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Dossier : Building the Scottish Diaspora

Scottish Networks and their Buildings in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania

Les réseaux écossais et leur activité de construction sur la terre de Van Diemen et en Tasmanie
Stuart King

Abstracts

In the 1820s an increasing number of Scottish settlers arrived in the Colony of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania, Australia) to take up government land grants. At the time, they were the second largest ethnic group, after the English, and through their numbers, enterprise (typically pastoralism and trading), land ownership, and building helped shape the colonisation and Europeanisation of the island. This article outlines their influence in the built environment and proceeds to present portraits of three related Scottish-Vandemonian pastoral properties. Employing personal records and correspondence it focuses upon the motivations, ambitions, and agency of Scottish networks (familial, social and entrepreneurial) as reflected in the architecture and building of their mansions. Those networks were local, regional, and global, with active participants in Scotland, and were instrumental in the development of the mansions. The designs for these mansions (often unattributed), along with their construction, also played a role in the building of these networks. Employing the lens offered by the experience of Scottish settlers, the paper considers the interplay of empire, regions, settler networks, and buildings in Van Diemen’s Land in the first half of the nineteenth century.

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Scottish Settlers and Buildings in Van Diemen’s Land

1The early architecture of Van Diemen’s Land (colonised by the British in 1803 and renamed Tasmania in 1856) is largely known through the former penal colony’s convict infrastructure, notably, the notorious penal-industrial complex of Port Arthur (1830-1874). Less studied in architectural historiography are the mansions of the island’s early pastoral and agricultural properties established and built between the 1810s and 1840s. These were also industrial complexes, employing transported convicts as well as free labour and supplying colonial and international markets with wheat and wool, respectively, and one of the key economic drivers of the colony’s early economy. The mansions were centres of colonial enterprise and despite their popular representation as remote picturesque idylls, they were “live” actors within multifarious networks of empire.

  • 1 Henry Reynolds, A History of Tasmania, Cambridge; Port Melbourne; New York, NY: Cambridge Universi (...)
  • 2 James Boyce, Van Diemen’s Land, Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008, p. 146.
  • 3 This paper uses the term “mansion” as it was used by the people who built and discussed them in th (...)

2These properties and their mansions were concentrated along the rivers of the lightly wooded plains that stretch between the two port settlements of Hobart, in the south, and Launceston, in the north. Easily adapted for pastureland and farming, this region—known as the Midlands—is a landscape now understood as former hunting grounds cultivated by the island’s Aboriginal peoples.1 The land was alienated and the indigenous inhabitants dispossessed largely via a system of land grants, operating from 1803 to 1831. This process occurred most rapidly (and, at times, violently) between 1824 and 1831, as free colonisation gained pace.2 The colonial government awarded land to grantees—both free settlers and emancipated convicts—on the basis of their capital and capacity to “improve” the land. Improvement was primarily measured by cultivation and infrastructure, including everything from fencing, huts, and farm buildings to cottages, bungalows, and mansions. The more capital and connections grantees possessed, the more land they were granted. Land was similarly granted in urban areas for commercial and residential purposes. By the late 1820s, in both rural and urban contexts, scarcity led to rapid appreciation of its value and subsequent land speculation. Over the course of the late 1820s and 1830s the successful land holders consolidated and expanded their holdings by additional grants and purchases, and built increasingly impressive and architecturally self-conscious mansions. With new and improving markets, Port Phillip (now Victoria), across Bass Strait, was, in turn, colonised by pastoralists from Van Diemen’s Land in 1834-1835 and, in time, the mansion or “homestead” typology was re-iterated in new localities extending across the mainland Australian colonies.3

  • 4 D. S. Macmillan, Scotland and Australia 1788-1850: Emigration, Commerce and Investment, Oxford: Ox (...)
  • 5 Peter Boyce, “Britishness,” in Alison Alexander (ed.), Companion to Tasmania History, Hobart: Univ (...)
  • 6 Figures provided by Pamela Sharpe, Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Discovery (...)
  • 7 Personal correspondence with Pamela Sharpe.
  • 8 Personal correspondence with Pamela Sharpe.

3Scottish migrants have been shown to have played a significant role in the formation of the mainland Australian colonies, particularly in the area of early pastoral expansions, as well as in areas of cultural production.4 They also played a significant role in earlier colonisation and building in Van Diemen’s Land.5 Recent research by Pamela Sharpe and Wendy Roberts shows of the (identified) 976 Van Diemen’s Land grantees for the full period of the system, 1803 to 1831, 444 were of English origin and 181 (or 18%) were of Scottish origin. The number of Scots just surpassed the settlers from other Australian colonies—at the time, New South Wales (1788) and Western Australia (1828) —a group comprising of 179 grantees.6 One hundred and thirteen were Irish, fourteen Welsh, and the remainder (45) were from continental Europe, America, India, the West Indies or unknown. In addition to their number, Scottish land grantees were a very particular sub-set shaping Van Diemen’s Land’s penal-pastoral environments. Grantees across the board were a mixed group comprising officials, military officers, free settlers and emancipated convicts with varied means. The Scots, however, were overwhelmingly free setters, most from the Scottish lowlands, specifically from farming areas around Edinburgh, and departing Scotland from the Port of Leith.7 As free settlers, many had access to capital. Sharpe and Roberts further observe that as a group, Scottish settlers in Van Diemen’s Land were particularly successful in expanding their land holdings through the award of additional grants and the purchase of land from other, less successful farmers.8 Through their associated enterprise, typically pastoralism and/or trading, they accumulated capital, establishing networks and constructing communities and buildings. The impression is that the agency of Scottish settlers in the early years of the colony outweighs their overall number—especially relative to the English settlers—inviting consideration of their impact on the colony’s early built environments. This paper approaches this question through a consideration of the Vandemonian mansions of the early Scottish land grantees.

  • 9 High quality pictorial surveys, which include irregular amounts of historical information, include (...)
  • 10 Diane Brand, “An Urbane Gaol: Macquarie’s Sydney,” Journal of Urban Design, vol. 3 no. 2, 1998, p. (...)
  • 11 On the wider question of understanding Scottish contributions to British colonial architecture, in (...)
  • 12 Stuart King and Julie Willis, “Australian Colonies,” in G. A. Bremner (ed.), Architecture and Urba (...)

4Tasmania’s early to mid-nineteenth-century mansions are known primarily through pictorial publications, and some broad analysis, but have not been the subject of sustained historical analysis.9 Scottish influence in Australian colonial architecture has been dealt with sporadically but, again, not in a concerted manner.10 Whilst specialist areas, both topics have bearing on how we understand the texture of British colonial architecture as it developed in the Australian colonies.11 Tasmania’s early colonisation (1803), in terms of the Australian context, warrants individual but interrelated consideration.12

  • 13 See John M. Mackenzie, “Scots and the Environment of Empire,” in John M. Mackenzie and T. M. Devin (...)
  • 14 On Scotland’s improved farmhouses see Daniel Maudlin, The Highland House Transformed: Architecture (...)
  • 15 “Clarendon and Outbuildings, 205 Clarendon Rd, Gretna, TAS, Australia,” Australian Heritage Databa (...)
  • 16 On the McLeods see Eric Richards, “Scottish Networks and Voices in Colonial Australia,” in Angela (...)
  • 17 Malcom Ward, Maureen Martin Ferris and Tully Brooks, Houses and Estates of Old Glamorgan, Swansea, (...)

