Chapter 6. GREENWAY
Early Australian Architectural History
 

IN the year 1814 three architects came to Sydney: John Watts with the army,
Henry Kitchen as a free settler, and Francis Greenway in the convict transport
General Hewitt.' Of these three it was the convict who was to make his name
one of the greatest in Australian architecture. Like all historic figures he is surrounded
with legend and fable, fabricated mostly by the laziness of the human
mind which always accepts any colourful piece of nonsense in preference to facts
that take effort to master. Of all things this is true, but of history especially so;
fancies are easy, facts are hard.

At least, all the rubbish that has been written about Greenway has served one
useful purpose in that it has helped to get his name known outside the architectural
profession, and so increased the knowledge of his contribution to Australia. For
those who wish to have the facts, Greenway's life has been covered in a fine
biography, fully annotated, and compiled from the original records,* to which
this chapter is heavily indebted for the personal data about Greenway.
He came from Bristol in the west of England, where his family had been quarrymen,
builders and masons for generations. He was born on 20th November 1777,
was christened Francis only, but later described himself as Francis Howard Greenway.
In adult life he was 5 feet 63 inches high, broad, with hazel eyes and auburn
hair, complexion fair and ruddy. He oozed self confidence, was artistic, temperamental,
and quick to take offence and to anger. He had a command of his art, and
a poetic quality in himself that was to produce buildings of high qua!ity- some of
them of lyrical beauty. He practised as an architect in Bristol, where several buildings,
such as the Clifton Club, have been identified by his biographer as his work.
In 1812 he pleaded guilty to a forgery and was sentenced to death, but, fortunately
for him and for Australia, the sentence was changed to transportation for life.

He arrived in, Sydney in February 1814, lucky to survive a passage that was in
the worst tradition of convict ships. Greenway and the other convicts must have
been astonished at the conditions of the penal colony. They had been confined for
years; had mouldered in the prison hulks in English rivers; had survived a long and
tedious voyage, to find that in New South Wales the whole country was the prison
and that the jails were only for those who committed new crimes after setting foot
on shore. The new arrivals were mustered and counted, checked, and then-they
could not have been anything but startled at the development-told to provide
themselves with lodgings and come to work in the morning when the bell rang.

As they moved freely about Sydney Town, they found that ex-convicts were
policemen and magistrates, civil servants, surgeons, surveyors, schoolmasters, and
even merchant princes-such was Simeon Lord, who lived in a mansion in
Macquarie Place. It would be extraordinary if Greenway's spirits had not revived.
He had brought with him a personal recommendation from Governor Phillip
to Governor Macquarie, but when he presented this we do not know. The
Governor summoned him in July 1814, and it is recorded that he was already in
touch with architecture, for he was preparing a design for a geometrical staircase
for Dr Harris, who resided at Ultimo Place, in the fields beyond the town. Ultimo
Place, somewhat altered, survived into living memory. The author once saw a
teacher throw a recalcitrant student down the geometrical stair, upon each second
or third step of which he bounced with sickening regularity. That student is probably
the one in all history on whom Greenway's work made the most tender
impression.

The project for a town and courthouse was revived, and Macquarie had
chosen from a book a design which he asked Greenway to copy. Goodness knows
what Greenway had been doing since he landed in the Colony five months before,
but it certainly had restored his self-confidence. He wrote a letter to Governor
Macquarie in the terms of an equal, and, in architectural matters, even of a
superior, offering to do work far better than anything Macquarie's taste could
achieve. The Governor's consequent censure quietened him for a while, but not
for long. Macquarie needed him and that probably explains his tolerance of the
bumptious convict architect's behaviour, the full details of which make curious
reading.

The records of the architect's activities are hazy for the rest of 1814, but we do
know that he received a ticket-of-leave, and that on 17th December he advertised
in the Sydney Gazette that he was in practice at 84 George Street. He offered to lay
out estates, to design anything from a simple cottage to the most extensive mansion,
to make models of buildings or ornaments, and to draw up plans of awnings and
verandas similar to those most approved in England, or of staircases, shop-fronts,
and chimney-pieces of the most fashionable forms. His whole stock of best imported
goods was laid out for the buyers and it was offered for the terms of 5 per
cent commission on the estimates.

Even though his first advertisement for tenders was published in 1818, he must
during the years 1815 and early 1816 have had some private practice to provide him
with a living, because any work he did for the Government during this period was
without office or payment, according to his own evidence written ten years later.'
Ten years later still he was to write of aIl sorts of architectural projects formulated
during this period, but these were mostly the product of an over-stimulated imagination.
His activities did, however, allow him to see how the Government was
being cheated by dishonest re tenders to the honest trade of building, and it is
manifest that he was able to convince the Governor that he knew what he was
talking about in this branch of his business.

