A MODEL OF RESPECTABILITY
A A Official residence, 1824-
B Official residence, 1838-1842 CPrivate residence, 1855-1856 C B 1Hobart Town Gaol
2St David’s Church 3Courthouse
4Government House 1
2
3 4
Figure 10: Hobart Town, c. 1839.30
Section showing the location of Pedder’s first two official residences in relation to his places of work. Image reproduced courtesy of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts,
Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
29 Secheron and Newlands survive, as a private home and a reception centre.
30 G. Frankland, Hobart [section], Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, TAHO. Full image
available online at <http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?id=548683> accessed 30 October 2011.
From 1824 until 1838, the Macquarie Street house was rented from Anglo-Irish entrepreneur, R.W. Loane, who derived substantial income from letting his many
properties in Hobart Town and Sydney to the government.31 Built by 1822, the
whitewashed house comprised cellars, a kitchen and store, a study, bedrooms,
and a sitting and drawing room; by 1830, all were in need of repair.32
Outbuildings included a gig house, privies, and a ‘skilling’ [lean-to], and the
garden was surrounded by a ‘trellised fence’.33 Macquarie Street was one of the
‘principal streets’ of Hobart Town, and contained ‘most of the public buildings
and the houses of official persons’.34 Colonial diarist, George Boyes, described
the streetscape as the Pedders would have known it in the 1820s:
The houses … are neat and handsome, generally of two stories and either whitened or in red brick, they are placed at some distance apart, and the intervening spaces are filled up with sweet Briar Hedges, Rose Trees, abundance of Stocks – and Wall Flowers, Geraniums and vines, all growing up together with some of the
Native Evergreens in the greatest abundance.35
A section from Augustus Earle’s water colour panorama of Hobart Town, below, illustrates the vicinity of the Pedders’ first colonial home as it appeared in the mid-1820s. A handwritten key identifies buildings in Macquarie Street, including the whitewashed, two-storey ‘Judge’s Residence’ (labelled 8, centre left) and the
gaol, church and courthouse (labelled 5, 2, and 1, far right).36
31 AOT Correspondence File, R.W. Loane, Query No. 1359; F.C. Green, ‘Loane, Roland
Walpole (-1844)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020107b.htm> accessed 2 December 2009.
32 J.L. Archer, ‘Report of Repairs required to be done at the residence of His Honor [sic] the Chief
Justice’, 17 November 1830, AOT CSO1/1/37/639, ff. 17-18, reel Z1762.
33 Archer, ‘Report of Repairs’, 17 November 1830, CSO1/1/37/639, ff. 17-18, reel Z1762.
34 A. Prinsep, The Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land: Comprising a
Description of that Colony during a Six Months’ Residence, from Original Letters Selected by Mrs. A. Prinsep; and, Illustrations to Prinsep’s Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land from Original Sketches taken during the Years 1829 and 1830 (Hobart, Melanie Publications, 1981; originally published London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1833), p. 60.
35 Boyes to Mary Boyes, 9 November 1826, in Chapman, Diaries and Letters of G.T.W.B. Boyes,
p. 267.
36 ‘Panorama of Hobart, c. 1825 – water colour drawings by Augustus Earle’, Dixson Galleries,
2 1 5
8
Figure 11: ‘Panorama of Hobart, c. 1825 – water colour drawings by Augustus Earle’, Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales [DGD 14].
Section showing the ‘Judge’s Residence’ (labelled 8), Pedder’s official residence, 1824-1838. Image reproduced courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales
Echoing Boyes’ contemporary description, Henry Savery’s satirical Hermit in Van
Diemen’s Land imagines the Pedders’ Macquarie Street home as a ‘large commodious looking stuccoed building’, containing a drawing room ‘of tolerable dimensions, in the ornaments and furniture of which, were sufficient instances
of good taste and elegance, to denote that a Lady presided in the house’.37 On
their departure from England in 1823, John and Maria Pedder had been given
permission to ship twelve ‘Tons of Baggage’ aboard the Hibernia at Navy Office
expense.38 This probably included a variety of household and personal items,
<http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=447957> accessed 2 May 2011.
