1 The Drive Concord West

[Thomasina Norse]

Inthe 1860s, Thomas Walker commissioned the architect Edmund Blacket to design a home on the shores of the Parramatta River.[2] This Victorian Italianate mansion became the Walker family home. From 1893 to 1899, Eadith Walker built extensions that were designed by the architect John Sulman. A stables and coach house complex were also designed by Sulman at the same time. The entire estate is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register and the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate.[3][1]

Dame Eadith Walker DBE, CBE, who never married, died at Yaralla in 1937 after a long career devoting her life to the Australian Red Cross and a wide range of other philanthropic organisations.[4] Her estate was disposed of in accordance with the terms of her father's will, brought about by the Thomas Walker Trusts Act (1939), a portion of which was set aside to found the Dame Eadith Walker Convalescent Hospital and income from the remainder went to support the hospital, the Thomas Walker hospital and the Yaralla cottages built by Dame Eadith for elderly people in need.[5]

The core of the later Yaralla is the promontory in Concord between Majors Bay to the east and what is now Yaralla Bay to the west. The original name for Yaralla Bay was Nichols Bay, and this reflects that the entire promontory was included in a 50-acre land grant to Isaac Nichols in 1797.[6][1]

Nichols is a good representative example of the able and hard-working convict who successfully rehabilitated himself in the colony. He had been transported for theft and arrived in Sydney at the age of 21 in 1791. After he'd served time as an assigned convict in Major George Johnson's house, Governor John Hunter, impressed by the young man's ability and good behaviour, made him overseer of convict gangs in Sydney and, when his sentence expired in 1797, granted him 50 acres with Parramatta River frontage at Concord on 20 December, with two convict servants to work on the farm.[6] This would later become the site of Yaralla.[1]

Nichols bought 25 acres of land very close to the south from William Harrison for 9 pounds and presumably built huts at once at Concord for his two stockmen. He himself however, acquired an inn, the Jolly Sailor, in George Street in 1798 and soon developed business premises, a shipyard and a stone dwelling on the west side of Circular Quay. There is no evidence for a substantial cottage on Nichols' Concord farm in this early period.[6][1]

Nichols' advance in the colony suffered a setback when he was found guilty in 1799 of receiving stolen property. It seems likely that he was the victim of the monopolistic ambitions of the New South Wales Corps, with John Macarthur pulling the strings, and Governor Hunter, deeply suspicious of the verdict, referred the case to England. Nichols' name was not cleared until 1802, when the new Governor, Philip Gidley King, was instructed by the British Government to grant him a pardon from the 1799 conviction. Thereafter Nichols became a person of increasing significance, appointed Superintendent of Public Works and the first post-master in 1809.[6][1]

For the first 4 or 5 years after 1797, Nichols used his Concord property for mixed farming. By 1801 he had cleared only 14 acres of the initial 50 acres and had 18 acres under wheat or maize. He had three horses and no draught oxen. His only other livestock in 1801 consisted of 50 hogs. Within a year he had cleared another 26 acres and was growing a substantial amount of wheat and a lesser amount of barley and maize at Concord. He had three assigned convicts and two free servants, not all necessarily resident at Concord, in 1802.[7][1]

Nichols began to diversify. In 1803 he had a field of peas at Concord and began to plant fruit trees: by 1805 he had at least one peach tree bearing fruit. The extent and location of the orchard at this period are not known, although it can be assumed to have lain close to Yaralla Bay, where it is shown on the first available plan in 1833.[7][1]

He was also beginning to build up a herd of cattle and a flock of sheep. In 1805 the farm was attacked by Aboriginal people, who seized the stockmen's "little property and provision" and then "chased and dispersed the stock in all directions". Only one stockman was there at the time and he prudently fled the scene.[1]

Keenly aware of the value of land, he gradually purchased the surrounding lands. Nichols died in 1819 leaving the land in trust for his son George Robert Nichols. George Nichols interests lay elsewhere and in May 1836 he conveyed his interest in the estate to his brother Isaac David Nichols. The Nichols used the land for farming.[1]

In January 1840 George Robert Nichols mortgaged the land to Thomas Walker for 3500 pounds at 15%. In May 1842 he borrowed a further 900 pounds on the security of the property. None of that money was repaid to Walker. In the meantime the remaining title the mortgagor had over the land was conveyed to James Holt, a Sydney merchant.[1]