He also introduced into Australia a very old architectural sport: that of deriding
the work of others active in the same field as himself. Architects can admire other
architects' work if it is at a distance, but for some reason cannot see any good in
another man's contributions to anything with which they themselves are concerned.
Vitruvius of ancient Rome, in his book on contemporary architectural practice,
showed that the bad habit was prevalent there too. He boasted that for his part he
avoided the easy way of "winning approbation by finding fault with the work of
another". Greenway and all his heritage would have done well to read this part of
Vitruvius' monumental work. When it was Greenway's task to report on defects
in buildings, too often he reported also on real or imagined defects in the designers.
He abused others, and in time he was to be abused himself.

In the Rum Hospital, however, he did not need malice to sharpen his eyes when
looking for defects; they were there for any technical man to see. During 1815
Greenway had had the nebulous position of what we today would call consultant
architect, but in March 1816 he was officially appointed Civil Architect and Assistant
Engineer, to plan and erect the government public works, at a salary of 3s. a
day. These facts were published on the front page of the Sydney Gazette of 30th
March 1816.

This was the real commencement of Greenway's career. His self-confidence
was fully restored- that is, if it had ever receded far enough to need restoration and
this first commission, to survey the Rum Hospital, brought out aIl the best
and all the worst in him.

He tackled the job with the enthusiasm of a man determined to prove his
superior abilities, and, with such a poorly constructed building as the hospital for
his object, he gave full rein to his professional spite. It would be tedious to list all
the defects he recorded with savage delight. His criticisms generally were well
founded, but his prophecy that the building would fall into ruins was not justified.
Buildings have a queer, stubborn habit of standing up precisely in those cases when
it can be proved so beautifully on paper that their collapse is imminent. The two
surviving wings of the hospital have outlasted by more than a century the Civil
Architect who gave them, in his judgment, but a few short years to remain in a
vertical position. His analysis of the building is interesting in that he did apply good
engineering principles in making it; he correctly analysed the lines of thrust in the
basement of the verandas, which stood up truly more by good luck than good
management; his scheme for strengthening the roof was sound in principle, if a
little hazy in detail. The roofs today are warped and deformed with a distinct bow
in the rafter, and this would have been prevented if his advice had been folloed.
In criticizing the architecture he was on his home ground. Of the fronts of the
buildings with their two floors of superimposed columns he said:

There is no classical proportion in the column, not being regularly diminished.
Its shaft is set wrong upon its base; the cap is set wrong upon the column, and is of no
description ancient or modem. The soffit or architrave or what is intended for an
entablature is not wide enough to set upon the apex of the column, as it should be of
equal width with the top of the shaft of the column?

The Governor accepted his report as being manifestly
correct, and called on the contractors to make costly alterations to the buildings.
Greenway had done his duty in such a way that he had made powerful enemies,
but he could never be accused of pusillanimity in the face of influential people
whom he found cheating the Government or his clients.

Against the building trade of the day, which was spongy and corrupt, he waged
single-handed and often successful warfare. In particular, he claimed that he introduced
the system of progress payments after survey of the work done. If he introduced
this business-like system in place of go-as-you-please payment for time and
materials, it is no wonder that he met with opposition from the vested interests
who previously had had a rare old time at the Governor's expense. He had also to
survey the Colonial Secretary's house, and his report did not exactly endear him
to D. D. Mathew, the designer of the building.

On the brighter side, his own beautiful buildings were beginning to form in
his mind. In later years he claimed credit for initiating most of them, but he was
merely the technical brain of Macquarie, who had only been waiting for the means
of bringing into being the many buildings he had written about years before.
When we look at the extent of Greenway's achievements it is astonishing to
realize that nearly all his work was done in his role of Civil Architect between
1816 and 1820 in all, something over five years. So numerous were his works
that more often than not he is credited with every building of the Macquarie period.
Indeed, architectural students in the course of their studies automatically put his
name against any building erected before 1900 in the hope that, since he designed
so much, their guesses will hit the target sometimes.

