Sydney Architecture- Early Australian Architectural History

Chapter 4. PRELUDE

Early Australian Architectural History

LACHLAN MACQUARIE and architecture arrived in Australia together, a little like Siamese twins out of step. One of Macquarie's first requests upon assuming office as Governor was for an architect to be sent out with ideas, taste, and a drawing board complete.' The request was not to be gratified for some years,
and then in a backhanded sort of way.

When they came the architects were a small crowd of men who were soon
brawling in what was by then the well-established Australian tradition, so that the
Governor often regretted his early yearning.

Macquarie's part in Australia's history has caused more ink to be spilt than any
other Governor's. Reactions to him range from sickly adulation to a hostility
shaken with rage that more than once has caused the mild, and true, description of
him as the Last of the Autocrats to be changed to the Last of the Tyrants. The four
last words, all in capitals, underlined, and with half a dozen exclamation marks,
would scarcely express the force of some very prejudiced opinions.

He landed in Sydney on New Year's Day 1810- the last Australian Governor
with absolute power, a lieutenant-colonel at the head of his own 73rd Regiment with
clear instructions to express His Majesty's utmost regret and displeasure at the
"late tumultuous proceedings and mutinous conduct", to remove the causes, and
to prevent a recurrence.

One of the first causes to be removed was the New South Wales Corps, which
had become a resident guild of traders more than an army. The new troops from
England were to be on garrison duty only, so that their roots could not strike
deeply into the Australian soil as their predecessors' had done with such unfortunate
results. Environment and rum were to seduce some troops into acts of
violence, but these were sporadic and, on the whole, the 3rd Regiment stood
firm. The presence of an impartial police force did much to quiet turbulent spirits,
and the Governor's word carried weight. But not so much weight as he would
have wished, and he was often puzzled by his subjects' predisposition to argue the
matter-any matter. There was some element in the Australian soil, some miasma
in the air, that caused obedience to be replaced by a contrariness irksome to a
Governor's soul. He described his subjects generally as "very litigious".

The root and cause of all this was to be found in the dual nature of the Colony:
it was both a convict settlement and an increasingly rich country with a growing
landlord element. One part of the population was made up of emancipated convicts
who, as time went on, were more and more inclined to make Australia their home,
whilst the other part was made up of ex-army settlers and rich free ones, who were
constantly recruiting their strength from England and from the ranks of those
emancipists in whom growing wealth had brought about a change of view. The
small landholders, traders, and labourers saw no reason why the country should
not be theirs. The landlord class had many arguments to prove that the country
could be developed only on the basis of great plantations worked by cheap labour;
whether that labour was convict or emancipist seemed immaterial to them.

Macquarie was wholeheartedly on the side of those who thought of Australia
as a new world for people who had failed in Britain. That the authorities in
England were not going along with him in the matter is evidenced by the fact that
in 1813 he was to ask the Government to make up its mind if the Colony was to be
for free settlers and their class, or for convicts and their reformation and rehabilitation
as citizen. He was not to receive his answer und 1819 and then in devastating
form.

To Macquarie, an emancipated convict was a citizen and he treated him as such.
He insisted on others treating him the same way, and therein lay the seed of all the
Governor's misery and the reason for his final recall twelve years afterwards. The
free settlers just would not accept the emancipists as equals, but in those twelve
years, despite his difficulties with the upper crust of his subjects, Macquarie turned a
shoddy little settlement "barely emerging from infantile imbecility" into a nation:
a wonderful work to be crowded into a few short years. In doing so he made
enemies who finally brought about his recall, but it was worth while, for he made
his place in history. It is a measure of his work that in all the annals of the Colonial
period of the United States of America there is not one man of the stature of
Lachlan Macquarie.

During the whole of his tenure of office the animosities of the fully free and the
emancipated were to seethe and boil in an unholy brew of partisanship. This was
not to become a potable broth until many years after Macquarie's time; but, in a
way that was little short of inspired, he settled the country firmly on a foundation
suitable to carry the better times that were to come.

One of his first moves in 1810 was to survey his "kingdom" and then immediately
reprimand his subjects upon their licentious habits, their unsanctified working on Sundays, and their over-copious rum swilling. He ordered them to
dress better; to give themselves proper houses; and, even if it did cost three guineas
a time, to stop living in that way and get married.'
We may assume that there were still many log or bark hovels about, because
the order called for brick or weatherboard houses 9 feet high, with brick chimneys
and shingle roofs. A plan of each house was to be left with each district constable.'
What misery this last order must have caused; what agony by candlelight as horny
hands grasped unaccustomed pencils and tried to convey hazy ideas on to greasy bits
of paper that had previously wrapped what unimaginable goods!

