| Historical notes: | The site formed part of the range of the Gadigal people that extended along the south side of Port Jackson from South Head to Darling Harbour. Most physical traces of this occupation have been obliterated during the removal of sandstone to create level building platforms and the erection of houses, shops, warehouses, bond stores and wharves.
On European settlement in 1788 the area on the western side of Sydney Cove was used as the main convict encampment. The first hospital, erected between present day Harrington Street and George Street, and its grounds that extended to the vicinity of Cambridge Street, was one of the first areas of Sydney to be cleared and fenced, thus restricting access into the fenced area for activities not associated with the hospital use. Surrounding the hospital were extensive gardens where medicinal and other necessary plants were grown.
Small houses were built on the slopes of The Rocks, beyond the fenced hospital garden, many by emancipated convicts. The early houses on the Rocks were built in lines known as 'rows', which followed the naturally occurring rock shelves and were accessed by tracks rather than formally laid out streets. Because of these small cliffs, houses were not initially built on the lower side of the street, as this would have necessitated building a more substantial house with a basement. The majority of the small scale cottages were modest single storey cottages built at or above the level of the access track. The western side of Harrington Street was one of these rows of largely residential buildings.
By 1808 they were being sold, such as the 'weatherboarded, glazed and shingled' dwelling house sold in May 1808 and the weatherboard 'family residence' sold by William Hutchinson in June 1809. Both were simply referred to as being at the back of the hospital garden on the Rocks. Prior to 1809 the location was simply given as 'on the Rocks', giving no indication as to which of the various rows of cottage the premises that were for sale were located in. The advertisements also provide an indication of the buildings materials used, all of which were of local origin. A stone house, which had been the property of the 'now deceased' Mary Inch, at the back of the General Hospital Garden was sold in May 1809. The site of the hospital garden remained a well-known locality after the general hospital had been relocated to Macquarie Street in 1816. As late as 1829 a property in The Rocks was referred to as being 'near the hospital garden'.
Harrington Street and Argyle Street, which form the eastern and northern boundary of the block on which the subject site is located, are amongst the earliest streets in Sydney. Both were given official names in 1810 by Governor Macquarie, around the same time that the decision was made to relocate the hospital to a new site in Macquarie Street. If the track and row of houses in what was later Harrington Street already had an unofficial name, it has not been identified, nor does it appear on maps dating from before 1810. Harrington Street was officially 'next to and running parallel to George Street' and Argyle Street was leading from 'George Street in a Westerly direction'.
The maps prepared by Harper and Stewart in the early 1820s show that there was already a series of buildings on the western side of Harrington Street, which largely correspond to the lots identified by Robert Russell in his surveys undertaken in the early 1830s. Some of these cottages survived until the Resumption in the early 20th Century, however none survive today, having been replaced with terrace houses or demolished by the Resumed Properties Department (between 1903 and 1914).
In the summary of the town allotments in Section 79, published in 1835, there were 7 landholders in the area of the subject sites, between the corner of Argyle Street and Cribbs Lane (now Cumberland Place). They were Thomas Weedon (lot 8), William Young (lot 9), William Brutus Lea (lot 10), Thomas Cooper (lot 11), Caleb Salter (lot 12), William Kelly (lot 13) and George Atherden (lot 14), all of whom had their quit rents dated 1 July 1823.
The lot that is the site of the Stafford terrace group, part of which remains today at 55-59 Harrington Street, was Lot 10 on Robert Russell's 1833 survey claimed by William Archibald Brutus Lea. The site is shown as having buildings erected on it, similar to those on Harper's 1823 plan, and these are likely to have been erected by a previous occupant rather than Lea who was an assigned servant at that time. In the 1828 census, 29 year old W A B Lea was listed as being housekeeper for the baker, William Blue in Clarence Street. Lea had arrived on the Isabella in 1819 as a convict. His term was seven years and he had been convicted at Middlesex Gaol the previous year. At the time of his arrival he was in his early 20s. Lea was free by servitude and was later described as a baker and a grocer. His wife, Mary Lea, had been born in the colony and was 17 in 1828. Robert Russell identified lots on both sides of Harrington Street as being claimed by William Archibald Brutus Lea.