His lists of the buildings and other work that he accomplished during those five
years, outside his private practice, included a magazine, a fort, a lighthouse, two
barracks, three houses, three churches, a large block of stables, two courthouses, a
large school, a large reformatory, a toll gate, a fountain and an obelisk, a dyke, a
market house, a large stores building, a hospital, a military mess house, a police
office, a quay, a dockyard, major alterations and additions to ten buildings, and the
planning and commencement of a cathedral besides projects for town sewers, a
water-supply, fortifications, and bridges, and the compiling of draught building
laws. How many modem architects would care to tackle that list in so short a time?
And, moreover, work individually without the assistance of a draughtsman or
clerk, doing all their own supervision-on horseback at that! Greenway's horse
was not even a young one, from all accounts, so that the supervision of Windsor
church, thirty-five miles from Greenway's office, must have been quite an ordeal.
However, since in the list of his travelling expenses he claimed for a pint of wine
a day, perhaps the journey was not too tedious.

It is extremely difficult to settle the chronology of Greenway's works. With
so much going on at once, the interweaving and overlapping of contracts makes an
almost impenetrable jungle of dates. Even dates on foundation stones are a poor
guide, because more than one Greenway building was pulled down when half
built and started afresh-in one instance from entirely new plans. We do know,
however, that his first major work was the lighthouse on the South Head of Port
 Jackson (10). Greenway had suggested that it be put on North Head, but was quite
properly overruled on the grounds of the inaccessibility of the site. He objected
to the quality of the local sandstone at South Head, but he said he was directed to
use it. If he did object to the stone he was right, because it soon began to wear
away and crumble, but one always has the feeling that Greenway made up his
excuses after the accidents happened. Within fifty years the tower had to be strapped
up with iron bands, and later still it was replaced by the present Macquarie Lighthouse,
which, although it was made to resemble Greenway's design in general lines,
differed from it in many particulars.13 On the whole, the present structure is more
aesthetically pleasing than its predecessor, which stood immediately on the seaward
side of the present site.

Due to the great weight and the doubtful quality of the stone, Greenway made
the basement under the tower with four massive piers, each comprising about go
square feet of solid stone. He used very big blocks and wanted to cramp them
together, but was forbidden to do so on the score of cost. On the northern side he
planned the light-keeper's quarters on two floors, one of them being immediately
under a little dome. On the other side of the basement he placed the Governor's
room, which was one storey high, having the twin of the first dome opening into
its ceiling. Macquarie used his room, too, because with him the lighthouse was a
most favoured project. He contemplated its creation with pleasure, and looked on
the finished sweetly turned cylinder of stone with a delight that cannot altogether
be shared by modern architects. The lantern, as Greenway designed it, was too
skimpy, and seemed ill-fitting on the beautifully proportioned shaft beneath it,
although the relationship of the tower itself to the little domes and to the basement
was very satisfactory.



On the day in 1817 when the stonework was finished Greenway must have
tackled his breakfast with particular zest, because that evening Macquarie was to
write in his journal: "This being altogether an interesting day-and an auspicious
one, I presented Mr Greenway, the Government Architect his emancipation this
day, it being delivered to him at Macquarie Tower this morning before
breakfast."



It was nearly a year before the tower was completed and the lantern lit for the
first time, to the wonderment of a ship's captain thirty-eight miles out at sea. And
well might he be astonished, because this was the first navigational light in these
seas, and on the night of 30th November 1818 its beams were the only ones shining
on more than eight thousand miles of black coast that was Australia.15

The lighthouse was remarkable for one other thing. Greenway used it as a
training school for masons. Unlike Mathew, who only complained of poor workmanship,
Greenway tackled the problem with vigour in an attempt to correct
the fault. at its source. Naturally he met with opposition to his scheme, for what
man when taking action to remedy abuses does not meet with opposition? But he
met with a fiir measure of success too, because his attitude was one of incentive
rather than punishment. Unfortunately, quite a number of the building workmen
had the current colonial opinion that rum was the best incentive, but this priming
did not make for good work.16

For the rest of 1816 Greenway must have been very busy at the drawing board,
and he would have felt himself to be of growing importance. Towards the end of
the year he figured in a curious incident. For a real or an imagined insult, an army
officer, Captain Sanderson, publicly whipped the architect. It is worth noting that
although Greenway had been emancipated, he enjoyed only a conditional pardon
and so was not fully free. Yet he took the captain to court and succeeded in getting
a technical conviction, which was no mean feat seeing that the court was made up
of the defendant's fellow officers, who not only threatened Greenway's solicitor
from the Bench, but maintained loudly that the captain, being an officer and a
gentleman, must be in the right and his action perfectly understandable. After this,
Greenway sued for damages in a further action, obtaining a nominal award of L20,
which at least justified him in his refusal to submit quietly to public assault and
obloquy.

