Dr James Broadbent
The Australian Colonial House
Architecture and Society in New South Wales 1788-1842.
Winner of the National Trust Heritage Award.
The definitive study of early Australian houses and society, by the 'doyen of early Australian architectural history'. Thoroughly researched architectural and social history, extensively illustrated.
Small folio (310 x 245 mm.), 460 pages, with several hundred previously unpublished illustrations of original paintings and line drawings, and many 19th-century photographs; printed on high quality gloss art paper, bound in linen boards with a colour dustjacket.
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About the Book
'Dr. Broadbent's magisterial and magnificent book is an architectural history of the houses of New South Wales in its first half century... It is an extraordinary story, absorbingly told. Dr. Broadbent draws on a profound knowledge of the rich documentary evidence, from the colonists' letters home to the first topographical drawings and photographs' (Michael Hall, Country Life). The Australian Colonial House is the definitive study of early Australian houses and society during the first fifty years of settlement. Through the villas, cottages, bungalows and mansions examined in the book, an insight is given into the early society of New South Wales. Dr Broadbent describes the houses and their builders from the colony's foundation in the late-eighteenth century to the disastrous depression of the 1840s. Broadbent analyses the origins of the most interesting houses in New South Wales and he brings history to life by populating his narrative with a variety of characters. These early houses are read as manuscripts, revealing the motives, and the follies of their builders, from Governor Macquarie's deliberate flouting of the Secretary of State's instruction in order to satisfy his and his wife's architectural ambitions, to the vainglorious attempts of Sir Thomas Mitchell, with a new knighthood, seeking to recreate Old England in the Antipodean Bush. Published in association with the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.
About the Author
James Broadbent is recognised as the 'doyen of early Australian architectural history', and in The Australian Colonial House he presents a thoroughly researched architectural and social history of New South Wales from the period 1788 to 1842. Through the villas, cottages, bungalows and mansions examined in the book, an insight is given into the early society of New South Wales. Dr Broadbent describes the houses and their builders from the colony's foundation in the late-eighteenth century to the disastrous depression of the 1840s. Broadbent analyses the origins of the most interesting houses in New South Wales and he brings history to life by populating his narrative with a variety of characters. These early houses are read as manuscripts, revealing the motives, and the follies of their builders, from Governor Macquarie's deliberate flouting of the Secretary of State's instruction in order to satisfy his and his wife's architectural ambitions, to the vainglorious attempts of Sir Thomas Mitchell, with a new knighthood, seeking to recreate Old England in the Antipodean Bush. Dr Broadbent is widely respected as the authority on colonial houses. He is a committed member of the National Trust and has spent much of his life advising on old buildings and gardens all over New South Wales: Elizabeth Bay House, Experiment Farm at Parramatta and Vaucluse House, to name but a few. He is the author of Demolished. For the Public Good, The Golden Decade of Australian Architecture, and co-author of Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales. Broadbent not only loves his work, he lives it: when not out and about researching or advising on the conservation of the State's early colonial architectural heritage, he can be found in "The Cottage", an early house with an historic garden at Mulgoa, where he has resided for many years.