Civilization was arriving quickly indeed if building codes were being introduced.
Regulation of building is essentially a concern of towns and cities. From
this curious start, transgression of building laws was to be a police matter in New
South Wales for a hundred years, and even in the middle of the twentieth century
architects were to suffer restrictive influences that were not intended in that order
made so long ago.

In his survey Macquarie found the buildings generally in a "most ruinous state
of decay", and Foveaux poured into his ears all the relevant facts that his eyes could
not see at first glance. He immediately bombarded the Colonial Offce with lists of
buildings that were most urgently needed: hospitals and barracks, roads and
houses. The Colonial Office was scandalized and ordered Macquarie to desist forthwith
from his contemplated wild extravagance.

He was told by Lord Liverpool, the Colonial Secretary in London, that if free
settlers could not pay for buildings, wharfs, bridges and roads then the Colony
was not sufficiently advanced to need them. This brought a typical Macquarie reply
that since barracks and hospitals were "indispensably necessary" he proposed to get
on with them without further reference to the Colonial Office, "notwithstanding
your Lordship's prohibitory Orders on the Subject of erecting Buildings". Fortunately
Liverpool had given him discretionary powers in an emergency, and it
was amazing how many emergencies Macquarie was to find, generally softening
his reports of his actions by plausible apology and excuse. In this case it was, he said,
necessary for him to take "this heavy responsibility upon myself in order to guard
against a most serious injury to the public service". And who can deny his good
intent in the matter, or the soundness of his reasoning? As was to be his usual
course, he offered a small sop to sweeten the bitterness of his disobedience. Here
he promised to save money later by putting his artificers and labourers (all convicts)
off public works and indenting them to settlers or letting them work for
themselves.

The Governor's whole attitude was that the country was being built into a
nation, and that it was the Government's duty to provide those facilities which
would not only allow the development of a well-ordered communal life but give
the citizens a sense of dignity and even cultured and beautiful surroundings. He
held that neat dress and spruce environment contributed to the self-respect of the
inhabitants, and, heaven knows, early New South Wales needed all the help it
could get in that direction. As late as 1820 Macquarie was complaining of "the
frequent Discharge of Fire Arms within the Town and even in the Streets of
Sydney both by day and by Night". He had to prohibit the firing of "Guns, Pistols,
or Fire Arms of any description whatsoever within the Streets or Town of
Sydney".

In creating his desired physical environment Macquarie was frustrated by the
lack of an architect, for his request that one be sent out continued to be rejected.
Lord Liverpool in London had made his attitude in the matter very clear. Public
buildings were not needed, so why a public architect? Quite rightly, from his
point of view, he ignored the distant Governor's unreasonable request. Undeterred
by this unenlightened attitude of his superiors, Macquarie groped his way as best
he could.

Mrs Macquarie had an interest in architecture that almost lifted her to amateur
status, and she provided all the help her limited abilities allowed. Among her husband's
more unwilling subjects were a few who had some skill with a pencil. A man
named Pan is reputed to have drawn a plan of a house at her direction- Joseph
Lycett, who was to leave delightful panoramic views of New South Wales, was
called into service to copy plans of buildings from books that the Governor's lady
had brought with her. On somewhat questionable evidence Lycett is credited with
the design of the first Christ Church, Newcastle, but since the unfortunate building
was to collapse from instability perhaps its designer would wish that we did not
mention it.

There were masons and bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, some convicts and
some free. Nathaniel Lucas was superintendent of carpenters, and Thomas Legge
was the master bricklayer, to name but two of them. They realized the uninformed
but enthusiastic dreams of the vice-regal pair. Barracks and stables, houses and mills
gradually rose. The Judge-Advocate, Ellis Bent, designed his own house, and contracted
for it too. He had complained to Macquarie of the existing courtroom,
which was only 15 feet square, and had insisted that a more commodious one
should be built for him. Bent built himself a fine house at government expense,
but the courtroom which he attached could be only 20 feet square because he had
used all the funds to provide for his own comfort.

This was the beginning of the disruption of friendship between Macquarie and
Bent. Later, a most bitter and prolonged quarrel developed, which, after the
lawyer's death, was carried on by his widow with undiminished ardour. She afterwards
demanded of the Government payment for all the improvements in the
house, a demand which, although unreasonable, Macquarie ordered to be met, so as
to rid himself of the unpleasant woman. Her list is interesting to architects for it
shows the existence at that time of many items that are generally thought to have
originated at a later date. Venetian blinds, iron fire-grates, and mortised door locks
all have a familiar sound.' Indeed, Mrs Bent's list corresponds to the list of prime
cost items in a modern building contract.

The general hospital which was erected in what was to become Macquarie
Street, Sydney, was built for the Government by three private citizens in return for
a virtual monopoly of the rum traffic. This curious contract finally satisfied nobody.
Although the building cost the contractors £40,000 they did not get their monopoly;
Macquarie received heavy censure from London; and the designer of the
building, whoever he was, was given a tongue lashing that drove him for ever into
self-sought obscurity.'