Early in 1817 the erection of Windsor church to his design was commenced,
but by some means, which the obscure records do not reveal, Henry Kitchen,
architect, obtained the contract for the building work. Not only did he manage
to have Greenway left out of the contract, but he got financial benefits which made
Greenway suspicious. After the Governor had corrected matters, Greenway
pursued a course of watchful waiting with that particular malice for which he was
to become noted. He had not long to wait, for soon rumours of shoddy workmanship
began to filter from Windsor to Sydney, and at last Greenway was instructed
to inspect the building and report. He thoroughly condemned what he saw and,
presumably because he knew he was on sure ground, suggested that an impartial
committee should investigate. When the committee backed up Greenway's findings,
particularly regarding the rotten, crumbling mortar and the poor bricks used,
all that had been built was taken down, the foundations were grubbed up, and a
new start was made. Henry Kitchen, thoroughly discredited, promptly joined the
ranks of the growing host of Greenway's enemies.

There is something queer about the fresh start at Windsor, for, whereas the first
design had been for a two-storied church, the new one was for a single-storey
building, "of much larger dimensions and of the best material". Why the change
of type, or why the enlargement we do not know, but it is reasonable to suspect .
that Greenway was dissatisfied with the original design and was only too pleased
that developments allowed him to improve the building. The result was fortunate,
for St Matthew's Church, Windsor, is a superb piece of work and must rank as
one of Greenway's best, if not his masterpiece (11, 12). It is perched on a knoll of
high ground that looks over the broad rich plains of the Hawkesbury Valley, and
to approach the church from the lowlands and see it towering above one is a
fortulate experience. The fine sturdy proportions, the delightful mellow rosiness
of the brickwork, and the soft texture of the wood shingle roof make a picture of
architecture that is scarcely equalled in Australia.


St Mathew’s Windsor

The building, simple enough with its rectangular nave, square tower, and semicircular
sanctuary, has an affinity with Georgian architecture, but an affinity only.
There are a few stone mouldings on the crest of the tower which owe everything
to traditional forms, but there the designer stopped borrowing. Everything else
proclaims aloud that good materials, good proportions and refinement of detail
are all that is necessary in fine architectural design. The pilasters-the vertical
strips of brickwork which give rhythm to the external walls and the tower-are
not decorative only; they are needed for structural purposes, so that the design
springs from truthful necessity and not from designer's whim. The interior is
rectangular, plain, and clean, having none of the dim mysticism of Gothic
churches. Its broad proportions are forthright, strong, and pleasant.
Although, because of its date of building, St Matthew's Church is generally described
as a Georgian church, it would be safer to classify its architecture as pure
Greenway. This building, as does so much of his other work, convinces one that
he had that touch of genius which would allow him to work in any medium, in
any age. His design has a timeless quality that is the essence of true beauty.
Fortunately the church, with its pleasant rectory of later date, has survived in
almost its original state. From this we can see the quality Windsor once had. Until
about 1930 the whole town was one of the most pleasant on the Australian continent.
Now look what has happened to it!



Greenway's other country church is to be found on the southern outskirts of
Sydney, which has so expanded that the former country town of Liverpool has
been gathered into the suburban orbit. The Church of St Luke, Liverpool, is smaller
than St Matthew's, having a nave only 60 feet 3 inches long and 35 feet wide (13).
Its high, plain walls, with their arched recesses, and the firmly simple and forthright
tower, coupled with velvety brickwork-of colours ranging from salmon
pink, through dusky red, to orange-make a composition that has more than once
charmed stubborn opposition into grateful admiration (17, 18).
On paper the proportions of the Liverpool church look awkward, but when
seen on the site they impart to the building that intangible sense of dignity that
Greenway was able to infuse into most of his work. A glance at the illustrations
will show that the design depends upon the repetition of a particular rectangular
shape. The dominating rectangle has a proportion of I to 2.55, and such geometrical
harmony is often to be found in Greenway's work, revealing the secret of
much of the success in his. simple elevations.

His original porch on the north side was supported by delicate wooden columns.
This was swept away and replaced by a debased enclosed porch after 1860, when
the church also gained its present equally debased "Gothic" chancel, which is a -
defacement of a beautiful piece of architecture. Fortunately, the enclosed porch
was replaced in 1923 by the present one, with its stone columns and a general
treatment that is eminently in sympathy with Greenway's work. The drawing
(18) shows this modem porch, whilst the chancel end is shown as it was when
Greenway built it and before alteration. His original porch can be seen on the elevation.
In a survey taken in ro-c-1 the tower was found to be cracked from top to
bottom and damp was rising badly into the walls generally.

