Christopher Brennan

Given that the Fellowship of Australian Writers have named the award for lifetime achievement in poetry the "Christopher Brennan Award", and that he has a building at Sydney University and a library at Riverview named after him then I think it is safe to assume that Christopher Brennan was a notable poet and scholar.  Clive James has even written quite a decent essay about him.

Brennan lived on Cambridge Street in the late 1890s.  The book "Literary Sydney: a walking guide" published in 2000 gives us the story ... 

"77 Cambridge Street.  This house was called Oceana, presumably because there were then uninterrupted views through to Rushcutters Bay.  In a letter in verse to his friend John Le Gay Brereton (a Professor at Sydney University), Brennan described how to reach the house:

     This house of ours is pitch'd upon

     the utmost spur of Paddington

     poking its nose among the Chows

     that till their cabbages in rows

     where rushes erst were cut & reeds.

While living at Cambridge Street, Brennan started working on "Lilith", a long poem in the form of a convoluted philosophical conversation between Adam and his demonic first wife. It became the climax of his major work, Poems 1913."

The photos here are from the Mitchell Library.  It is quite a palaver to request photos from their archives and they are very good about checking whether things are in or out of copyright before letting you go silly with your iPhone.   The photo at top is a studio portrait while the caption on the one above reads "Chris Brennan / photographed at 77 Cambridge Street Paddington / by H Wright".