Mint Museum, Macquarie Street

The hospital had three wings of which the two end ones have survived, one to
hold State Government offices, the other the State Government itself. The long
central wing was demolished to make way for the present Sydney Hospital. The
remaining wings are simple, rectangular buildings with colonnaded verandas on
two floors, the stone columns of which have but little relation to the columns of
Classical architecture they were supposed to be. But, beyond a certain crudeness of
detail, the buildings have a quaint naivety that gives them a charm of their own.
The construction methods used were more than quaint, and we shall hear of them
again.

In this way Macquarie and his helping wife struggled through until the year
1813. As M. H. Ellis puts it:

the Governor was somewhat like a lion caught in a net, thrashing hither and
thither among the clauses of interminable indentures, pelted from all directions with
details about ashlar, soffits, hopper roofs, and other queer emanations of the art of
architecture, of the details of which he had only the sketchiest sort of understanding.
Before they had finished with him the politicians-and the architects-were to
make him feel more like an unfortunate hunter who had got himself trapped in the
net with a whole pride of angry lions. But then, did not Crassus say in Rome, two
thousand years before, that men who were fond of building were their own
undoers and needed no other foes?

There was some inner force driving the Governor on. The shoddiness and
squalor about him were a constant irritation. How could people find true
rehabilitation unless they disciplined themselves and their surroundings? It was manifest
that the people could not do it all so he was doing it for them. Even the bush had
to be tamed. The previous governors, being naval men, had formed coastal settlements
that could be served only from the sea. These settlements were prisons with
walls of natural geography. Macquarie, being an army man, was interested in the
land for itself, and he needed space for the establishment of his emancipated subjects.
He instigated inland exploration, and he himself took tours round the known
parts of the country and arbitrarily selected sites for settlement on which he marked
out towns. Along the Hawkesbury River the towns of Windsor, Richmond, Pitt
Town, Wilberforce, and Castlereagh came into being in this way. Amidst the
wilderness to the south of Sydney one tree of thousands was selected for the honour
of having nailed to it a board bearing the legend, "This is Liverpool"-and so
another town had its start. The position of Campbelltown was chosen just as
arbitrarily.18 The sites were sometimes ill-chosen so that the towns never came into
real being. Pitt Town and Castlereagh, though still on the map, could be blown
away by a puff of wind. Newcastle, Bathurst, and Port Macquarie were to fare
better, but there were reasons for their existence other than a governor's mere whim.

The astonishing thing is that the Governor had any time to devote to such
activities amidst his legislative and executive duties. It was not only great matters
that absorbed him. Small details and trivia also claimed his meticulous attention.
At one time he would be warning the public against a dishonest government
employee, at another requiring all people to fit tires to the cart-wheels to protect
the road surfaces. Street widening (yes, even so early in Australia's history!)
deserved a Government Order in the Sydney Gazette, and the Governor's keep-to the-
left traffic rule received similar ublicity. T he cutting out and seizure of boats
in Sydney Cove called for a water-police force which was promptly introduced.
A constant stream of such orders were issued, and all the time he was fighting a
two-handed duel with the Colonial Office, with one hand seeking to prick the
officials into giving approbation to his schemes, with the other defending himself
against the attacks on his extravagance. Conditions became a little better when
Lord Bathurst replaced Lord Liverpool as Colonial Secretary. Bathurst at least was
polite, if no less tight-fisted with public moneys than Liverpool. He was able to
thank Macquarie for his efforts in the direction of economy, whilst drily pointing
out his inability to offer congratulations on the results.

Economy could not be practised by such a Governor. Not only was he stirred
by humanitarian principles but he had the creator's urge. He wanted to see beautiful
towns and a 6uitfd countryside as living things. Theory and policy are all right
in their way, but real achievement comes only when talk stops and performance
begins. There was something in his ego which had not found expression in a
soldier's life, and here at last was an environment that gave full scope to his abilities
and an excuse to grati6 his inner longings. When, finally, he did attain full flight
his building programme was staggering. There exists a detailed list of every building
erected during his regime, both on the Australian continent and in Tasmania.

There were 92 brick buildings-great and small- 22 stone buildings, 52 weatherboard
buildings, 4 bridges, and 7 quays and moles, as well as log buildings, dairies,
lumber yards, market places, and fountains; repairs and conversions were carried
out on dozens of buildings; and more than two hundred miles of roads were made.
The list has no less than two hundred and fifty separate items. No wonder he was
dubbed the Building Governor; and no wonder he kept asking for an architect in
the earlier years of his office.

This section is based on the excellent book Early Australian Architects and Their Work (Angus & Robertson, Syd, 1954); Herman, Morton, (1901-1983). Illustrated and Decorated by the Author.