The interior, before alteration, was as clean and honest as that of St Matthew's.
The altar stood not in a chancel but on a slightly raised dais in the nave against the
east wall-quite a usual arrangement in Georgian churches. The nave once had a
gallery at the west end of the church, entered from a stair in the tower, but both
the gallery and the stair have long since disappeared.



The churches took a long time to complete. St Luke's was not opened for divine
service until 11th August 1824, the interior fittings having been done by an architect
other than Greenway.12 Macquarie himself had laid the foundation stone on
7th April 1818, after driving over from Parramatta with his family. He named the
church "St Luke's" at this ceremony, and to the workmen present he "gave three
gallons of rum to drink as a donation from the Government". Macquarie mentions
that the builder was Nathaniel Lucas, who had been one of those whose work
Greenway had condemned at the Rum Hospital. We may feel sure that the
relations between the two men would have become even more strained had not
Lucas died in sordid circumstances of drunkenness soon after the foundations of the
church were laid. James Smith took over the contract and finished the church,
quarrelling violently with Greenway the while. The argument over extras on
the job dragged on for years through the official papers, to reach a final flowering
in public print in 1825. Smith had claimed extras amounting to £491 7s 9d.



Greenway assessed the amount due. That this latter figure was too low is
evidenced by the fact that the Chief Engineer finally settled the matter for £300.
 
Although the building was done by two builders, it is possible to determine
the exact cost of St Luke's Church by the disbursements from the Police Fund, the
total of which (including extras) was £1860. This fully justifies Greenway's often repeated
claim that he could get contracts performed in such a way that the
Government would not be robbed by the dishonest men of the day. Let us no
forget that Mathew's design of the small house for the Colonial Secretary cost
£3000 to build, and St Luke's Church was a much bigger and more important
building.?"



Greenway was busy also with minor works such as his obelisk (14). This is a
neat stone monument intended to mark the starting place of measurement of all
roads in the Colony. It no longer serves its original purpose, but it remains to
decorate Macquarie Place, Sydney. Close by are the anchor and some guns of
Governor Phillip's Sirius, which were recovered from the wreck at Norfolk Island
and brought back to Sydney.

A statue of Thomas Sutcliffe Mort at the western end of the Place stands on the
former site of Greenway's fountain (15). This little building was to cause politicians
to hurl charges of extravagance at Macquarie, and such sarcastic phrases as "temples
round pumps" added colour to the balder statements. The building has long since
gone, but the aura of invective still seems to hover over the contemporary records.
Macquarie defended the fountain vigorously, and Mrs Macquarie, whom we suspect
of initiating the project, was closely concerned with its progress.27 With its
Doric pilasters and richly carved cornice it shows Greenway in his most consciously
"Classical" manner, and it must have been a very ornamental trifle for a
colonial town.



In July 1817 Macquarie sent a memorandum directing Greenway firstly to
draw "the Ground Plan and Elevation of a neat handsome Fort" to be placed on
Bennelong Point, Sydney; secondly to design "a Court of Offices and Stables" for
the Governor's horses, carriages, and livery servants, and thirdly "To draw a
ground Plan and Elevation of a Handsome and commodious Castellated House for
the residence of the Governor in Chief of the Colony; agreeably to the schedule
of the number of Apartments herewith delivered; which Castellated House is to
be built of Stone;-but the form of the House, and the disposition of the Apartments
are left to Mr Greenway's own taste and judgment."28

There! As handsome a directive as ever was issued to an architect. It shows not
only Macquarie's fairness and good sense, but also that Greenway had fully gained
his confidence in architectural matters.