The buildings are described as two two-storey brick houses with tiled roofs and four rooms (located south of the central passage) and one single storey brick house with a shingle roof and attached workshop. The single storey house contained four rooms. There is one outhouse shown in the south western corner which was presumably shared by all of the occupants. Other than the outline of the block shown on the 1823 plan by Harper, Russell's survey, the 1855 block plan and the 1865 trigonometrical survey, no detail as to the layout these buildings have been located nor any photos.
The rate book entries show that neither William A B Lea nor any of his family ever lived in any of the properties the family owned in Harrington Street. William A B Lea Esquire died in 1857 aged 60 after 'a long and protracted illness'. His residence was listed as being 750 George Street. The 1863 Sands Directory lists Mrs Lea as living at 750 George Street, where she remained in residence until her death in 1877. She was 65 at the time of her death, and the Leas had nine children born between 1829 and 1848, all of whom survived into adulthood. William Lea set up a trust from his extensive real estate portfolio to benefit his daughters, his sons and their children. The descendants of the Lea family continued to live off the income of William Lea's substantial estate more than 50 years after his death. The Harrington Street properties were administered by the trustees until they were resumed, their names are shown on the resumption plan.
There is no evidence to suggest that the family maintained or improved their property until forced to by the City Council in the mid-1880s. During the 1880s the mayor of Sydney undertook what have later been termed 'slum tours', drawing attention to 'rookeries' and 'dwellings unfit for habitation. None of the original buildings erected on the site survive, as the entire complex was deemed to be substandard by the city health and building inspectors and was condemned by the Lord Mayor in 1884.
To ensure a continued income the Lea family had to erect a new building as their houses at 9-15 Harrington Street were condemned by City Council in April 1884. To maximise their return, the Lea family erected a terrace of two storey houses, each of which was not rated at much more than the substandard buildings the terrace replaced. The exact date of construction of Stafford Terrace has not been confirmed but is assumed to be c.1885. The terrace is shown on the 1887 block plan but there is no entry for Nos. 9-15 in the 1888 Sands directory. The architect Edward Buchanan tendered for the erection of houses in Harrington Street in July 1885. These houses may have been Stafford Terrace as very little else in the street dates from this period. There is a newspaper record of a William William's funeral departing from his home at No.11 Harrington Street in January 1886 (after the presumed construction date) however he also lived at this address in 1884. This may indicate indicating that part of original buildings on the site had yet to be demolished. The name Stafford Terrace is shown on the block plans dating from 1887 and first appears in the Sands Directory in 1890. The houses in the block had to be renumbered, as seven residences had been built within the same street frontage as the three original houses.
In 1891 a Royal Commission was established into Chinese Gambling. The transcript of proceedings states that "the commission proceeded on a visit of inspection to the Chinese quarters in Cambridge-street, Harrington-street, Queen-street, and Suez Canal" to take detailed evidence. The commissioners visited No. 19 Harrington Street on December 2nd 1891, where a European woman Maud 'kept house' for a Chinaman. The house was described as being clean and there was no indication of illegal gambling or opium smoking. No. 19 Harrington Street was one of the houses in Stafford Terrace, two others of which were listed in the rate books with Chinese tenants, Ah Joey and May Sing.
In January 1900 the bubonic plague broke out in Sydney beginning in Ferry Lane. Sections of the foreshore were resumed in May 1900 from Circular Quay, around Dawes Point and Millers Point, and into Darling Harbour. The proposal to resume the entire Rocks area was announced in November 1900, shortly before the Chief Medical Officer's report on the plague outbreak had been tabled. As the number of cases increased sections of The Rocks and Millers Point were quarantined and a thorough cleansing operation was undertaken, co-ordinated by the architect George McCredie. The cleansing operations included cleaning, whitewashing, disinfecting and demolition of substandard structures.