Reviews
Review 1. The Australian Review of Books Review by Elizabeth Ellis, Curator of Pictures at the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Reprinted by kind permission of the author. FOUNDATIONS OF GRANDEUR... THIS BOOK HAS BEEN LONG anticipated by devotees of Australian architectural and social history. The wait has been worthwhile. It is a handsome volume, of a generous quarto size with satisfyingly wide margins and an uncluttered design of simple elegance befitting its subject. Colour plates are gathered at the beginning in a well-chosen and reproduced selection; black and white plates are interspersed throughout the text. In his research, James Broadbent has mined the archives of public and private collections, unearthing obscure and enlightening references in letters and diaries, and locating many hitherto unknown or forgotten images. All these are impeccably and extensively footnoted. The evolution and development of architectural style in the colony of NSW from 1788 to 1842 is described in a chronological account. It may come as a surprise to learn that amid the struggle for survival in the fledgling settlement after 1788, matters of aesthetic concern surfaced early in the construction of First Government House. At the end of the period is Aberglasslyn, near Maitland in the Hunter Valley, a grand John Verge-designed house left unfinished after the bankruptcy of the owner in the 1840s depression. Despite the seriousness of The Australian Colonial House as a major reference book, one of its most endearing features is Broadbent's writing style, which is reminiscent of the 19th century, with Austenesque observations on character and just a hint of gossip. Broadbent traces meticulously the genesis and evolution of Australian design from English pattern books translated into residences for the "gentlemen of the colony"; officials, merchants and professional men. Buildings made the most obvious and unassailable statements about newly acquired possession of land and, sometimes, status. The significance of the emerging built environment therefore had symbolic value for the self-appointed gentry of NSW. However, the most interesting aspect of The Australian Colonial House is the interweaving of the personalities of architects, owners and builders: governor Lachlan Macquarie's fiery architect, Francis Greenway, abetted by Elizabeth Macquarie, leading his master to ever more ambitious schemes and ever more likely conflict with the British government; civil servants such as Alexander Macleay and Thomas Mitchell, determined to erect antipodean temples in this new paradise; gifted amateurs such as the Scott brothers of Glendon, near Singleton, who were better at breeding racehorses or sketching homestead "castles in the air" than running a property; John Macarthur descending into madness amid an ever-increasing frenzy of building projects. All these ambitions, go-getting, sometimes refined eccentrics and entrepreneurs come to life in the pages of Broadbent's book. They indicate inter alia that architecture is but one expression of human creativity and frailty, whether in a far-flung outpost of empire or a sophisticated metropolitan centre. Historically, Broadbent's most significant achievement is to present another view of the decades following the establishment of white settlement in NSW. He provides a counterpoise to the idea that for much of this period the colony was simply a dumping ground for convicts, or a place to get rich quickly for the clever, sharp and unscrupulous. Their houses implied a sense of commitment to this new home in the Southern Hemisphere, even if it was tinged with a strong desire to impress. Indeed, the origins of many present-day attitudes to architecture and society may be traced back to these times. For anyone interested in our past and how we became as we are, The Australian Colonial House should be bought (ignoring the price), cherished and referred to time and again. It is destined to be a classic. toptop Review 2. The Sydney Morning Herald Review by Geraldine O'Brien. Reprinted by kind permission of the author. DWELLING ON THE PAST... A country's history is reflected in its buildings, as James Broadbent shows in a new book that brings colonial architecture to life... He talked to GERALDINE O'BRIEN. James Broadbent gives an unusual interview. Authors promoting their newest book are not supposed to volunteer that the first few chapters are "totally boring". Nor that some of the theories expounded in the book have been suggested by earlier writers. Nor yet that a book that was years in the making is really only a "preamble" to another book altogether - one not yet written. But Dr. Broadbent can afford a degree of lèse majesté : The Australian Colonial House, to be published next week, will probably, despite his disclaimers, come to be regarded as the definitive book on the subject. The story of Australian domestic architecture up to 1842, it was written by someone uniquely qualified for the task, academically and in practice. An architecture graduate with an honours degree in Fine Arts and a doctorate from the history department at the ANU's Research School of Social Science, Broadbent has a long record in curatorship of some of Sydney's finest historic houses, he lives at Mulgoa in an 1810 cottage, and knows and is respected throughout the heritage professions. The way he tells it, the story of his life seems a series of fortunate happenings: he had never been to a history lecture in his life but "Joan" (Professor Joan Kerr) suggested in the early 1980s that he do a doctorate at the ANU (which, with "revisions, adjustments, and additions", has now become the book published by Hordern House). Before that, when he was still studying Fine Arts at Sydney University, "Clive" (Lucas, the leading conservation