5As in other British colonies, Scottish pastoralists in Van Diemen’s Land expressed connections to “home” almost always naming their land grants and houses after parishes, properties and families in Scotland.13 Scottish architectural and building practices were also translated particularly through the transposition of Scottish farmhouse models associated with agricultural improvement that had transformed Scotland’s rural landscapes in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.14 As in Scotland, this was not a nostalgic choice so much as one of familiar architectural forms and techniques undergirded by notions of modernity and propriety accompanying agricultural improvement. In Van Diemen’s Land from the early 1820s, improved Scottish farmhouses based upon symmetrical rectangular plans, typically three bays and two storey masonry structures, with gabled ends incorporating chimneys were being constructed by Scottish settlers. They were austere buildings but any ornamental treatment was classically-derived. They comprise a distinct and uniform group, at times, with details such as gabled skews (low parapets to gable ends) and pronounced window margins more specifically associated with the agency of Scottish lowland masons. For example, the gabled farmhouse type with broad chimneys and skews can be found at Pituncarty on the Macquarie River, built in 1825 by Arthur Buist, formerly of Fifeshire, Scotland (fig. 1). A second example is the gabled dolerite house Clarendon in the Derwent Valley, commenced in 1821 for William Borrodaile Wilson of Scottish heritage (fig. 2).15 At Clarendon, the outbuildings were also grouped in a walled yard—another indicator of the influence of Scottish agricultural improvement. Brothers Robert and Thomas Pitcairn, lawyer and farmer respectively, migrated from Edinburgh in 1824 and built a tall three-bay farm house with a transverse gable and a long, trailing skillion at their combined property in the Nile Valley (farmed by Thomas Pitcairn) in the late 1820s or early 1830s (fig. 3). Major Donald McLeod from Talisker in Skye, Scotland, who was granted land on the South Esk River in 1820, also used a three-bay, transverse gable and skillion for his home Glendessary built in the late 1830s.16 Glendessary was likewise three-bays and two storeys at the front with a transverse gable that extended to a long skillion at the rear and with a vernacular aspect. John Amos and his sons migrated to Van Diemen’s Land from the Herriot/Gattonside area southeast of Edinburgh in 1820. They subsequently accrued capital and in the late 1830s secured a 1000-acre land grant on the colony’s east coast and built two houses.17 For John Amos, Cranbrook House: a three-bay double-storey with gabled ends incorporating broad chimneys, and, at this time, elaborated with an elliptical arched entrance and expressed quoining (fig. 4); and for his son James: Craigie Knowe, a more modest version thereof.

Figure 1: Pituncarty, near Campbell Town, Tasmania, built c.1825. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 1: Pituncarty, near Campbell Town, Tasmania, built c.1825. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/70.

Figure 2: Clarendon, Gretna, Tasmania, built early-1820s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 2: Clarendon, Gretna, Tasmania, built early-1820s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/148.

Figure 3: Nile Farm, Deddington, Tasmania, built in late-1820s-1830s.

Figure 3: Nile Farm, Deddington, Tasmania, built in late-1820s-1830s.

Source: Stuart King, 2017.

Figure 4: Cranbrook House, Cranbrook, Tasmania, c.1838. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 4: Cranbrook House, Cranbrook, Tasmania, c.1838. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/101.

  • 18 Thomas Scott (ed.), Life of Captain Andrew Barclay of Cambock, near Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land. (...)
  • 19 Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 26 January 1827, p. 2.
  • 20 On Evandale, see Keith Adkins, “Scottish Enlightenment Ideals and Traditions in Colonial Tasmania, (...)
  • 21 St Andrew’s Evandale has not previously been attributed to James Thomson. It is proposed here on t (...)
  • 22 Concerning the purported Scottish-ness of the type, see Joan Kerr, Gothick Taste in the Colony of (...)

6However, the Scottish-ness of most Vandemonian buildings by Scots was beneath the surface, particularly when settler pastoralists embarked upon the construction of a second generation of mansions from the late 1820s and on the proceeds of the economic boom of the 1830s. In these increasingly ambitious buildings Scottish-ness rests in questions of agency rather than form and/or technique and is overlooked in formal and technical analysis. These Scottish buildings employed the norms of Georgian and Regency styles prevailing in the colony typically interpreted through single or (more likely) double-storey hipped (not gabled) volumes, often formalised with parapeted facades and an increasing use of classical ornament in the 1830s. Localised variations emerged especially in the use of materials—brick in the north and stone in the south. They include some of the colony’s most ambitious and pretentious mansions from the late 1820s, for example: the five-bay double-storey Cambock, Evandale (c.1828) for Captain Andrew Barclay (ex-Cambock, Fifeshire) (fig. 5); for Allan Mackinnon (ex-Skye), the sharply detailed Dalness, Evandale (c.1839) (fig. 6); for David Gibson (ex-Aberuthven, Perthshire) Pleasant Banks, Evandale (c. late-1830s), described by the press as a “splendid mansion” estimated to cost an impressive £10,000; Douglas Park, Campbell Town (c.1830s) for Dr Temple Pearson (a retired army doctor, ex-Douglas), comprising five bays, double storey and with parapeted facades and an Ionic portico; Ballochmyle, near Tunbridge (c. late-1830s), for James Maclanachan (ex-Muirkirk, Ayrshire) (fig. 7); and, to be discussed in this paper, Black Marsh (now Strathbarton), Lower Marshes (1841-58) for Philip Russell (ex-Fifeshire). Biographies indicate that these mansions were built upon pastoral and entrepreneurial successes, in part, achieved by drawing upon Scottish identities and business and social connections from Scotland, connections formed en route to Van Diemen’s Land, and/or developed after arrival in the colony.18 Russell and Maclanachan relied upon Scottish expertise to build their mansions, employing the Scottish migrant Andrew Bell, seemingly a Scottish lowlands mason, and one of the colony’s most prominent builders in the 1820s and 1830s.19 These landowners also fostered Scottish communities and disseminated Scottish values in early Midlands settlements like Evandale, Bothwell, Campbell Town, and Tunbridge (as well as Hobart and Launceston) through the establishment and building of Scottish Presbyterian churches and chapels as well as schools and subscription libraries.20 Such buildings include the Grecian styled St John’s church, Hobart, and St Andrew’s church and presbytery, Evandale (1839-1840) (fig. 8), both adaptations of the design for a Grecian Chapel in Peter Nicholson’s New Practical Builder (1823), and likely designed by the same architect, the Scottish-trained decorative painter-cum-architect, engineer, and surveyor-builder, James Alexander Thomson (ex-Haddington).21 More modest constructions include the Presbyterian Chapel in Tunbridge, funded by James Maclanachan and employing a Scottish model in a single-sided chapel.22

Figure 5: Cambock, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1828 (dem.). Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 5: Cambock, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1828 (dem.). Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/122.

Figure 6: Dalness, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1839. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 6: Dalness, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1839. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/127.

Figure 7: Ballochmyle, Tunbride, Tasmania, built c. late 1830s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 7: Ballochmyle, Tunbride, Tasmania, built c. late 1830s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/450.

Figure 8: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Evandale, Tasmania, built 1839-1840.

Figure 8: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Evandale, Tasmania, built 1839-1840.

Source: Stuart King, 2018.

  • 23 Eric Ratcliff, A Far Microcosm: Building and Architecture in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania, op. c (...)
  • 24 John Lowrey, “Caesarea to Athens: Greek Revival Edinburgh and the Question of Scottish Identity wi (...)

7These networks and layers of Scottish agency effecting the built environment in the early years of the colony might also be detected in the career trajectory of the abovementioned James Thomson.23 Thomson arrived in Van Diemen’s Land as a convict, found guilty of theft and transported in 1825. In 1827, his qualifications—recorded as a decorative painter—saw him assigned to the Office of the Colonial Architect & Engineer (established in 1827, following the appointment and arrival of the incumbent John Lee Archer) from 1827 to 1832, prior to practicing variously as an architect, engineer, surveyor and builder (independently and in partnerships) through to the 1850s. He was one of a handful of practicing architects in the period. Whilst designing in a range of picturesque styles, the mainstay of Thomson’s practice was an austere Grecian mode realised across a variety of villas, commercial, and ecclesiastical buildings in the 1830s and 1840s (fig. 9). From Haddington, just outside of Edinburgh, and likely trained in the 1820s, Thomson would no doubt have absorbed the consolidation of the Greek Revival as an almost “national style” in Edinburgh as it was being re-imagined as the “Athens of the North” in the 1820s.24

8Excepting considerations of his impressive Egyptianate Hobart Synagogue (1843-1845), the jury is out on the architectural merits of Thomson’s work and his reputation, historiographically, which falls back to his professional redemption from convictism. One of the problems of the narrative is that it circumvents full consideration of Thomson’s Scottish heritage and its potential implications for his career. Unexamined is the extent to which Thomson’s Scottish background, identity, and associated networks supported his success in practice and, in the process, inflected an emergent architectural discourse in the colony.