The housing stock at the northern end of Harrington Street continued to be let as rental accommodation and almost no alterations were made to buildings in this part of The Rocks. During this period, 1900 to 1920, there were a series of long standing tenants at the northern end of Harrington Street, including
the Rasmussen family, the Olaf family and the Allner family in Stafford Terrace,
the Waters and Lawrence Smith in Porters Terrace and
the Brennan family at No. 67.
Thomas Morrison leased a substantial portion of land at the corner of Harrington and Argyle Streets including four of the houses in Stafford Terrace, which he rented out. Morrison is listed in the 1914 rate books as being the lessee, the property was still owned by NSW Government.
Tenants were not well off and work at the docks was slow. Many had applied for relief and others sent their children to the benevolent kitchen to collect billy cans of soup.
Finally the Minister undertook to go into the matter and see whether the conditions could not be made any easier for the tenants.
During the twentieth century the street numbering of Harrington Street changed again and Harrington Street was renumbered as a continuation along Playfair Street which was connected to George Street via Atherden Street with the demolition of residences. The numbers commenced at the north end. This was presumably was related to the PWD works to regularise the streets. In the 1911 and 1921 the rate books have the old numbers with the groups of buildings being No. 7-19 (Stafford Terrace), 21-25 (Porters Terrace), then 27 and 29. By 1924 the present numbering system was in place. Later the street names have been changed again, but the numbering on Harrington Street was retained. As a result, there is now no 1-33 Harrington Street but there are still uneven numbered buildings 1-33 on the west side of Playfair Street. The revised numbering is shown on plans held by the Sydney City Council dating from 1956 and remain today.
In May 1918 four of the terraces in Stafford Terrace were advertised for sale:
A magnificent store site together with FOUR HOUSES erected thereon, being Nos, 9-15 inclusive, built of brick, each with four rooms, kitchen and out offices. Let at 15 shillings each.
These four houses at 9-15 (new numbers 47-53) Harrington Street were adjacent his large corner site and were purchased by Edmund J Playfair. The 1921 rate books list E J Playfair as owning (rather than leasing from the Government) Nos. 1-15 Harrington Street. They also indicate a vacant lot, valued at £1,000 between Nos.3 and 9 (ie Nos. 5 & 7 indicating the buildings on those sites were demolished).
Playfair only ever owned part of Stafford terrace and he demolished these four houses to make way for extensions to the meat-processing factory in 1940. The remaining houses were tenanted until the mid-1970s.
In the 1930s and 40s the terraces at 57 and 59 were shared tenancies, tenants paying £1-1-6 per week. SCA tenancy records provide evidence of the everyday existential problems of tenants, noting a large turnover of tenants, endless rental arrears and requests for rental reduction. Tenancy records note a number of smaller refurbishments, repair and improvement, which the Maritime Services Board carried out on the terraces after 1927. The tenant's request for renovation and repair in the late 1940s and early 1950s indicate that by this time the terraces were in a rundown condition.
A comparison of the footprint of the terraces shown on the late-19th century survey map and the survey prepared for the site of the Clock Tower development in 1986 indicates a few changes to the configuration of the property, the most obvious being the loss of four terraces at the northern end of the group. The three southern most terraces remain on the site. Minor changes included modification of the rear boundary line and remodelling of the single storey rear wing of the terraces.
During the redevelopment of the block in the 1980s the single storey rear sections of the terraces were demolished. The refurbishment also involved the re-roofing of the terraces, replacement of all floors, first floor in timber boarding and the ground floor in concrete and replacement of original features such as all stairs, fire places, doors and windows with replicated elements.
Due to the difficulty in housing building workers on the development site, the terraces were initially used as temporary accommodation until such time that sheds could be set up on concrete decks.
The approval to name the serviced apartments 'Stafford Apartments' was given in June 1988. The initial lease to 'Sydney Visitor Apartments' was to run for 15 years from 1986, with an option for another six years. The property is now part of the international Rendevous Hospitality Group and run as the Rendevous Hotel Sydney, The Rocks, which comprises 55 serviced apartments, 35 shops, commercial office space and a car park, constructed 1986-89. |