37 C. Hadgraft, and M. Roe (eds.), Henry Savery, The Hermit in Van Diemen’s Land (St Lucia,
University of Queensland Press, 1964), p. 74.
38 Wilmot Horton to Pedder, 30 September 1823, CO 202/11, f. 240, AJCP reel PRO 216; Richard
including furniture, as well as Pedder’s law library.39 During their colonial
residence, the Pedders also regularly imported luxury items, as in 1846, when a
piano ordered from London arrived aboard the Cygnet.40
Auction notices published in the lead-up to Pedder’s return to England in 1856 not only provide a vivid glimpse of the material culture of the colonial elite, but also Pedder’s particular taste and interests as these were reflected in his household contents. Among the assortment of items which he chose not to transport to England were ‘books, choice wines, silver plate and plated ware, rare engravings, china, glass, cutlery, harness, saddlery, agricultural and
horticultural implements, and a great variety of valuable effects’.41 Further
‘household furniture and effects, comprising, tables, chairs, couches, carpets, bed-steads, bedding, wash-stands, glass-ware, crockery, kitchen utensils, and various articles of convenience and necessity’, were later offered for sale, along
with a ‘small quantity of plate’.42
Pedder’s salary package included £250 per annum for rent. This sum was published in the annual estimates, and exploited by colonial landlords. Indeed, in the thirty years from 1824, £250 was ‘always paid’ for ‘every house’ Pedder
occupied.43 In lease negotiations, government officials begrudgingly met owners’
demands for the full amount. In 1831, for example, Pedder was aware that his landlord’s agent was driving ‘too hard a bargain’, and hoped that Governor
Arthur had not been thrown into ‘perplexity’ by the negotiations.44 Similarly,
when renewing the lease on Newlands in 1847, Colonial Secretary, James
39 Pedder’s professional library included ‘Statutes at large for the use of the Courts at Van
Diemen’s Land’ and ‘Books of Practice’, which were ‘to be provided at [his] own expence [sic]’. Wilmot Horton to Pedder, 20 September 1823, CO 202/11, f. 223, AJCP reel PRO 216.
40 Courier, 11 November 1846, p. 2. 41 Courier, 3 March 1855, p. 3. 42 Courier, 30 January 1856, p. 1.
43 Pedder to Bicheno, 20 February 1847, AOT CSO20/1/26, No. 565, f. 93.
44 Pedder to Arthur, 6 June 1831, Arthur Papers, vol. 9, ML ZA 2169. See also Pedder to Arthur,
Bicheno protested that the landlord was ‘taking advantage of our necessities’, but submitted to his demands, acknowledging that it would be ‘a more serious
injury and annoyance to the Chief Justice to deprive him of his house’.45 Pedder
certainly did not relish the prospect of giving up the house: as he complained to Bicheno, ‘I have already suffered the inconvenience and loss of two removes and
wish to avoid a third’.46
Deficiencies in the standard of housing and delays with repairs are recurring themes in correspondence relating to Pedder’s official residences. In 1830, the colonial architect reported that the Macquarie Street house was ‘damp and very
much out of order’.47 Disputes between the government and Loane (or his agent,
Mr Kinsman) about the necessity and cost of repairs continued into the 1830s, as
did Pedder’s concerns about the ‘very bad and unsafe condition’ of the house.48
Complaining that the front of the house was ‘considerably not on the perpendicular’, Pedder informed Arthur that ‘I should dread much to place my family in it’ without an assurance from the colonial engineer that ‘it should be safe to do so’.49
Pedder’s family faced unexpected danger in the house in 1832, in the form of fire. On a Monday evening in July, a fire in the chimney flue of the dining room
caused significant damage to the main house.50 The Hobart Town Courier
45 Annotation to Pedder to Bicheno, 20 February 1847, CSO20/1/26, No. 565, f. 93. 46 Pedder to Bicheno, 20 February 1847, CSO20/1/26, No. 565, f. 94.
