Jack Haines

Jack Haines (pictured at left in the above photo) lived on Cambridge street in the 20s and 30s.  He made his name as a boxer and at one stage held the Australian middleweight championship title.  He is remembered for a string of bouts against Ambrose Palmer (pictured at right in the above photo) in 1930.  The first fight was described by the SMH as "one of the greatest contests witnessed for years at the Rushcutters Bay Stadium" (known in the day as the "House of Stoush") and ended in a draw, despite boxing reporter Jim Donald from Smiths Weekly giving it to Haines. 

The rematch a month later was a sellout.  Still it ended in a draw after 15 rounds.  A third bout was scheduled for after Christmas.  In the 12th round Haines complained to the referee about a low blow, but the objection was over-ruled.  Moments later he was struck by another blow and felled.  Jack ended up in St Vincents that night, suffering from a cerebral hemorrhage.  You would think that would end his career but by June 1931 he returned to the ring for "an exhibition of boxing and training at the Capitol Theatre".

For the record, Jack, listed as John Haines, lived at 24 Cambridge street.  The above is a snapshot of a Sands Directory listing from 1931.  If you are interested in some more of Jack's story you can find a lot of old articles on him on Trove.  I have copied the SMH article from 29 December 1930 below but if it is too small you can get it by searching ' "Jack Haines" Cambridge Street' on Trove.

Gurner Street story

Each week sees Bruce Crosson, of the Woollahra History and Heritage Society, contribute a short article on the history of a local street. The July 18 issue focuses on Gurner Street Paddington.  I don't think the Courier puts these on the web, at least I couldn't find it so I've copied it below.  It is a pretty good summary, although I thought the name 'Duxford Estate' was a marketing ploy to sell the subdivision (picture of the advertising was included in a previous post), the 'estate' taking its name from his house.

"John Gurner arrived in the colony in 1817, later becoming the registrar of the Supreme Court. In 1833 he was granted 7 and 1/2 acres (2.9 ha) in the "Valley of Rushcutters Bay", fronting Glenmore Rd. The property took the name Duxford Estate. He later received another eight acres (3.2 ha) south of today's Gurner St, on which he built Duxford House in 1843. Duxford House was the home of the Gurner family for a long period and became surrounded by rapid estate sub-divisions. Gurner died in 1882 but his daughters continued to live in the house until 1886 when the last died. Thomas Broughton, who owned the adjoining estate, bought the second part of Gurner's estate, including Duxford House, in 1886."

The oldest house on the street ...

Any guesses?  It is actually "Larkhall" at 53 Cambridge Street.  That is according to the Paddington Rate books.  These rate books were maintained by council and list each owner on each street and what the property is (i.e. land or house).  They contain a lot of information, usually including the resident, the assessed council value, the annual rates and the invoice number and date paid by the owner.  Given the books record financial transactions it is probably a little more reliable than the Sands Directory.  You can find them on microfiche at the Woollahra Local History centre.

Cambridge Street makes its first appearance in the rate books in 1885, following the subdivision of the Duxford estate.  Rates were paid on the value of the unimproved land.

The first two houses were built by 1886.  They were both owner occupied and include Thomas Lawler at 57 Cambridge Street and Robert Bruce at 53 Cambridge Street (although street numbers don't actually appear until the 1889 rate book, both gentlemen continued ownership through to then).  I am not sure which came first (and have speculated previously on this) but given 57 Cambridge is now the playground then 53 Cambridge wins by default.

The rate books are an interesting record to see how the street developed.  I had assumed it was built from the Gurner street end down but that is not the case.  On the east side the group of 5 terraces from 61 to 69 Cambridge Street appear to have been built by 1887 whilst its next door neighbour at 59 (Frampton) is dated 1889.  Similarly on the west side 36 to 40 Cambridge Street appear to be built by 1887, while 22 to 34 are not built until 1890.  Of the 4 houses at the end of Cambridge street (constructed by the same builder, the Allum brothers) it was 46 Cambridge that was built last (by 1890) whilst 48 to 52 Cambridge were there in 1889.

Paddington Council

The Municipality of Paddington was proclaimed in 1860.  Paddington continued to be administered by its own Council until 1949 when the Council was abolished and the Paddington was absorbed into the City of Sydney.  It remained there until 1968 when it was decided to split the suburb down Oxford street, the southern part remaining with the City of Sydney and the northern part transferring into the Municipality of Woollahra.