architect) was working on the restoration of Elizabeth Bay House, and "I'd go there to see what he was doing and we'd take paint scrapes and chat and then suddenly it became a museum and Clive must have said 'I know this fellow, he'd be all right to look after it'. So I became probably the first professional curator in Sydney". Since then, Broadbent has continued working for the Historic Houses Trust, staging exhibitions and writing or contributing to a number of books, notably Gothick Taste in the Colony of NSW with Kerr, and finally producing his "big book". So thorough is his immersion in this era of Sydney history, so wide-ranging his knowledge, that he talks about the houses, their builders, architects and owners, and about the existing literature, as one might talk with a friend about common acquaintances. It is, he agrees, "really the first history of domestic architecture". Until now, there have been "bits and pieces" published by writers such as Hardy Wilson, who doesn't produce a full history but "beguiles people" nonetheless, or Nelson Griffiths, whose works on certain NSW homes are "wonderful period pieces of the '40s and '50s". Then, Broadbent continues, there was "Rachel Roxborough, who did an extraordinary lot of work, and the National Trust books of the '60s on homesteads. But they're more chronicling the houses, not discussing them in any comparative way, not looking at domestic architecture as a whole". Of course, he adds, "Nelson Griffiths was very good at people: all the ladies were gracious and the gentlemen all were gentlemen. But we know better". His history begins, logically, with First Government House, with Arthur Phillip laying the foundation stone four months after the First Fleet's arrival. It was not, he writes, a sophisticated building but a "proud, pathetic, stoical assertion of European culture in a pristine land and a desert jail". Like many of its successors or variants, it was little more than "an elaborated cottage or farmhouse, a ubiquitous vernacular type onto which tokens of a more polite architectural vocabulary were grafted to raise its status". The designer was "presumably Phillip himself, possibly with the practical assistance of [James] Bloodworth", a brick-layer convict. In early examples of one-upmanship, merchants and others among the small non-convict populace later began building houses to rival the Governor's - people such as lieutenant William Kent, Hunter's nephew, and James Underwood and Simeon Lord, convicts-turned-merchants. Kent's house, Broadbent records, qas both dwelling and offices and was "the best house in all Sydney none excepted", set on his land on the western side of the Tank Stream, thumbing its nose at Government House on the other side. Even in 1800, it was valued at more than £ 1,500. The houses built by Lord and Underwood set the pattern for "the ostentation, rivalry and vulgarity which were to become recurrent themes in the history of domestic architecture in colonial NSW". At the same time, the more modest vernacular tradition of the hipped roof, single-storey cottage with veranda was evolving, but it was not, as the book shows, "as consistent or ubiquitous as is often assumed". Elizabeth Farm, Experiment Farm or The Cottage at Mulgoa may be superficially similar, but prove to be of "greatly differing origins, influences and structural details". Interestingly, Broadbent suggests that the bungalow with veranda, commonly traced back to the British experience in India, may as possibly have been inspired from America, where Major Francis Grose, the Lieutenant-Governor, had served for four years before being posted to NSW. Within a year, a veranda had been added to Government House, probably by Grose, since it was after Phillip's return to England but before the arrival of his successor, Governor Hunter. The Macquaries - and Mrs. Macquarie's famous pattern book - also left their mark on Sydney architecture, but when the pattern book was abandoned ("perhaps the expense of designs one and two had made the Governor wary of using [it] again", Broadbent writes), a "diluted form" of 18th-century English Palladian architecture became fashionable. "Clearly influenced by the ubiquitous Palladian style of 18th-century English - and Scottish - country houses", a series of projects began with the Female Orphan School at Parramatta (now part of the University of Western Sydney campus). "The form typified solid, landed wealth and status", appropriate for a growing colony. In its mass of research and accumulated detail, The Australian Colonial House shows how, far from being an unbroken continuity, colonial architecture was entangled with, and changed by, fashion, taste and whim. That indefatigable diarist and viperish commentator, Lady Franklin, provides Broadbent's book with a Greek chorus of observations charting the rise and fall of fashionable styles. In 1839, she visited Windsor. Francis Greenway's work did not escape lightly: "She described his rectory as an 'ugly red brick house'. It was said, she commented, to be the best parsonage in the colony but she thought it 'probably the ugliest also', and she held the design of St. Matthew's Church in equal contempt". While Broadbent is modest about his skills as a historian, he argues that the built form or material remains provide us with the most direct evidence of the past. "People will argue over the theories I've put forward but the built evidence is there for them to draw on. The value lies in the fact that for the first time we are setting up those theories: how and why people built, who built what. It's acceptable now to talk about taste and class; I'd love to see a big book on class, taste and society in NSW... I suppose this book is really the preamble to a book like that". His time frame runs from settlement to 