was Charles Inman, a wealthy merchant and his mother was Decima Isabella Catherine Davies. In 1882 at the age of 19 he immigrated to Melbourne on the ship Sobraon. Some years later he found employment at Groongal Station on the Murrumbidgee in NSW. In 1897 he married Mary Martin who was the daughter of Sir James Martin, Chief Justice of NSW and Lady Isabella Martin. During her childhood Mary had lived at nearby Greycliffe House and later at Woollahra House.
In the same year as their marriage Wilfred and Mary started a school at “Erewal” in Bellevue Hill called the “Preparatory School for Boys”. This school was moved two years later to Strickland House. In later years Wilfred Inman wrote about his time at the house. He said:
"In the choice of a foundation of a school it must always be realised that if there is to be fruition, the public's reaction is of first importance. Thus Carrara (Strickland House) in its beautiful setting was of paramount importance to the moulding of character with the love of the beautiful. The house was ideally suited in every way, with lofty rooms and glorious views of Rose Bay... The grounds, now much curtailed, were then rich with beautiful trees and shrubs, with grass in front sloping down to a white sandy beach where there were dressing sheds and an enclosure for bathing. There we erected a shed for a boat kindly given to us by one of the parents."In 1915 the Allen family sold Strickland House to the Government to become a hospital.