47 Archer, ‘Report of Repairs’, 17 November 1830, CSO1/1/37/639, ff. 17-18, reel Z1762. Loane
built several houses in Hobart Town between 1818 and 1822. In 1825, he had suggested another of his houses (Belle Vue, now in Fitzroy Place) as better suited as a ‘Judge’s residence, being very spacious and a delightful situation’. Loane to Arthur, 12 April 1825, CSO1/1/37/639, ff. 3-4, reel Z1762.
48 Pedder to Arthur, 1 June 1831, Arthur Papers, vol. 9, ML ZA 2169; Memo to ‘Engineer’s Report
upon the Repairs at the Chief Justice’s House’, 19 November 1830, CSO1/1/37/639, f. 10, reel Z1762.
49 Pedder to Arthur, 12 December 1831, CSO1/1/37/639, f. 79, reel Z1762.
50 Reports of the fire on 30 July appeared in the press a few days later. Hobart Town Courier,
3 August 1832, p. 2. A slightly different version, reprinted from the Tasmanian of 3 August 1832, appeared in the Sydney Gazette, 21 August 1832, p. 4.
reported that the fire was ‘not fairly extinguished until much damage was done
to the furniture and several of the best rooms drenched with water’.51 The
‘greatest praise is due to all parties who assisted’, declared the Courier.52
Soldiers from the 63rd Regiment joined with local inhabitants, including convicts, to extinguish the fire in ‘the most prompt and efficient manner, and
with the help of the fire engine’.53 While the Pedders’ dining room was
‘inundated with water’ and the ‘best bedroom and dressing room’ were
damaged, ‘the flames were timely subdued, else much more damage would
doubtless have been done’.54 Contrasting the efforts to save the Pedders’ home
with the ‘pilfering’ which often attended house fires in England, the Courier
observed pointedly that
what will surprise our readers at home, and especially the prison discipline committee, who fancy that transportation is no punishment, or means of criminal reform is the fact, that there was
not the slightest attempt at theiving [sic] … although numerous
prisoners were at hand and assisting throughout.55
Occurring only two nights after a fire in the nearby home of solicitor, George
Cartwright, the Courier report offered a sobering reminder ‘of those awful
calamities by fire, to which we are all so liable in this place’.56
With the lease on Pedder’s Macquarie Street residence due for renewal in 1838, Colonial Engineer, John Lee Archer, inspected the premises. While Archer did not share Pedder’s fears about the structural integrity of the house, he did concede that, ‘from the slight nature of the building it is much affected by heavy
51 Hobart Town Courier, 3 August 1832, p. 2. 52 Hobart Town Courier, 3 August 1832, p. 2. 53 Hobart Town Courier, 3 August 1832, p. 2.
54 Brown to Archer, 1 August 1832, CSO1/1/37/639, f. 86, reel Z1762; Hobart Town Courier,
3 August 1832, p. 2.
55 Hobart Town Courier, 3 August 1832, p. 2.
56 Hobart Town Courier, 3 August 1832, p. 2. Cartwright’s house sustained damage estimated at
gusts of Wind’, and recommended finding ‘a more substantial House for
His Honor’s [sic] residence’.57 In May 1838, Pedder told the colonial secretary
that ‘I do not desire to leave this house provided I can be assured that it is a safe residence and that it may have such repairs as are necessary to make it a
tolerably comfortable one’.58 At the beginning of August, however, he reported
that he had tried in vain ‘to find a residence which I could propose to the
government to rent for me’.59
A week later, the government invited tenders ‘for a house suitable for the
residence of His Honor [sic], the Chief Justice’.60 Several houses in Battery Point
and Hobart Town were submitted for consideration; the successful tender came from the Surveyor-General, George Frankland. Having failed to sell his ‘elegant,
substantial, and gentlemanly’ villa, Secheron, at auction in January,61 Frankland
wrote to the colonial secretary on the ‘understanding that the Govt. [sic] requires
a Residence for the Chief Justice’.62 He proposed a lease ‘for a period of five
years, at a rental of Two hundred and fifty pounds payable quarterly’.63
Designed and built by Frankland in 1831, Secheron was located on Battery Point.