1842, when "the great depression struck overnight, people panicked, the whole economy just disintegrated". According to Ludwig Leichhardt, the colonists, mostly unaware, "went on living with the extravagance they had been able to afford when they had unpaid convict labourers... goods in immense amounts were imported from England and all the warehouses were full". Between 1842 and 1849, almost 2,000 residents were declared bankrupt under the Insolvency Act of 1841. There was one important exception, the money-lender Thomas Burdekin, whose 1842 house in Macquarie Street (now the site of St. Stephen's Church) was an "opulent, newly completed town house, 'the most splendid mansion in Sydney', [which] stood as an open insult to the gentlemen with tottering fortunes debating in the Legislative Council chamber across the street". But by far the bulk of Broadbent's last chapter is devoted to the said, unfinished architectural relics of that depression, vividly underlining his claims for the value of material evidence. In this case, it is also supported by a forceful letter from Robert Scott in Sydney to his brother in the Hunter Valley (these Scotts being ancestors of David Scott Mitchell, benefactor of the State Library). The Scotts, says Broadbent, "are one of my favourite families, so cultured and interesting", hosts to Ludwig Leichhardt and keen amateur architects who designed a number of houses in the Hunter region. Robert Scott wrote to his brother in 1842, urging him vehemently to rein in: "One third of Glendon is mortgaged... the whole of Dalkeith is mortgaged... we have, no doubt, very large assets, but we cannot realise upon one of them, & there are some large debts due to us... every species of improvement must at once be put an end to, & every man discharged except such as are alone necessary to keep things from going to distruction [sic]... Pray get rid of McCourt & the whole of the quarry men & stone Cutters... Hart & all Carpenters etc - fencers - well diggers - clearers etc..." But, Broadbent writes, "nothing could avert the collapse. For the Scotts and their like the glad, confident colonial morning was over. Their dreams of villas and mansions and gardens were broken, their days of generous hospitality, of racing and hunting were ended and the stench of the boiling down for tallow of their flocks and herds filled the air at Glendon and extended over most of pastoral NSW". top Review 3. Country Life magazine, 26 February 1998, United Kingdom Review by Michael Hall. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and publisher. PORTICOS IN A PRISTINE LAND... Michael Hall admires a definitive history of Australia's first houses. Architecture arrived in Australia on May 15, 1788, when the first governor of New South Wales, Captain Arthur Phillip, laid the foundation stone of a house for himself, four months after he had landed in the colony. Its simple five- bay form, made imposing by a pediment, would have sat virtually unnoticed in any English village, but in the new port of Sydney, as James Broadbent writes, an extraordinary poignant sight, 'a proud, pathetic, stoical assertion of European culture in a pristine land'. Dr Broadbent's magisterial and magnificent book is an architectural history of the houses of New South Wales in its first half century, before the economical crash of 1842 brought building to a temporary halt. It is an extraordinary story, absorbingly told. Dr Broadbent draws on a profound knowledge of the rich documentary evidence, from the colonists' letters home to the first topographical drawings and photographs. Architectural links with Britain were close, thanks in part to pattern books. When a new governor's wife, Elizabeth Macquarie, arrived in 1810 she brought with her a copy of Edward Gyfford's Designs for Elegant Cottages & Small Villas, published four years before. As a result, this obscure collection of designs became the colonies Vitruvius, with a surprising influence on the development of its architecture. Dr Broadbent reveals how important the use of published material remained; by the 1840s, designs published by J.C. Loudon were fashionable in Australia as in England. It was possible to see in the colony versions of houses by Decimus Burton or copies of lodges in Windsor Great Park soon after their originals were built- following, as the author writes, an 'already firmly established tradition of plagiarism in Australian architecture'. More original work was done by immigrant architects, of whom the best known is Francis Greenway form Bristol. A pupil of Nash; he was transported for forgery in 1812. Four years later he was government architect, responsible for important government buildings as well as houses. Perhaps even more significant for the development of domestic design was John Verge, a London builder- architect who emigrated in 1828 and in the course of a long career proved a accomplished designer, responsible for the most celebrated interior in early Australian architecture, the beautiful oval staircase hall of Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney. However, the liveliest chapters are devoted to the careers of amateur architects- remarkable women such as Mrs Darling, Lady Parry or Mrs Lowe, who turned to building to escape the dullness of colonial life, or tragic John Macarthur, whose career was ruined by madness, or idealist such a George Wyndham, who in 1829- 3 designed and built Dalwood, a Greek Revival cottage in the Hunter River Valley. Wyndham had left his family home, Dinton Park in Wiltshire, with dreams, influenced by Godwin and Shelley, of founding an ideal community. Nothing came of that, but Dalwood's massive baseless Doric columns, set in the virgin bush, movingly embody a new country's ideal: a democratic European civilisation imposed on an alien wilderness.