Figure 9: New Town Park, Hobart, Tasmania, built c.1835. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 9: New Town Park, Hobart, Tasmania, built c.1835. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/206.

The Agency of Scottish Networks

  • 25 G. A. Bremner, “The Expansion of England? Rethinking Scotland’s place in the architectural history (...)
  • 26 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria, Austr (...)
  • 27 AngelaMcCarthy, “Scottish Migrant Ethnic Identities in the British Empire since the Nineteenth Cen (...)

9G. A. Bremner has recently argued for wider consideration of the nature of the Scottish contribution in former British colonies, looking beyond “Scottish models” and “aesthetic continuities” and towards operations and agency of Scottish migrants effecting architectural production.25 He highlights Harriet Edquist’s work on the architectural legacy of Scottish pastoralists in the Western Districts of Victoria, initially colonised via Van Diemen’s Land in the 1830s, and their contribution to the development of the Australian pastoral homestead type in that region between the 1840s and 1880s.26 Edquist’s analysis surfaces the carriage and coalescence of family, social, and business networks among the Scottish diaspora (a well-documented phenomenon27) supporting the architecture of their Western District homesteads.

10Edquist’s argument provides a point of departure for this article which is centred in Van Diemen’s Land, where the mansion/homestead type was developed prior to its transference to Victoria. It offers close scrutiny of three related pastoral properties in Van Diemen’s Land—Dennistoun, Ratho and Black Marsh—developed by a group of Scottish migrants who arrived in the colony in the early 1820s, subsequently establishing a joint stock pastoral enterprise known as the Clyde Company. It focuses in particular upon the motivations, ambitions, and agency of Scottish networks (familial, social and entrepreneurial) as reflected in the building and architecture of these three mansions. Those networks were local, trans-regional, and global, and were instrumental in the mansions’ development. The article contends that the design (often unattributed) and construction of these buildings similarly played a role in establishing and maintaining the networks.

  • 28 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1941-1978, 7 vols.
  • 29 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1941, vol. 1, p. 4. W (...)

11Between 1941 and 1978, P. L. Brown progressively published Clyde Company Papers, seven volumes of raw, edited and interpreted personal and business records tracing the associates, foundation, operations, and dissolution of the Clyde Company between 1821 and 1873.28 The volumes commence with the migration of Captain Patrick Wood from Elie, Fife, and a former East India Company Officer; Philip Russell, a tenant farmer in Fife, who accompanied Wood as his prospective farm manager and. Alexander Reid, third son of a landed proprietor from Ratho, near Edinburgh, is also covered. He was an unsuccessful businessman in Leith, migrating with his family—his wife Mary (nee Muirhead) and two children Jane and Alexander—to Van Diemen’s Land on the Castle Forbes from Leith in 1821.29 Wood, Russell, and the Reids arrived in Hobart on 22 March 1822, selecting and securing land grants along and near the Clyde (formerly Fat Doe) River which wends its way through a highland plateau (a region to become known as the Upper Clyde), approximately forty-eight miles north of Hobart. Within six weeks they were building in the Upper Clyde.

  • 30 Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History, Princeton: Princeton Un (...)

12The personal records and correspondence in Clyde Company Papers provide a means of reconstituting the relationships and experiences of Patrick Wood, Philip Russell, Alexander Reid and their families variously in Scotland, India, Van Diemen’s Land and, later, Port Phillip. Throughout there are direct and indirect references to building and architecture, shedding light on the interplay between their familial, business, and social networks and the building of their Vandemonian properties and mansions. Intertwined are themes of Scottish identity, connections, and trust. Approaching architectural history via the lives of those who built them—a group of Scottish emigrants, whose shared lives traversed the British Empire—follows the work of historians examining the interconnections of empire through the travels and endeavours of families and individuals, such as Emma Rothschild’s The Inner Life of Empires.30 This article is thus a preliminary testing of a way in which we might re-approach Australia’s early colonial architecture (where architects and architectural records are few) and resituate it within imperial and colonial webs. First, then, the building of Patrick Wood’s residence Dennistoun, and how Dennistoun helped build Scottish networks (fig. 10).

Dennistoun

  • 31 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 4.
  • 32 “James Dennistoun of Golfhill,” Legacies of British Slave-ownership database. URL:http://wwwdepts- (...)
  • 33 Brown notes that “Captain Wood owed much to the firm’s support.” See P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Comp (...)

13Patrick Wood was a Scot born to a merchant family in Elie, Fife, in 1783. At sixteen he joined the East India Company as a cadet and quickly rose through the ranks, promoted to lieutenant in 1800 and captain in 1805. In 1810 he was involved in the British capture of Mauritius. In 1811 he returned to Scotland, and failing to gain a placement in the Peninsular War, retired from military service in 1814 and travelled to America where he “spent some years in commerce.”31 He returned to Scotland in 1820 with thoughts of emigrating to the Australian colonies, a prospect no doubt influenced by his family’s history of colonial enterprise: his great grandfather and grandfather had both traded in the West Indies and a paternal uncle had emigrated to Saint Kitts. The marriage of his elder and younger brothers (John and Walter Wood) to two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary Dennistoun, respectively, connected Wood to Elizabeth and Mary’s father James Dennistoun of Golfhill, Glasgow. Dennistoun was a founder of the Glasgow Bank and a partner, with his brother Alexander, in the mercantile firm J. & A. Dennistoun which traded globally, including in cotton in New Orleans.32 J. & A. Dennistoun invested in Wood’s plans.33 On 27 August 1821, provisioned with capital, equipment, and accompanied by a contingent of labourers, including a mason, carpenter, shepherd, ploughman, and household servants, Patrick Wood departed from Leith on the Castle Forbes bound for Van Diemen’s Land.

Figure 10: Dennistoun House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.

Figure 10: Dennistoun House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania, SD ILS:672897.

  • 34 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid),” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Pa (...)
  • 35 On Wood’s naming of Dennistoun in recognition of J. & A. Dennistoun’s financial support, see P. L. (...)

14Once in Hobart, Wood’s connections, capital, equipment, and labours entitled him to a land grant of 2000 acres and an assignment of up to twenty convict servants to be employed exclusively on the land for the duration of their respective terms of transportation. With land, labour, and provisions, Wood’s party proceeded to the Upper Clyde and within a short period of time had built initial accommodation comprising a long range of single-room apartments using turf construction with thatched roofs, earthen floors, and blankets in lieu of doors.34 He named the property Dennistoun, linking his land to his family and investors in Glasgow.35

  • 36 “Captain Wood to Governor Brisbane, 6 October 1823,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, o (...)
  • 37 Ibid., p. 29.
  • 38 Anne Mckay (ed.), Journals of the Land Commissioners, Hobart: University of Tasmania; Tasmanian Hi (...)
  • 39 Ibid., p. 42.
  • 40 James Ross, “Descriptive Itinerary of Van Diemen’s Land,” (1830) quoted in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyd (...)