This area of ‘rising ground which borders the wharf’ was acknowledged by contemporaries as ‘one of the most charming and fashionable places of
residence’ in the colony.64 Frankland had named his estate after Secheron Point
57 Archer to the Colonial Secretary, 11 June 1838, AOT CSO5/1/84/1861, f. 143, reel Z1987. 58 Pedder to the Colonial Secretary, 26 May 1838, CSO5/1/84/1861, f. 141, reel Z1987. 59 Pedder to the Colonial Secretary, 2 August 1838, CSO5/1/84/1861, f. 153, reel Z1987. 60 Hobart Town Courier, 10 August 1838, p. 2.
61 The villa was offered for auction on 21 January 1838. Frankland had previously advertised the
residence, and allotments subdivided from the estate, for sale or lease. Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3; Hobart Town Courier, 4 November 1836, p. 3; 20 October 1837, p. 1; and 27 October 1837, p. 1.
62 Frankland to Montagu, 1 September 1838, AOT CSO5/1/145/3535, f. 232, reel Z2005.
63 Frankland to Montagu, 1 September 1838, CSO5/1/145/3535, f. 232, reel Z2005. Frankland
had already advertised unsuccessfully for a three-year lease. Hobart Town Courier, 20 October 1837, p. 1.
64 [no author], The Heritage of Tasmania: The Illustrated Register of the National Estate
on Lake Geneva for the similarity of the vistas.65 Indeed, of his first impressions
of Hobart Town in 1827, Frankland had declared that it ‘resembled a remote
watering-place in England, placed by the side of a Swiss lake’.66 Several months
before the house was proposed for the chief justice, an auction notice enthused that the villa was ‘seated on a sublime eminence … commanding views probably
unequalled in a country, which for picturesque scenery, stands pre-eminent’.67
Moreover, the auctioneers declared, the estate had the advantage of ‘approximating a neighbourhood of the most select society, within easy
approach of a large and populous town’.68
The estate offered to Pedder in September 1838 encompassed ‘six acres of land
with a frontage of five hundred feet on the Derwent’.69 As illustrated in the plan
below, Secheron was ‘bounded in front’ by the river, but ‘screened from the more
boisterous gale’ by ‘its own thriving plantations’.70 The grounds, the auction
notice recited, had been ‘laid out with much taste, and every attention paid to
the fruit and kitchen gardens’.71 Inside the house, the ‘entrance Hall, Drawing,
Dining and Bed Rooms’ were ‘all well proportioned and handsomely finished’, while the ‘minor apartments and servants’ offices’ showed that ‘convenience
ha[d] been studied rather than expense’.72
65 A. Rowntree, Battery Point Today and Yesterday (Hobart, Adult Education Board of Tasmania,
1968), p. 36.
66 Frankland to Hay, 15 August 1827, in Frankland, Five Letters, pp. 8-9. 67 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3.
68 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3.
69 Frankland to Montagu, 1 September 1838, CSO5/1/145/3535, f. 232, reel Z2005. 70 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3.
71 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3. 72 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3.