Old Government House presented a "Most ruinous Mean Shabby Appearance"
and was so white-anted that it was likely to "tumble down of itself". Although it
had served five governors and three lieutenant-governors it was small and inconvenient,
but at last there was every hope that it would be replaced, and by an
imitation castle at that! However, this was not to be. When the Colonial Secretary
in London heard of the project he was so horrified that such expense was being
contemplated without prior approval that he frightened Macquarie badly as a
new house was needed. The Governor and his Lady fled by barge to Parramatta
on 18th November 1816, whilst Greenway effected yet further repairs to Bloodsworth's
much-patched building. It had been enlarged by the addition of a ballroom
and a veranda in Governor Hunter's time, but it was to serve a few governors yet.
However, the architect did continue his work on the new stables, and them, at
least, he made big enough to serve as a castle. As Macquarie had laid down the
principle of a "Castellated" house-that is, a house in the Gothic style of architecture-
Greenway naturally adopted this style in the stables (16). He was never
happy in this manner of design, although he wrote lovingly of it. His work was
best when he used his materials easily and unself-consciously as he did in his
churches. In designing Gothic buildings his natural instincts were subordinated to
deliberate pedantry, with results that were generally unfortunate.
So foreign was this copyism to his artistic nature that in the inner court of the
stables he relapsed into his own effortless, direct method of design, leaving the false
Gothic as an external showy screen only (19).
Other examples of excursions into Gothic that looked more like pastry-cookery
than architecture were his toll gate on the Western Road near the site of the
present Railway Square, Sydney, and the magazine at Dawes Battery, both of
which have long since disappeared.

During the erection of the stables, Greenway made yet another experiment
with the working conditions of building labourers. He maintained that instead
of being set a week's work the men should be given an allotted amount of work-
" a task"- which they were to perform as they saw fit -any time saved to be their
own. The men who took part in this experiment finished what had previously been
a week's work by Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, instead of using the rest of
the week in working for their own benefit they absorbed a great deal of rum and
three of them were arrested for crimes of violence. The very people Greenway
sought to help most always seemed to let him down worst. Those presenting the
other side of the case said that Greenway used only the best workmen in such
experiments so that they would have free time during the week when they could
be employed on his own private contracts. A great dearth of skied building
labour lent deep colour to this version. While holding his public office he maintained
his private practice: he advertised for tenders on 22nd May 1819 for a brick
cottage to be built opposite the Government House at Parramatta.
Greenway's stables, still existing near Macquarie Street, have been converted
into Sydney's Conservatorium of Music by the erection of a hall in what had been
the courtyard.



The fort mentioned in one of Macquarie's memoranda became known as Fort
Macquarie, and turned out to be the best in appearance of Greenway's Gothic
buildings, but as a fortification it earned everybody's contempt, including that of its
architect. It is an unfamiliar experience to find Greenway ridiculing a design of his
own, but he attempted to save face by blaming the whole thing on Macquarie.
The Governor c e r t d y did lay down the general lines on which the fort was to
be designed, and there is evidence that the layout was predetermined, but Greenway's
excuses ring as hollow as the reputed strength of his fort.

On 9th July 1818 Greenway was present when Macquarie laid the foundation
of his Female Factory at Parramatta, this time giving the workmen four gallons
of spirits in which to drink success to the building. It is doubtful if all the spirits
consumed in twenty of those rum-sodden years in New South Wales could have
affected the fate of this building.

It replaced an earlier institution for women that sounds, from the records, completely
demoralizing. The new factory was intended to give them good quarters
and gainful occupation, but from the start the project was smeared with corruption.
Samuel Marsden, the principal chaplain of the Colony, and a merciless magistrate,
had arranged with our old friend James Smith of Liverpool church to build the
factory to his own plan for E14,ooo. Macquarie instructed Greenway to redesign
it, which he did, using a simple plan enclosed in stone walls and covered with a
shingle roof. After rejecting Smith and his tendered bribe of Asoo he succeeded
in getting a tender of A4788 from a firm of builders, Watkins and Payten. Every
attempt was made to disrupt the work by suborning the workmen to cause all the
trouble they could, and to spread rumours about the lack of stability of the building.
It speaks much for Greenway that he tackled all these difficulties and finally
overcame them; he never shrank from a fight, and he did not avoid this one.

Greenway wrote of the factory with some pride, but architecturally it was not
of much account (20, 70). The high wall shown must have been added at a later
date, because the one Greenway designed was only 9 feet 6 inches high, although,
he said, he had wanted to make it 12 feet high. There was trouble when inmates
climbed over the wall by means of Greenway's rusticated ornaments, which leads
to the suspicion that the claim that he desired a greater height of wall was one of
his excuses invented after the event.



When the factory was opened in 1821 many women destined to be quartered
there got married in order to avoid it. They considered marriage the lesser of two
evils, and not infrequently left their husbands immediately after the ceremony.
In 1823 solitary cells were erected as well, so it is no wonder that the women
sought to escape. The factory became virtually a matrimonial agency, some of the
marriages turning out very well. Once, in 1827, the inmates of the factory broke
out and looted the town of Parramatta.A report from Governor Gipps in 1838
shows what conditions were like in the factory, and it gives us also a very good
idea of Greenway's simple planning.