15In late 1823, Wood wrote to the New South Wales Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, another Scotsman, noting: “I am not succeeding in improving so rapidly as might have been expected from the number of Free Men and Convicts and the capital that has been employed; but in a new country many unexpected circumstances occasion delay, which steady perseverance will alone overcome.”36 In the shadow of the island’s western ranges, rainfall was proving insufficient to support the planting of European grasses to graze and expand stock, necessitating the leasing and, later, purchase of additional land.37 Nonetheless, by 1826 the Land Commissioners could report that Wood’s property was largely cleared, fenced, and stocked with “many thousands” of sheep and imported Fifeshire cattle.38 Within the same period of time, Wood had built a “capital” stone house with “well-finished” interiors, built by the Scottish mason Andrew Bell and carpenter William Lambe, who had both accompanied Wood from Leith.39 Architecturally, the house presented plainly; yet, by the standards of the first-generation cottages and bungalows of the early 1820s—typically rubble or timber-framed, sometimes brick-nogged—it conveyed pretensions of permanence with ashlar façades, a commanding hipped roof, and the conceit of paired, diagonally-oriented chimneys. In 1828, Wood married Jane Patterson, a fellow-passenger from the Castle Forbes whose family also migrated from Scotland and settled in the Upper Clyde. Their first child, John Dennistoun Wood, was born the following year. During this time, capital, construction, and kinship established Dennistoun as a centre within a web of Vandemonian Scottish emigrants. Each year the passengers of the Castle Forbes gathered at the mansion to celebrate the anniversary of their arrival in the colony and, by 1830, James Ross’s “Descriptive Itinerary of Van Diemen’s Land” could refer to the “hospitable mansion of Capt. Wood” as an entrée to an account of the Upper Clyde.40

16Wood’s hospitality at Dennistoun extended to supporting the migration of Philip Russell’s brothers George, Robert, William, and Alexander, all variously involved in building the mansion, property, and a trans-regional pastoral enterprise spanning Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip across Bass Strait (later to become the Colony of Victoria). In 1830, Philip Russell’s half-brother, George Russell, emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land and effectively served an apprenticeship in colonial farming at Dennistoun under Philip’s supervision before leasing another property in the district owned by Wood. Called Rothiemay, this was one of several properties that Wood had acquired by this stage. With his Vandemonian properties overseen by the Russells, Patrick Wood and family visited Britain for approximately three years, being away from 1834 to early 1837. While away Wood kept abreast of developments in the Australian colonies, including the formation of the Port Phillip Association (initially the Geelong and Dutigalla Association) in 1835, which accelerated the settler invasion of Port Phillip from Van Diemen’s Land. Seeing opportunity, Wood thus secured Scottish investors, including J. & A. Dennistoun, to establish the Clyde Company for the purposes of pastoral enterprise in Port Phillip, before returning to Van Diemen’s Land. Wood made Philip Russell a partner, and appointed George Russell as manager in Port Phillip for five years, commencing on 1 January 1837.

  • 41 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 12 May 1837,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Londo (...)
  • 42 P. L. Brown, Narrative of George Russell of Golf Hill with Russellania and Selected Papers, op. ci (...)

17When the Woods returned to Van Diemen’s Land in February 1837, they brought with them Philip Russell’s brother, Rev. Robert Russell. He arrived as tutor for the Woods’ children, but clearly with a view to a ministry of the Scottish Presbyterian Church. He was soon preaching temporarily, at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Hobart, and within a short period of time he was appointed the Presbyterian minister in the northern district of Evandale, home to another concentration of Scottish settlers. In the meantime, he was engaged in refurbishing Dennistoun. Commenting on the undertaking, Philip Russell noted the mansion was “again being pulled to pieces,” suggesting ongoing work, no doubt spurred on this occasion by the Woods recent experiences abroad.41 The nature and extent of the iterative re-makings of the house is unknown but, eventually, there were verandahed wings that fully enclosed a rear garden courtyard indicating the building of space for services, family, and hospitality (fig. 11). However, in November 1837 Jane Wood died in childbirth and, in 1838, Patrick Wood returned to Scotland to live. He nonetheless actively maintained his Australian interests, supported by his relationship with the Russell family and, in 1839, enticed William Russell to emigrate to Van Diemen’s Land as his tenant at Dennistoun. Alexander Russell also emigrated from Scotland in 1841, arriving in Van Diemen’s Land where he spent several months at Dennistoun, before joining George Russell in Port Phillip.42

Figure 11: Dennistoun Courtyard, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.

Figure 11: Dennistoun Courtyard, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania, SD ILS:672898.

18Given the sequence of events, it is tempting to suggest that the architecture of the Dennistoun mansion, commodious albeit plain, reflects pastoral ambitions of the early 1820s and 1830s overtaken by family circumstance. However, events and shifting circumstances were dynamic aspects of the interconnected familial, social, and economic networks that generated Vandemonian pastoral mansions such as Dennistoun. The making and the unmaking of mansions over the course of the 1820s and 1830s was not simply a simulacrum of a Scottish migrant networks; it was an active part of it.

Ratho

  • 43 A. F. Pike, “Reid, Alexander (1783–1858),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of (...)

19The networks of connection and cooperation coalescing at Dennistoun intersect with other geographies, networks, and social experiences in nearby Ratho, built by the Reid family across the 1820s and 1830s (fig. 12). Alexander Reid (1783-1858) was born to a family that worked their own property, Ratho Bank in the parish of Ratho, near Edinburgh. However, that property was to pass to his eldest brother George, forcing Alexander to pursue a career in business. In 1805 he formed a partnership and merchant business Liddell & Reid which operated until 1814 when it became bankrupt. In the meantime, Alexander had married Mary Muirhead (b.1789), from the Clyde district in Scotland, and their first daughter, Jane (1814-1897), was born. With the assistance of relatives, Alexander Reid had sufficiently rebuilt his livelihood and ambitions for the family to emigrate to Van Diemen’s Land in 1820, equipped with some capital, a prospective farm overseer, and some farming and business experience.43 It is unclear if he knew Patrick Wood prior to boarding the Castle Forbes, but by the time Van Diemen’s Land was starboard they were close.

Figure 12: Ratho, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (with later additions, undated).

Figure 12: Ratho, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (with later additions, undated).

Source: Stuart King, 2018.

20Indeed, new communities coalesced in the close quarters of the Castle Forbes, and the houses to accommodate them were being collectively imagined and planned on board. These communities and homes were soon to be transplanted in Van Diemen’s Land. Later in life, Jane Williams (nee Reid) recollected:

  • 44 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid)” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Pap (...)

Six long months passed away before we came in sight of Van Diemen’s Land […] The time on board was chiefly occupied by the gentlemen in reading works on agriculture, drawing plans of mansions (never destined to appear in any other form), and talking over the readiest and shortest mode of making their fortunes—displaying their love of country by always taking it for granted that in a certain given number of years they would return to spend their wealth in their native land. Several architects who were among the passengers without doubt were the most busily engaged of any in the ship. One lady insisted that her house should be exactly on the plan of that she had left behind in the Canongate, with the simple addition of a large ballroom—for she had several daughters! Another would content himself with a cottage ornee; but no mention was ever made of that description of architecture the only kind that all were destined to be acquainted with for many years—namely a mud or turf hut.44

  • 45 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid),” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Pa (...)
  • 46 Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, CSO 1/88/1954, quoted in Edward Graeme(...)
  • 47 “Mrs Reid to Mrs Williams, 15 March 1834,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (n (...)

21Upon disembarking the Castle Forbes, the Reid family—Alexander, Mary, their son, James, and daughter, Jane—resided in Hobart for approximately six weeks while selecting land. This was chosen by Philip Russell while choosing land for Patrick Wood, and was also located on the Clyde River. They then made their way to the Upper Clyde, naming their land Ratho after Alexander Reid’s father’s property Ratho Bank in Scotland. Upon arrival, the Reid’s were first accommodated in the freshly built huts at Dennistoun while a two-room turf and thatch hut was constructed at Ratho.45 A hut for servants was next constructed enabling Reid to realise his assignment of convict labour and within a few years they were all replaced by stone, sawn timber, and log constructions. In 1828 Reid was able to describe a stone and shingle-roofed dwelling house, forty feet by thirty feet, built by Andrew Bell, the Scottish mason who had accompanied Wood’s party from Leith.46 The house was oriented in a northerly direction, fronting a bend in the nearby Clyde River with long views across the landholding up the river valley towards the mountains. Reid’s description of the property further indicates that the rear of the dwelling comprised stone outbuildings—a storeroom, milk house, kitchen and “outer building” —framing a rear courtyard, twenty feet wide. To the east, on slightly lower ground, separate from the house, were the working buildings whose construction indicated the hierarchies of investment in the property’s infrastructure: a stable and wool shed, constructed of sawn timber and lined with weather boards; a servants’ “hut” constructed of logs finished with lathe and plaster; and a barn, simply constructed of logs. Improvements to the property continued and, by 1834, the main house had been expanded by two rooms. The log servants’ hut and barn were replaced by “very nice” brick buildings, and fencing lost in fires was also being rebuilt. These improvements were aesthetic as well as pragmatic, and whilst Mrs Reid worried that her husband “expended too much” on the property, she admired the “very nice order” he had created.47

  • 48 Nicholas Clements, The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania, St Lucia, QLD: University (...)
  • 49 Henry Reynolds, History of Tasmania, op. cit. (note 1), p. 92-94.
  • 50 “Report of the Land Board upon the letter of Mr Reid of Bothwell for additional land, 24 January 1 (...)
  • 51 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1831), in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, o (...)
  • 52 Henry Reynolds, History of Tasmania, op. cit. (note 1), p. 179.
  • 53 Ibid, (note 1), p. 179.