Figure 12: Plan of the Secheron estate, Pedder’s official residence, 1838-1842.73 Image reproduced courtesy of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
Though fearing he should be left ‘homeless’ at the end of the Macquarie Street
lease, Pedder was initially reluctant to move to Secheron.74 Despite the
auctioneers’ assurance that ‘a more gentlemanly and comfortable residence is
73 Plan showing Secheron Estate, Battery Point with partial subdivision, AOT NS596/1/1. The
section showing the proposed subdivision is not reproduced here.
not to be met with’, Pedder only agreed to accept the house on condition that Frankland attended to ‘all the painting varnishing plastering and white
washing’.75 As the chief justice insisted to the colonial secretary, ‘It cannot be
expected that I should go into a place not in a tenantable state of repair’.76 After
some delay, John and Maria Pedder occupied Secheron, their second colonial
home, between 1838 and 1842.77
Emphasising an association which adds to the prestige and historical significance of particular colonial buildings, local histories often assert that Chief
Justice Pedder was the owner of both Secheron and his subsequent home,
Newlands.78 Connection with the chief justice was similarly exploited by colonial
auctioneers in their advertisements. Auction notices in the Van Diemen’s Land
press provide a vivid, if predictably overstated, description of Newlands as it was
‘in the occupation of Sir John Lewes Pedder’.79 Describing the ‘princely Mansion,
Premises, Garden and surrounding enclosures’ as ‘one of the most complete establishments in the hemisphere’, Messrs Lowes and MacMichael informed ‘Trustees and Capitalists requiring undeniable security and punctual return for an investment’ that the ‘present lessee adds annually to its value by constant
additions and improvements’.80 Sir John, the auctioneers adverted, occupied the
estate under a seven-year lease ‘at an annual rental of £250, payable
half-yearly’.81 By contrast, the Colonial Architect, William Porden Kay,
considered that ‘the house though large’ was not ‘commodious or adapted for a large establishment’ and ‘could never … command that rent’ on the open
75 Hobart Town Courier, 5 January 1838, p. 3; Pedder to Montagu, 6 September 1838,
CSO5/1/145, No. 3535, f. 229, reel Z2005.
76 Pedder to Montagu, 6 September 1838, CSO5/1/145, No. 3535, f. 229, reel Z2005.
77 Mason to Montagu, 10 September 1840, CSO5/1/145, No. 3535, f. 235, reel Z2005. Mason’s
letter indicates that the lease began on 1 October 1838, but Pedder did not ‘take possession of the Premises until some weeks afterwards’.
78 Rowntree, Battery Point Today and Yesterday, p. 38; Tasmanian Mail, 25 June 1924, p. 54. 79 Courier, 29 September 1847, p. 2.
80 Courier, 29 September 1847, p. 2.
81 Courier, 29 September 1847, p. 2. In October, Newlands was ‘bought in at the price of £3,200’.
market.82
The move to Newlands further increased Pedder’s physical and psychological
distance from the sites of his official life and the linear streetscape of the town, and illustrates the ‘broader political, economic and cultural connotations’ of
these different colonial landscapes.83 Home to ‘many of the wealthier merchants,
government officers, and professional men’, the ‘pretty village of New Town’ was
‘remarkable for its elegant and picturesque villas’.84 Newlands was described as
‘substantially built and delightfully situated, at a distance of only a mile and a
half from Hobart Town’, along a ‘macadamised’ road.85 Set on 29 acres, the house
was ‘situated on the rising ground overlooking the whole expanse of New Town,
with its magnificent and much admired scenery’.86 By the time of the Pedders’
move to the estate, the gardens of New Town had acquired a reputation for
being ‘remarkably prolific’.87 Newlands boasted an ‘ornamental plantation and
shrubbery, with lawn and flower garden’, while the ‘rich and productive soil’ supported a kitchen garden said to abound in ‘choice Fruit Trees and excellent
Vegetables’.88 John and Maria Pedder’s shared interest in horticulture thrived in
the semi-rural setting of Newlands.
82 Kay to Bicheno, 29 May 1846, AOT CSO20/1/26, No. 565, f. 89. A nephew of Sir John Franklin,
Kay held various colonial appointments, including Director of Public Works, and designed the present, neo-Gothic Government House (1853-1858). H. Preston, ‘Kay, William Porden (1809-1870?)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020032b.htm> accessed