The main building has three floors, with two large rooms on each, or six large
rooms in the whole; the two lower ones are intended to be used as places of meeting
for prayers or instruction. . . . The four rooms on the two upper stories are used as
dormitories for the 1st and 2nd classes. On the boarding of each of them were about
sixty mattresses and as many blankets, but no furniture or other article whatsoever.
The mattresses when unrolled occupy somewhat more than two thirds of the space
of each floor. On three sides of each room, there are numerous windows; but, as
scarcely a pane of glass remains in any one of them, the floors are wetted to a considerable
distance whenever rain falls, and . . . it is necessary to huddle the mattresses
together as closely as possible on the opposite side from that by which it enters, in
order to keep them dry.

It seems appropriate that in 1848 the building was turned into a lunatic asylum.
In 1884 it was pulled down and the present mental home erected.
Much better convict barracks were to come from Greenway's drawing board
early in 1817. These were Hyde Park Barracks, still standing in Queen's Square,
Sydney, and now serving as the District law court.

Previous to the erection of the barracks, convicts normally boarded themselves
about the town. It is to be noted that convicts had incomes, small in most cases, it
is true, but not in all. Even in 1809, before Macquarie took office, the Colonial
Office informed him that convicts when assigned to settlers got food, clothing,
and EIO a year-a sum which, in days when house servants were paid LIZ to
A20 a year, was not so insignificant. It is recorded that after the founding of the
Bank of New South Wales, in 1817, convicts preferred to deposit their money
with this private company rather than with the Government, on the grounds that
by so doing they could get their money when they wanted it. Convicts had, too,
their own small but definite claim to personal dignity in that they were referred to
as government men, "the term convict being biased by a sort of general tacit compact
from our Botany dictionary, as a word too ticklish to be pronounced in these
sensitive latitudes". It was this side of the men's characters that Greenway sought
to encourage and develop, without, however, arousing any gratitude, as far as can
be discovered, in the recipients of his goodwill.



In testimony before a court of inquiry it was shown that in the Newcastle
settlement some convicts lived in houses-sometimes their own property. They
even took in other convicts as lodgers. But it should be noticed that only well behaved
men were allowed the indulgence of a house; others found board for
themselves, paying with what money they could earn about the town. Thomas
Messling, a carpenter who came to Sydney in 181s for fourteen years' enforced
stay, always lived in lodgings, and at one time paid 5s. a week to Dalton, the constable,
for his house. After government work was finished at 3 p.m. he made from
5s. to 7s. 6d. a day, although his work had often to be done by candlelight. A
curious side of the assignment system was that convicts could be assigned to other
convicts. Messling reported of one woman convict with whom he had relations
and to whom he owed an obligation, that she was not assigned to him but that
she had applied to the magistrate and was allowed to live with him.41
When we of today look back through a hundred and fifty years of time, some
outlines become blurred. and we cannot actually conceive the weird mixture of
captivity and freedom which was Australia in those days. For instance, Messling
tells us that those who were doing well for themselves preferred to live out of
barracks. Others were glad when Hyde Park Barracks were built, for then they
could have secure quarters, even if it meant submitting themselves to stricter
regulations.?



On one hand we have the opinion of at English architectural writer of
eminence, who says that "transportation, moreover, meant not mere banishment,
but the living hell of Botany Bay, where men condemned to death thanked God
for so merciful release"." On the other hand we have Macquarie's directive to the
police, given through the Chief Engineer
to apprehend and lodge in the Prisoner's Barracks any of the convicts in the employ
of Government that may be found Gambling, Quarrelling, Rioting, Intoxicated or
Idling and Loitering about streets of Sydney on Saturdays, this day being given them
by his Excellency as a special Indulgence for the purpose of working for their own
benefit and not for laying in numbers at the corners of the different Street.
This and the previous picture of hell just do not seem to mix. Indeed there is something
typically Australian about the men's lying in groups on the street comers
enjoying the sunshine or "sleeping it off ", as the case may be.
For the real picture of convict hell we need to examine the records of the penal
settlements of Tasmania during the first half of the nineteenth century, which leave
no doubt as to the true nature of things. In any circumstances, in early Australia it
was better by far to avoid being a convict.