22The improvements at Dennistoun and Ratho tracked developments across the colony, as rural properties and communities were consolidated and translated architecturally. By the late 1820s the colony’s most accessible pastoral and agricultural land had been alienated through the system of land grants, driving further “improvement” and, for those with capital such as Patrick Wood, the expansion and consolidation of land holdings. The process entailed the total dispossession of the island’s Aboriginal people. At its height was a period of violent conflict known as the “Black War,” between 1824 and 1831, which ultimately secured the colony’s frontiers, including in the Upper Clyde.48 A rising English wool market in the early 1830s, coupled with the creation of new regional markets for livestock and agricultural produce following the formation of the colonies of Western Australia (1829), South Australia, (1836) and the district of Port Phillip (1834-1835), provided the economic drivers.49 In the scheme of things, Alexander Reid’s land holdings were modest, but still increasing: his original land grant of 2000 acres was added to with an additional government grant of 560 acres (1828) and a further 1000 acres (1831).50 In 1831 he recouped more than double former prices for his wool on English markets.51 An emerging social life shared by the colony’s prospering landholders via the formation of social institutions, events, and a culture of visiting (in other words, informal networks) provided the social drivers.52 As noted by historian Henry Reynolds, and evident in Jane William’s recollections of plans, including house plans being made on the Castle Forbes en route to Van Diemen’s Land, immigration was undertaken with “the intention of maintaining or improving their social position and if possible emulating in the New World the life of the more prosperous British landowners.”53 The aesthetic and architectural improvement of properties and mansions provided both a setting and a register for social positioning.

  • 54 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1830), in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, o (...)
  • 55 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams, 24 June 1834,” ibid., p. 195.
  • 56 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1831), ibid., p. 129.

23Correspondence between members of the Reid family when Jane (nee Reid) Williams was in India, from 1830 to 1834, reveal their social consciousness. Alexander and Mary Reid’s letters provide commentary on the accruing wealth of the district and individuals, including Patrick Wood and Philip Russell, capturing the unfolding of colonialism. In 1830 Alexander Reid wrote to Jane Williams of events, including the “Black War” and the laying of the foundation stone for the Church of St Luke, which was to serve both the Presbyterian and Church of England congregations.54 They shared local gossip and provided a reconnoitre of building activity in the locality, including increasingly self-conscious buildings such as the Grecian-cum-Italianate Wentworth House (c.1831-1833), including its expansion by new owners (c.1834-36) which involved amplifying the Grecian ornamental detail (fig. 13). The aforementioned Scotsman James Thomson, who was soliciting architectural work within the Midlands pastoral communities at the time, is a likely designer. “You would see immense improvements in the Colony every where since you left, from Hobart town to Bothwell,”55 Alexander wrote, observing that even “some of the small fry” were building stone and brick mansions and houses.56 In return, Jane offered her family occasional observations of architecture and building techniques in India.

Figure 13: Wentworth House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1831-36. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Figure 13: Wentworth House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1831-36. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.

Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/31.

  • 57 “Mrs Williams Journal,” 23 September & 6 October 1836, in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, (...)
  • 58 “Mrs Williams to Mr and Mrs Reid, 31 October 1836,” ibid., p. 31.
  • 59 Ibid., p. 38.
  • 60 “Mrs Williams Journal, 5 November 1836,” ibid., p. 33.
  • 61 Ibid., p. 33.
  • 62 “Mrs Williams to Mrs Reid, 31 October 1836,” ibid., p. 32.

24Upon returning to Van Diemen’s Land in 1834, Jane Williams, widowed, made Ratho her home and participated within the social life of the island’s emergent landed gentry. In 1836 she spent six weeks in the fertile north of the colony, visiting families and admiring their properties, including the Willis family at Wanstead (built in 1827) with its “beautiful grounds and lovely scenery […] all in keeping with the fine scenes of nature around,”57 the Weston family at Hythe (1831, dem.), a double storey Regency villa with Grecian details, which she described as “the most gentleman like place (Wanstead excepted),”58 declaring “their drawing room is the handsomest […] in the country,”59 and the Archers at Woolmers, overlooking beautiful plains “more English than any thing I’ve see.”60 At the time, the house at Woolmers (built in 1819) comprised a large single-storey, timber-framed and verandahed structure which Jane appraised based on her experiences in both India and Van Diemen’s Land. She noted in her journal that it “is beautifully fitted up, but is like a bungala rather than the residence of a man worth 15,000£ a year.”61 A fashionable Italianate refurbishment of the house and outbuildings was still seven years away. For Jane, the prosperity and properties represented an almost foreign transformation of the colony’s northern midlands district: “their houses are so large & so handsomely furnished that really it does not seem as if we were in this country.”62

  • 63 Ibid., p. 38.

25Within these social webs of an emerging pastoral elite, Ratho received its most significant embellishment in the form of a Grecian colonnade, with Ionic columns fashioned from tree trunks supporting a timber entablature, cornice, and parapets. The colonnade provided a formal front of the house and wrapped the western corner of the building such that the drawing room was fully sheltered and its views of the property framed by the ionic columns (fig. 14). It clearly was not constructed at the time of the house and is not mentioned in any accounts of the property in the 1820s, nor in family correspondence in the early 1830s. It was, therefore, likely constructed in the mid-1830s following Jane’s return from India, and within the context of a culture of increasingly self-conscious social and architectural representation amongst the colony’s pastoralists. The interior of the drawing room was being updated and repapered in 1836, suggesting a possible period of work on the dwelling.63

Figure 14: Sketch of Ratho Farm in 1840, by Elisabeth Hudspeth.

Figure 14: Sketch of Ratho Farm in 1840, by Elisabeth Hudspeth.

Source: Private collection.

26There is sufficient fidelity within the entablature, along with a hint of historical architectural awareness in the knotted columns, to suggest professional involvement, and, if the dates are correct, James Thomson emerges as a possible designer. Yet it was Alexander Reid, Mary Reid, and Jane Williams’ engagement in informal networks of family, along with the social settings of colonial situations, starting at the wharves of the British Isles, that shaped improvement at Ratho.

Black Marsh

  • 64 P. L. Brown, “Russell, George (1812–1888),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of (...)
  • 65 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 5.
  • 66 Ibid., p. 5.
  • 67 From 1826 to 1836 Philip Russell was in partnership with another Scot, Andrew Downie, leasing land (...)
  • 68 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams, 24 June 1834,” op. cit. (note 29), p. 195.

27The multiple motivations and ambitions within an evolving settler network of Scots are revealed in the later building of Philip Russell’s Black Marsh mansion (1841-1858) (fig. 15). Philip Russell (1796-1844) was the son of a tenant farmer in Fife, Scotland, and grew up with both an education and some agricultural training, but without the opportunity of an independent land holding in Scotland—something which Van Diemen’s Land could offer.64 In Scotland he had a connection to Patrick Wood (through the marriage of relatives),65 and at the age of twenty-four agreed to emigrate as Wood’s prospective farm manager, along with a clear intent to develop his own and his family’s interests.66 On arrival in Van Diemen’s Land he was granted 500 acres in the Clyde Valley, though without river frontage, and subsequently leased and purchased more fertile land on the Jordan River, referred to as Black Marsh, which he cropped for fattening his sheep for the Hobart meat market. His Clyde and Jordan River properties appear to have been working in tandem. As he accrued capital, Philip Russell leased additional land, independently and in partnership with another Scot, Andrew Downie, who had migrated in 1822.67 The partnership (1826-1836) proved successful. It assisted Downie in consolidating his own property in the Derwent Valley, Thornhill (later Glenelg), which included the acquisition of William Borrodaile Wilson’s property and house, Clarendon. Within the same period Philip Russell had acquired further land holdings (some 4000 acres) yielding an annual income in the range of £800 to £900.68 In 1836 Philip Russell had become a partner, with Patrick Wood and other Scottish investors, in the Clyde Company, extending his interests across Bass Strait. He also married Sophia Jennings around this time. Nonetheless, Philip Russell continued as Wood’s farm manager until 1839 when his brother William Russell migrated from Scotland as Wood’s tenant at Dennistoun, freeing him to focus on his own interests, including the Clyde Company and the management of his Van Diemen’s Land properties.