When Paddington Council existed it had four wards: Upper, Middle, Lower and Glenmore.  Cambridge Street was a part of the Middle Ward.  The above map from the City of Sydney archives is undated but clearly shows Cambridge Street in Middle Ward.  It is obviously old given it shows the Chinese Gardens in the place of White City and if it comes out well enough on your computer you will see there is no Lawson Street, with what is now Lawson Street being part of Alma Street which turns into Glenmore Road.  The second part of the subdivision of the Duxford Estate is also not shown on the map, with Norfolk and Suffolk streets missing.

Cambridge Street watercolour

This vintage painting is currently up for grabs here on ebay.  It quite clearly says "Cambridge St., Paddington" on it although I think there is a little bit of artistic license involved on part of the creator, given it is not an exact match for any section of the east side of the street (but it is close).  It is hard to make out the artists name so this could be a real bargain, or not.

Flyer

Well if you are checking out this site because of a little yellow flyer in your letterbox then direct marketing can work!  We started this blog to share some of the interesting things we have dug up during the research into our own home and local history study of the street.

There are only a dozen posts so far but we have enough material to post something every week into the new year although we welcome any submissions.  Thanks.

Cambridge street in the 1890s

The State Government archives has a bunch of uncatalogued old photos that they put up on Flickr to let amateur historians decipher for them.  That was how I came across these two photos after some supersleuth had correctly identified the houses on the corner of Cambridge street and Glenmore road in the top right of this image (the flickr page is here). 

The photos show the chinese market gardens that originally occupied all of Rushcutters Bay.  These were cleared in the 1890s.  Also prominent in the photo is the quarry on Cascade street and the clock tower of Paddington Town Hall. 

The link to the government archives for the photos are here and here so you can download and zoom in to see Cambridge street a little better.

Sands Directory - 1905

Here is the Sands Directory from 1905 ...

Sands Directory - 1893

Like most people I expect that most information can be accessed via the web.  To my knowledge the Sands Directory hasn't yet gone online, maybe its waiting for the NBN.  The Mitchell Library microfiche cards were the most convenient way to find out "who's been sleeping in my house" ... until now.  We will post some photos of the years here, we may even get the full set eventually.  Below is screenshots of the film for 1893.  As you can see the east side only went to 69 at the time. 

 

Cambridge street playground ...

Officially the "Cambridge Street Reserve" according to Woollahra Council, this pocket playground is located between 55 (Langlo) and 59 (Frampton).  The above photo was taken in the 1980s and is part of the Woollahra Local History centre collection. 

Regular readers will recall that 57 Cambridge street was the location of Cambridge street's first resident.  What happened to the house there and how the council came to turn it into a reserve is a bit of a mystery to me at present (and the local history centre didn't really know either).  We'll have to come back to that topic.

Looking back at that old photo I reckon, as a regular user of the playground in its current configuration, that we could do with a decent amount of pruning.

Open house - 14 Cambridge street

I am sure a lot of neighbours use an open house to a look at other terrace layouts and we are no exception.  With Di Jones running the sales campaign for 14 Cambridge street at present it was a great opportunity to see what they had done with it, which was quite a lot.  Personally, I prefer a little more period detail in places but it is clean and shiny inside and I am sure someone will be very happy there.  It is up for auction on 17 July so you've got another week or so to see it for yourself.

Of more interest was the nice little feature article that the Di Jones folk were able to get the local rag to run, so hats off to them.  It was pretty flattering regarding Cambridge street but then again that is real estate copy for you .... "Devotees of terrace houses will think they've found heaven when they walk down Cambridge St, Paddington.  Like a scene straight from an early Dickens novel, this charming street is lined top to bottom and on both sides with terraces."

From a historical perspective I think the group of terraces that 14 belongs to was first owned by James Dillon, former Mayor of Paddington, when originally built.

White City

At the bottom of Cambridge street you can see the back of the White City tennis complex.  Tennis has been played here since 1922.  Before the NSW Lawn Tennis Association moved in there was an altogether different White City here.  An amusement park.  Apparently "White City" was a style of amusement park common throughout the US, UK and Australia at the turn of the 20th century.  The enterprising chaps at the NSWLTA figured the park had done enough advertising so they kept the name when they took out the roller coaster and put the courts in.

The National Library of Australia has a pretty good digital collection of White City postcards from the time (link here), a selection of which I have posted above and below.  The scenic railway shots show some houses in the background but to my eye they aren't detailed enough to make out the corresponding streets. 

White City ran from 1913 to 1917 when the site was wrecked by a freak storm.  It had canals, a lake, fountains, a Japanese village, roller-skating, rides, high-wire artists, brass bands and side show.  Apparently the original White City carousel is now at Melbourne's Luna Park.