That is the general background against which developed the need for the
barracks in Sydney. They were built in two years and were first occupied by the
men on 20th May 1819. The commission was an important one for Greenway, and
Macquarie was so pleased with the building that he used the opening as the
occasion for making Greenway's pardon absolute, thus returning to him full
citizenship.'5

The importance of the building to us lies in its architecture. By W. Hardy
Wilson and others of knowledge in these matters, it has been adjudged the finest
thing Greenway ever did, and it is certainly a most successful piece of architectural
design. The problem was essentially a simple one. Dormitory and other necessary
accommodation had to be provided for about eight hundred men, together with
latrines and washing places, a muster yard surrounded by a high wall, and a few
confinement cells. The wall was made of stone, 9 feet 6 inches high (a favourite
height with Greenway), and had strongly moulded caps to the gate piers (61).
The cells were planned in the small, square buildings, each roofed with a dome that
formed the four comers of the barracks yard. The main building has a central
corridor along the full length, with a cross corridor holding the stairs. Rooms
open directly off the corridors, and the same plan arrangement appears on all floors.
Kitchens and washing were outside the main building and were ranged
along the inside of the yard wall. There is nothing complicated in the
elevations.

The layout of the whole group was Greenway's first chance, in Australia, to
plan in the grand manner, and he made every use of the opportunity (23). The
compound, as he originally built it, was over zoo feet wide and nearly 300 feet
long, and the heavy surrounding wall was given rhythm and punctuation by the
square rooms which he made dominate the whole design at the comers and axial
points. The scheme had a classic breadth and dignity that can now only be appreciated
from a drawing, for the design has been encroached on and eaten into by a
conglomerate mass of irritatingly bad buildings which have completely destroyed
the essential dignity of Greenway's plan.

When the building was opened, a contemporary writer, suspected of being
Greenway himself, described the front of the main block as being "executed conformably
with the most elegant proportions of the Greek School". The elegance
we can accept, but as regards Greek influence nothing could have been further
from the truth. The building borrows nothing from the Greek Revival, and it owes
nothing to anybody but Greenway. In his churches he had towers to give him an
interesting massing of the component parts. With the plain rectangular walls of the
barracks reliance had to be placed upon excellence of proportion only. The pilasters--
or piers-in the brickwork are necessary structural features to carry the
roof members and the larger beams of the floors. The upper part of the wall is
treated as a triangular pediment, which gives the gable ends a slight Classical
flavour. We have seen this before at the Churches of St Luke and St Matthew, and
it is a most successful device for keeping the rectilinear form of the wall. The semicircular-
headed recesses on the ground floor, and the clock in the west gable, are
the only concessions to decorative treatment in the whole design.



The building when approached gives an impression of size beyond its mere
dimensions, which are only 132 feet in length, 50 feet in width, and 38 feet 2 inches
in height up to the eaves. Its very simplicity is its virtue. Unbroken lines and
excellence of proportion do much to increase the apparent size. It will be noticed
that these proportions are founded on repetitions of the square (21). The end elevation
lies wholly and exactly within a square; the panels between the piers are three
squares high; the windows are a square and a half, or two squares high, and the
smallest units-the small window-panes-are in the form of a square. Here, then,
is the secret of Greenway's success in this building, and this unity of design has
produced the most satisfactory result obtainable by such direct means.
The walls are built of soft red sandstock bricks set in lime mortar, now greatly
marred by uninformed repairs with cement mortar. The window heads and arches
are made with soft bright red "rubbing bricks", and the base course and string
courses are of stone. The form of the neat clock surround was almost to become a
trademark with Greenway. The original clock was made in Sydney and was described
as a credit to its maker, J. Oatley, who was paid A75 for it. The small
bell turret above the clock, not a part of the original design, now comes a bell
dated 1837. made by, of course, Thomas Mears of London. When first finished, the
building had a bell hanging in the small domed ventilator in the middle of the
roof.

The chimneys are 12 feet 6 inches long and each carries eighteen flues. To
architects it is of interest to learn that inside the roof space the stacks gather over,
so that the weight of the brickwork rests in the panels of the roof trusses, and then
corbel out again before the stacks emerge from the roof covering. It says much for
the truss design that it has not been crippled by this weight.

The roof covering was originally split wood shingles but this has long since
disappeared and the inevitable corrugated iron has taken its place. The small
entrance porch is the least objectionable addition made after Greenway's time. The
building is otherwise closely hedged about with very poor-quality modem buildings,
which are often attached in ungainly fashion to the old walls.

However, a reconstruction of the original design was easy to make, and the
building when first completed appeared as it is shown here.

To have made this design was a notable step for Greenway, for the building was
a large and important one in a conspicuous position in the Colony's capital. With
this work behind him, with his full civil status restored, and with invitations to
social functions, including dinners at Government House, being thrust upon him,
he was becoming a figure.
 
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.
 
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