Walker initiated an Equity Court case against G. R. Nichols and James Holt in May 1843 after he was unable to gain repayment of the loan or obtain possession of the land which constituted the security for the loan. In August 1848 the court awarded title to the land to Walker when neither Nichols or Holt could repay the land.[1]

Walker was a strong critic of the Land Acts of the 1860s which established the principle of free selection before survey. He was a substantial stock owner and had also invested heavily in the pastoral industry. He spent a period as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, representing the Port Phillip electorate (which later became the state of Victoria), and as the president of the Board of the Bank of NSW. Walker was also an active philanthropist. However, despite his commitment to relieving the poor, he had a hatred of the democratic element in society and was firmly aligned with the view of keeping the poor in their place.[1]

Initially Walker did not move to Concord. However, he ensured the estate was carefully maintained although the gardens and orchards had already fallen into ruins. This was possibly in the 1840s when the Nichols family may have seen little need to maintain an asset which they were in danger of losing particularly while his residence was being planned and built in the 1850s.[1]

Thomas Walker married Jane Hart in 1860 and their only daughter was Eadith Campbell Walker. Jane died in 1870 and Thomas Walker did not remarry. He arranged for his sister Joanna Walker to come to Australia and care for Eadith. Joanna adopted Anne Masefield to serve as a companion to Eadith.[8][1]

Scottish gardener Alexander Grant was born in 1845 at Cullen, Scotland and served an apprenticeship in the gardens of Cullen House in Banffshire. Before migrating to Australia in 1878 he followed his profession in several Scottish gardens, including the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Grant arrived in the colony in 1878 and worked first at Yaralla, Concord for the Walkers for some considerable time, then at Rosemont, Woollahra for Alexander Campbell MLC, then for Mr Tooth at the Swifts, Darling Point, which he planned and laid out. There is no record of where Grant was living while working at Yaralla and Rosemont, though from 1881 he lived at "Willow Cottage in Point Piper Road - west side (later Ocean Street), Paddington" until he moved to quarters in the Botanic Garden, Sydney in 1882 for work there. It is likely that the positions at Yaralla and Rosemont both included quarters for a single man and that only after he married Margaret Stevenson in January 1880 was he obliged to find alternative accommodation (Willow Cottage).[9][1]

When her father died in September 1886 his estate was valued at 937 984 pounds. He left his estate to his daughter, Eadith Walker, but a portion was left to set up the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital.[1]

In 1890 his sister Joanna Walker also died, leaving Eadith, who never married, to live the life of a wealthy spinster. Eadith remained living at Yaralla for the rest of her life. She lived alone though surrounded by staff, and during her lifetime she enlarged Yaralla considerably, also building several cottages for retired staff on the property.[1]

Prior to World War I, Eadith had 25 servants and employees living at Yaralla, including a butler, nine maids, cooks, laundresses, chauffeurs, four gardeners, poultry and dairymen, a housekeeper and an engineer who looked after the power station and provision of water.[1]

With Anne now married to architect and planner John Sulman, and construction of the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital complete, Eadith and Sulman now turned their attention to Yaralla and planned extensive additions and alterations. These were built between 1893 and 1899.[10] Eadith Walker commissioned Sulman to design additions which were finished in 1899.[1]

Eadith took the opportunity to enjoy herself, but her activities were tempered with a strong streak of benevolence. She contributed financially to the Thomas Walker Convalescent Home and was an active member and contributor to many charitable institutions including further finance for the Thomas Walker Convalescent Home.[8][1]

Eadith was fond of animals and involved with their protection. An indication of her affection for her own pets was manifested in the private pet cemetery located within the grounds of Yaralla, where her animals were laid to rest.[11][1]

For a short time, between 1912 and 1914, Yaralla became the residence of the Governor-General of Australia. It was while staying at Yaralla that the Governor General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar, received a cabled warning of the approach of World War I.[1]

Fond of travel, Eadith Walker made a number of trips overseas, bringing back enormous quantities of souvenirs. She bought back enough artefacts from India to require the construction of a special Indian room in Thomas Walker's former office. The Norwegian Cottage, and most of its fittings and furniture, also returned with her from another sortie. It was later re-assembled in the grounds of Yaralla.[1]

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