Figure 15: Strathbarton (formerly Black Marsh), Lower Marshes, Tasmania, built 1841-1858. Source: Stuart King, 2018.

Figure 15: Strathbarton (formerly Black Marsh), Lower Marshes, Tasmania, built 1841-1858. Source: Stuart King, 2018.
  • 69 P. L. Brown (ed.), Narrative of George Russell of Golf Hill with Russellania and Selected Papers, (...)

28From the mid-1830s Philip Russell had occupied a modest cottage he had purchased in Bothwell and travelled in his gig between the properties he managed.69 He eschewed investment in a mansion, instead focusing on building his land and stock. However, when he did build on his Black Marsh property in 1841, it was a double-storey, twenty-room mansion matching the scale of the more ambitious Vandemonian mansions of the late 1830s. Whilst it appears to be a material expression of individual colonial success—the mansion of a pastoralist at the peak of his enterprise—it was a personally vexed undertaking. It was commenced on the cusp of the 1840s economic depression across the Australian colonies, at the moment Philip departed for a two-year visit to Britain from 1841 to 1843. The undertaking ultimately involved three brothers in Van Diemen’s Land (Philip, William and Russell) and impinged upon Alexander’s ambitions to secure property in Port Phillip.

  • 70 “William Russell to George Russell, 22 February 1841,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, (...)
  • 71 Ibid., p. 25-26.

29During Philip and Sophia Russell’s absence, William Russell was responsible for their affairs including the construction of the mansion. Little can be gleaned of his building credentials and it is highly likely that the experience and counsel of Robert Russell would have influenced the design. Based in Evandale in the north of the colony since 1838, he was living in the newly built mansion, Pleasant Banks, belonging to the Scottish pastoralist and sponsor of the Evandale Presbyterian Church, David Gibson. In 1840-1841, as plans were being made for Black Marsh, Robert Russell was also overseeing the construction of a manse for himself in Evandale, having recently completed the construction of the new St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Evandale (1839-1840), which he commissioned and superintended, in parallel with chapels in the outlying districts of his ministry in Nile (1840) and Whitehills (1840). He was a frequent visitor to the Upper Clyde and was present immediately prior to Philip and Sophia Russell’s departure for Scotland in February 1841.70 He similarly maintained close contact with William Russell and was visiting in April/May 1841, as construction commenced.71

  • 72 Ibid., p. 26.
  • 73 Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 26 January 1827, p. 2.

30No records confirm the identity of an architect, professional or otherwise; however, the builder is known through correspondence: Andrew Bell, the Scottish stone mason who had immigrated with Patrick Wood and built Dennistoun and Ratho.72 In the intervening years Bell had established himself as one of the colony’s pre-eminent builders, reputed by the press in Hobart to be responsible for some of the colony’s “chief architectural ornaments.”73 By the late 1830s they included both commissioned and speculative projects, among them the Ballochmyle mansion for James Maclanachan, built before the commencement of Black Marsh, and then the Green Ponds Inn for William Ellis. The three shared certain characteristics. All had Tuscan porches, as well as particular details including quoining, window margins, and mouldings, evincing Bell’s agency within the network across twenty years. Indeed, Black Marsh carried both individual and collective expertise, experiences, and aspirations that were brought to bear on the building.

  • 74 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 9 December 1842,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, o (...)

31Construction was protracted and ongoing when Philip and Sophia Russell returned to Van Diemen’s Land in November 1842. By this time economic conditions had tightened and the Clyde Company’s prospects were temporarily faltering (although without failing), and Philip Russell lamented the financial drain of the “extravagant” construction.74 In February he wrote to George Russell:

  • 75 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 1 February 1843,” ibid., p. 302.

My expences [sic] home, and the expence of building an absurd House, has involved me in difficulties that will require a considerable time before I can extricate myself.75

32In further letters he communicated a growing despondency, no doubt heightened by his ill-health, holding William Russell to account for his architectural excess:

  • 76 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 28 March 1843,” ibid., p. 308.

I never had a more gloomy prospect before me then [sic] at present. Wm has laid out £2,000 on buildings alone since I left; this, added to our expensive trip home, has placed my affairs in no enviable situation.76

  • 77 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1971, vol. 7, p. 58.

33At stake was Philip Russell’s capacity to provide financial assistance for Alexander Russell’s establishment in Port Phillip. In this sense, collective building ambitions threatened one of the motivations of Philip’s colonial enterprise and mansion building—the gathering and opportunity for his kin. It is unclear whether or not Philip Russell intervened to halt building; he certainly curtailed other personal expenses. Nonetheless, it ceased as a topic of correspondence. At the same time, Philip’s health was deteriorating and the building was unfinished a year later when Philip died at George Russell’s property, Golfhill, in Port Philip. It remained that way until 1858—the year the Clyde Company was dissolved—when it was completed by Rev. Robert Russell as executor of Philip’s estate, appearing to employ returns paid to the estate.77

  • 78 “Mrs William Russell to Rev. Robert Russell, July 1854,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Paper (...)
  • 79 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria,” op.  (...)
  • 80 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria,” op.  (...)

34Upon completion, the house was symmetrically arranged and axially aligned to take advantage of the view down the Jordan River valley, with an octagonal belvedere at the centre of the composition. Its siting meant that it was seen to full effect on entering the valley from the direction of Hobart. It was constructed of sandstone and the central block simply ornamented with classical quoining and a Tuscan order was used for the columns of the belvedere. Behind the house the stone and brick farm buildings were planned and executed in an ordered symmetrical arrangement of Scottish steading with the accent of a Gothick dovecote. By late 1850s the Russell family’s interests were concentrated in Victoria, centred around George Russell’s property (Golfhill) and homestead, built in 1845. William Russell died en route to Scotland in 1854.78 Alexander Russell had acquired Mawallok Station in Victoria and commenced construction of a homestead in 1858.79 Robert Russell was to retire to Golfhill in 1873, where he was subsequently involved in dealing with the prominent Melbourne architects, Smith & Johnson, in the design of a new French Second Empire style homestead. Like Black Marsh, it was designed to survey its situation, axially aligned to take advantage of the long views down the Leigh River valley.80 From Dennistoun, an intertwined network of kin, business, and buildings was developed across regions and colonies, from the Midlands in VDL to the Western Districts of Victoria.

Conclusion

35Scottish influence in early colonial Tasmania was multi-textured. It appears in the direct transfer of Scottish farmhouses and cottages associated with agricultural improvement that had transformed Scotland’s rural landscapes in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the European occupation of Van Diemen’s Land’s plains and river valleys in the 1820s and 1830s. Paralleling developments in the 1830s and 1840s, the Scottish ex-convict architect, James Thomson, channelled Edinburgh’s Greek Revival in private architectural practice in Hobart, consolidating country towns and, in the process, linking an emerging architectural stylistic discourse in Van Diemen’s Land to Scotland. In addition, and intertwined, were building techniques traceable to Scottish builders such as Andrew Bell carrying lowland masonry traditions. But beyond the carriage of models, aesthetics, and techniques are questions of agency, or means and modes of operation employed by Scottish emigrants, shaping architecture and building practices in the colony from the 1820s.

36Dennistoun, Ratho and Black Marsh, built by the Woods, Reids and Russells, respectively, embody Scottish agency easily missed in aesthetic or technical analysis. Diaries and correspondence variously chart the houses’ construction enmeshed in the intersecting webs of a group of Scottish settlers arriving in the Australian colonies in the 1820s. Scottish networks, fostering identity, family, and social and economic improvement, contributed to the building of the mansions, and the building of the mansions contributed to the expansion of their webs of connection. While the sample size is small, this article’s findings are sufficient to begin sketching the agency of Scottish networks effecting (and effected by) building in the colony, and invite further investigation within and beyond Scots. Importantly, it points to the agency vested in settler networks operating across the various localities, regions, and colonies of the British empire, rather than in sole actors.

37Despite their remoteness, these webs of connection and cooperation enable Tasmania’s early nineteenth-century pastoral mansions to be re-located within the variegated social. cultural, and economic webs of the British empire. The literal building of Dennistoun, for example, can be seen at the nexus of family and business enterprises linking Glasgow to rural locales in Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip. The protracted construction of Philip Russell’s mansion at Black Marsh, along with its ultimate displacement by his brother’s Golfhill in Victoria (formerly Port Phillip), reveals the shifting centres and carriage within those webs. In each instance, social identities were individually and collectively formed, traversing these webs and eventually negotiated in building. In the early nineteenth century, as Australia’s colonies were still being constituted, Van Diemen’s Land’s Scottish emigrants and their mansions demonstrate the interplay between empire, region, identity, and building.

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Notes

1 Henry Reynolds, A History of Tasmania, Cambridge; Port Melbourne; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 38-39.

2 James Boyce, Van Diemen’s Land, Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008, p. 146.

3 This paper uses the term “mansion” as it was used by the people who built and discussed them in the 1820s and 1830s. A mansion is a house with land. The use of the term implies a certain sense of pretension and is distinguished from more modest buildings including cottages and bungalows or bungalas, the latter terminology gained from experience in India. It is sometimes used interchangeably with the general term “house.” In Men of Yesterday, Margaret Kiddle notes that the term “homestead” gains currency later and is now used for related buildings in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia. Margaret Kiddle, Men of Yesterday: A Social History of the Western District of Victoria 1834-1890, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1961, p. 95. Regarding the specific context of this paper, see Mary Ramsay, “Mansions in the Air: Early Bothwell Farm Houses,” THRA Papers and Proceedings, vol. 48, no. 3A, September 2001, p. 173.

4 D. S. Macmillan, Scotland and Australia 1788-1850: Emigration, Commerce and Investment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967; Malcom D. Prentis, Scots in Australia: A Study of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, 1788-1900, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1983. For pastoral extension, see Margaret Kiddle, Men of Yesterday, op. cit. (note 3). For cultural reproduction, see Alison Inglis and Patricia Tryon Macdonald (eds.), For Auld Lang Syne: Images of Scottish Australia from First Fleet to Federation, Ballarat, Victoria: Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2014; Fred Chair, Alison Inglis and Anne Beggs-Sunter (eds.), Scots Under the Southern Cross, Ballarat, Victoria: Ballarat Heritage Services, 2015.

5 Peter Boyce, “Britishness,” in Alison Alexander (ed.), Companion to Tasmania History, Hobart: University of Tasmania, Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, URL: http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/B/Britishness.htm. Accessed 3 July 2019.

6 Figures provided by Pamela Sharpe, Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Discovery Project, “Everyday Obligations: Households and Economic Change in the British Isles 1650-1850,” University of Tasmania, 2018. Pamela Sharpe, personal correspondence, 1 December 2018.

7 Personal correspondence with Pamela Sharpe.

8 Personal correspondence with Pamela Sharpe.

9 High quality pictorial surveys, which include irregular amounts of historical information, include Edward Graeme Robertson, Early Buildings of Southern Tasmania, Melbourne: Georgian House, 1970, 2 vols; Edward Graeme Robertson and Edith N. Craig, Early Houses of Northern Tasmania: A Historical and Architectural Survey, Melbourne: Georgian House, 1964, 2 vols. For some broad analysis, see Eric Ratcliff, A Far Microcosm: Building and Architecture in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania, Launceston: Fullers Bookshop; Foot & Playsted, 2015, vol. 3, p. 1349-1388.

10 Diane Brand, “An Urbane Gaol: Macquarie’s Sydney,” Journal of Urban Design, vol. 3 no. 2, 1998, p. 225-239; Mary Casey, “A Patina of Age: Elizabeth Macquarie (née) Campbell and the Influence of the Buildings and Landscape of Argyll, Scotland, in Colonial New South Wales,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol. 14, 2010, p. 335-356; Anne Neale, “A. J. MacDonald: Enigma and Romance in the Public Service,” Fabrications vol. 10, 1999, p. 115-135; Stuart King, “Eclecticism in the Work of Queensland Colonial Architect F. D. G. Stanley, 1871-1881,” Fabrications, vol. 21, no. 2, 2012, p. 37-60; Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria, Australia,” Architectural Heritage, vol. 24, 2013, p. 67-85; Eric Ratcliff, A Far Microcosm: Building and Architecture in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania, op. cit. (note 9), vol. 1, p. 60-91.

11 On the wider question of understanding Scottish contributions to British colonial architecture, including in Australia, see, G. A. Bremner, “The Expansion of England? Rethinking Scotland’s place in the architectural history of the wider British world,” Journal of Art Historiography, no. 18, June 2018, URL: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/bremner.pdf. Accessed 3 July 2019.

12 Stuart King and Julie Willis, “Australian Colonies,” in G. A. Bremner (ed.), Architecture and Urbanism of the British Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 (The Oxford history of British empire. Companion series), p. 322-326.

13 See John M. Mackenzie, “Scots and the Environment of Empire,” in John M. Mackenzie and T. M. Devine (eds.), Scotland and the British Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 (The Oxford history of British empire. Companion series), p. 172-173. See also Lindsay Proudfoot and Dianne Hall, “Imagining the Frontier: Environment, Memory and Settlement-Narratives from Victoria (Australia), 1850-1890,” Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, p. 34.

14 On Scotland’s improved farmhouses see Daniel Maudlin, The Highland House Transformed: Architecture and Identity on the Edge of Britain 1700-1850, Dundee: Dundee University Press, 2009.

15 “Clarendon and Outbuildings, 205 Clarendon Rd, Gretna, TAS, Australia,” Australian Heritage Database, Department of Environment and Energy, Australian Government, URL: http://www.environment.gov.au/. Accessed 31 October 2017.

16 On the McLeods see Eric Richards, “Scottish Networks and Voices in Colonial Australia,” in Angela McCarthy (ed.), A Global Clan: Scottish Migrant Networks and Identities since the Eighteenth Century, London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2012 (International library of historical studies, 36), p. 154-155.

17 Malcom Ward, Maureen Martin Ferris and Tully Brooks, Houses and Estates of Old Glamorgan, Swansea, TAS.: Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical Society Inc. 2017, p. 30, 36.

18 Thomas Scott (ed.), Life of Captain Andrew Barclay of Cambock, near Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land. Written from his own dictation at Cambock, February 19, 1836, to Thomas Scott M. Gibson, Edinburgh: printed by Thomas Grant, 1836; M. Gibson, “Gibson, David (1778–1858),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1966. URL:http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gibson-david-2091/text2629. Accessed 3 July 2019; “Maclanachan, James (1799–1884),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974. URL: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/maclanachan-james-4119/text6429. Accessed 5 July 2019.

19 Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 26 January 1827, p. 2.

20 On Evandale, see Keith Adkins, “Scottish Enlightenment Ideals and Traditions in Colonial Tasmania,” Tasmanian Historical studies, vol. 11, 2006, p. 69-85.

21 St Andrew’s Evandale has not previously been attributed to James Thomson. It is proposed here on the basis of connections within the Presbyterian church and the re-iteration of the same pattern book source.

22 Concerning the purported Scottish-ness of the type, see Joan Kerr, Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales, Sydney: David Ell Press; the Elizabeth Bay House Trust, 1980, p. ??.

23 Eric Ratcliff, A Far Microcosm: Building and Architecture in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania, op. cit. (note 9), vol. 1, p. 77.

24 John Lowrey, “Caesarea to Athens: Greek Revival Edinburgh and the Question of Scottish Identity within the Unionist State,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 60, no. 2, 2001, p. 155.

25 G. A. Bremner, “The Expansion of England? Rethinking Scotland’s place in the architectural history of the wider British world,” op. cit. (note 11), p. 13-14.

26 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria, Australia,” op. cit. (note 10), p. 67-85. Edquist uses the term homestead instead of mansion, reflecting the shift in terminology that occurs in the mid to late nineteenth century.

27 AngelaMcCarthy, “Scottish Migrant Ethnic Identities in the British Empire since the Nineteenth Century,” in John M. Mackenzie and T. M. Devine (eds.), Scotland and the British Empire, op. cit. (note 13), p. 118-146; On the nature of Scottish networks in the Australian colonial context, see Eric Richards, “Scottish Networks and Voices in Colonial Australia,” op. cit. (note 16), p. 150-182.

28 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1941-1978, 7 vols.

29 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1941, vol. 1, p. 4. Where no primary source is noted, citations are to Brown’s interpretative interventions.

30 Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.

31 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 4.

32 “James Dennistoun of Golfhill,” Legacies of British Slave-ownership database. URL:http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146646285. Accessed 1 December 2018.

33 Brown notes that “Captain Wood owed much to the firm’s support.” See P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 5.

34 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid),” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 17.

35 On Wood’s naming of Dennistoun in recognition of J. & A. Dennistoun’s financial support, see P. L. Brown (ed.), Narrative of George Russell of Golf Hill with Russellania and Selected Papers, London: Oxford University Press, 1935, p. 183.

36 “Captain Wood to Governor Brisbane, 6 October 1823,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 29.

37 Ibid., p. 29.

38 Anne Mckay (ed.), Journals of the Land Commissioners, Hobart: University of Tasmania; Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1962, p. 42.

39 Ibid., p. 42.

40 James Ross, “Descriptive Itinerary of Van Diemen’s Land,” (1830) quoted in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 47. For a wider discussion of other settlers and buildings in the Upper Clyde area see Mary Ramsay, “Mansions in the Air: Early Bothwell Farm Houses,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 172-181.

41 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 12 May 1837,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, London: Oxford University Press, 1952, vol. 2, p. 71.

42 P. L. Brown, Narrative of George Russell of Golf Hill with Russellania and Selected Papers, op. cit. (note 35), p. 210.

43 A. F. Pike, “Reid, Alexander (1783–1858),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1967. URL: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/reid-alexander-2584/text3541. Accessed 5 July 2019.

44 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid)” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 8.

45 Jane Williams, “Reminiscences of Mrs Williams (Jane Reid),” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 15.

46 Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, CSO 1/88/1954, quoted in Edward Graeme Robertson, Early Buildings of Southern Tasmania, op. cit. (note 9), vol. 2, p. 295.

47 “Mrs Reid to Mrs Williams, 15 March 1834,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 181.

48 Nicholas Clements, The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania, St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2014.

49 Henry Reynolds, History of Tasmania, op. cit. (note 1), p. 92-94.

50 “Report of the Land Board upon the letter of Mr Reid of Bothwell for additional land, 24 January 1831,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 229.

51 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1831), in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 128.

52 Henry Reynolds, History of Tasmania, op. cit. (note 1), p. 179.

53 Ibid, (note 1), p. 179.

54 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1830), in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 110.

55 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams, 24 June 1834,” ibid., p. 195.

56 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams,” (1831), ibid., p. 129.

57 “Mrs Williams Journal,” 23 September & 6 October 1836, in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 41), p. 18.

58 “Mrs Williams to Mr and Mrs Reid, 31 October 1836,” ibid., p. 31.

59 Ibid., p. 38.

60 “Mrs Williams Journal, 5 November 1836,” ibid., p. 33.

61 Ibid., p. 33.

62 “Mrs Williams to Mrs Reid, 31 October 1836,” ibid., p. 32.

63 Ibid., p. 38.

64 P. L. Brown, “Russell, George (1812–1888),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1967. URL: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/russell-george-2850/text3617. Accessed 26 October 2017.

65 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 5.

66 Ibid., p. 5.

67 From 1826 to 1836 Philip Russell was in partnership with another Scot, Andrew Downie, leasing land from Col. Sorell in the Derwent Valley. In 1839, Russell bought the Clyde Valley properties Berriedale and Lauriston. “Philip Russell to George Russell, 22 May 1839,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 41), p. 218. Concerning Philip Russell’s financial success, see “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain & Mrs Williams,” (1834) in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 29), p. 188.

68 “Alexander Reid to Brevet Captain Williams, 24 June 1834,” op. cit. (note 29), p. 195.

69 P. L. Brown (ed.), Narrative of George Russell of Golf Hill with Russellania and Selected Papers, op. cit. (note 35), p. 68-69.

70 “William Russell to George Russell, 22 February 1841,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1958, vol.3, p. 19.

71 Ibid., p. 25-26.

72 Ibid., p. 26.

73 Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 26 January 1827, p. 2.

74 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 9 December 1842,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, op. cit. (note 70), p. 274.

75 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 1 February 1843,” ibid., p. 302.

76 “Philip Russell to George Russell, 28 March 1843,” ibid., p. 308.

77 P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1971, vol. 7, p. 58.

78 “Mrs William Russell to Rev. Robert Russell, July 1854,” in P. L. Brown (ed.), Clyde Company Papers, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1968, vol. 6, p. 124.

79 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria,” op. cit. (note 10), p. 76. See also “Mawallok, 3802 Geelong Road Stockyard Hill,” Victorian Heritage Database, https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/1888. Accessed 3 July 2019.

80 Harriet Edquist, “The Architectural Legacy of the Scots in the Western District of Victoria,” op. cit. (note 10), p. 76.

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List of illustrations

Title Figure 1: Pituncarty, near Campbell Town, Tasmania, built c.1825. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/70.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-1.jpg
File image/jpeg, 118k
Title Figure 2: Clarendon, Gretna, Tasmania, built early-1820s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/148.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-2.jpg
File image/jpeg, 168k
Title Figure 3: Nile Farm, Deddington, Tasmania, built in late-1820s-1830s.
Credits Source: Stuart King, 2017.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-3.JPG
File image/jpeg, 115k
Title Figure 4: Cranbrook House, Cranbrook, Tasmania, c.1838. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/101.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-4.jpg
File image/jpeg, 122k
Title Figure 5: Cambock, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1828 (dem.). Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/122.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-5.jpg
File image/jpeg, 158k
Title Figure 6: Dalness, Evandale, Tasmania, built c.1839. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/127.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-6.jpg
File image/jpeg, 128k
Title Figure 7: Ballochmyle, Tunbride, Tasmania, built c. late 1830s. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/450.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-7.jpg
File image/jpeg, 97k
Title Figure 8: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Evandale, Tasmania, built 1839-1840.
Credits Source: Stuart King, 2018.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-8.jpg
File image/jpeg, 119k
Title Figure 9: New Town Park, Hobart, Tasmania, built c.1835. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/206.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-9.jpg
File image/jpeg, 98k
Title Figure 10: Dennistoun House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania, SD ILS:672897.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-10.jpg
File image/jpeg, 94k
Title Figure 11: Dennistoun Courtyard, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (dem.). Photographer unknown, between 1880 and 1909.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania, SD ILS:672898.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-11.jpg
File image/jpeg, 138k
Title Figure 12: Ratho, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1820s-30s (with later additions, undated).
Credits Source: Stuart King, 2018.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-12.JPG
File image/jpeg, 163k
Title Figure 13: Wentworth House, Bothwell, Tasmania, built c.1831-36. Photograph by Sir Ralph Wishaw, 1966.
Credits Source: Hobart (Australia), Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Whishaw Collection, NS165/1/31.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-13.jpg
File image/jpeg, 120k
Title Figure 14: Sketch of Ratho Farm in 1840, by Elisabeth Hudspeth.
Credits Source: Private collection.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-14.jpg
File image/jpeg, 108k
Title Figure 15: Strathbarton (formerly Black Marsh), Lower Marshes, Tasmania, built 1841-1858. Source: Stuart King, 2018.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/5887/img-15.jpg
File image/jpeg, 119k
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References

Electronic reference

Stuart King, “Scottish Networks and their Buildings in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania”ABE Journal [Online], 14-15 | 2019, Online since 28 July 2019, connection on 18 April 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/abe/5887; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.5887

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About the author

Stuart King

Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and History, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

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CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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