St Stephen's Uniting Church – 197 Macquarie Street – From Lang's Breakaway and Phillip Street to the Burdekin House Site – 1842 to Today

Halfway along Macquarie Street, opposite Parliament House and Sydney Hospital, there's a sandstone Gothic church with a big tracery window across the front. Over its roof leans a curved glass office tower. That's St Stephen's Uniting Church at number 197. The building only dates from 1935, but the congregation goes back to 1842, and it spent nearly a century moving around the city before it ended up here.

St Stephen's Uniting Church, 197 Macquarie Street. Photo: Rangasyd, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Breaking away from Dr Lang

Presbyterianism in Sydney started with the Reverend John Dunmore Lang, who founded the Scots Church on Church Hill in 1824. The Dictionary of Sydney calls him "fiery and at times controversial". In 1842 he led his people out of the Synod of Australia to form his own Synod of New South Wales. St Stephen's own history says that the same year, 22 communicants left Scots Church during Lang's ministry and started their own fellowship.

They moved around a lot. The church's history says they met first in a hall in Macquarie Place. In 1846 they moved to the Wesleyan Chapel in Macquarie Street, opposite the Mint, and in 1848 to the Independent Chapel in Pitt Street, next to the Sydney School of Arts. In 1845 the church in Scotland split into the Established Church and the Free Church, and the colonial congregations were urged to take sides. The Dictionary of Sydney says the minister, Thomas Mowbray, stayed neutral, but some of his people left to form a Free Presbyterian congregation anyway.

The Iron Church and the name

During the Gold Rush the congregation imported a prefabricated iron church that seated 800. The church's history says it went up in 1855 on what is now the State Library site, next to Parliament House. That's where the name St Stephen's comes from. The Westminster Parliament met in St Stephen's Chapel from 1543 to 1834, and a church beside Sydney's Parliament seemed like a good match. The heritage listing gives the same reason for the name.

In 1865 the various Presbyterian groups joined to form the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, and the Dictionary of Sydney says the Iron Church was formally named St Stephen's then. It soon got too small. The congregation joined with another one in Phillip Street, which was also called St Stephen's, and the Phillip Street church became home. The dates differ. The Dictionary of Sydney says the merger came in 1872, while the church's own history says 1875.

St Stephen's Church, photographed by Charles Percy Pickering in 1872. Charles Percy Pickering, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

St Stephen's, Phillip Street

The Phillip Street church became the leading Presbyterian church in the country. When the NSW General Assembly first met in 1901, it met there. The Reverend John Ferguson was inducted in August 1894, when it was the largest Presbyterian congregation in Australia, and he was moderator-general of the national church in 1909. He collapsed in the pulpit in October 1924 and died the next year. Peter Dodds McCormick, who wrote Advance Australia Fair, worked as a stonemason on the Phillip Street church as a young man and later led its choir.

Then the council needed the land. In the 1930s Sydney City Council resumed property to push Martin Place all the way through to Macquarie Street. The church's history says the Phillip Street church stood partly under where the north-west corner of the Reserve Bank is now. The Dictionary of Sydney says the new church went up quickly because of "pressure to demolish the previous St Stephen's church in Phillip Street, which was in the way of the extension of Martin Place".

Martin Place being pushed through from Pitt Street to Macquarie Street in the 1930s. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Building on the Burdekin House site

The new site at 197 Macquarie Street had been Burdekin House. The heritage listing says Thomas Burdekin built it in 1841–42, and it stayed in the family until it was sold in 1924. The Dictionary of Sydney says it was once called the finest private house in Sydney, and pulling it down became one of the first rallying points for heritage campaigners in the city.

The Dictionary of Sydney says the foundation stone was laid on 23 March 1934 and the church was dedicated a year later, on 23 March 1935. The church's history also puts the dedication in 1935. The heritage listing, as summarised on Wikipedia, says it was built from 1935 to 1937, so the finishing work probably carried on after the dedication. The builders were Kell and Rigby.

Building St Stephen's in Macquarie Street, 13 September 1934. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The architects and the design

The architects were John Reid and Finlay Munro junior. The church says they were probably inspired by St Stephen's Chapel at Westminster. Their design is in the Interwar Gothic style, and both the church and the Dictionary of Sydney say it's one of only three churches in that style in the city, along with the Scots Church and the Central Baptist Church. The front is sandstone, with carved tracery and leadlight windows arranged symmetrically around the big east window. Stairs on either side of the entrance lead up to the gallery and down to the Ferguson Hall.

Sydney Open says the church was made with Australian materials by local craftspeople. Inside there's panelling in polished Queensland maple and plaster ceilings based on English Perpendicular Gothic.

The sandstone front and tracery window of St Stephen's. Photo: Rangasyd, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The windows

The windows were designed by Norman St Clair Carter, the artist who also did the clerestory windows at St Andrew's Cathedral. The church says they were dedicated over about thirty years from 1935. Each window has two medallions with Bible scenes, a coat of arms at the bottom linked to the donor or the person being remembered, and etched verses from the King James Bible. Some of the old Phillip Street windows came along too. The church says they are now in the Ferguson Hall downstairs.

The organ and the music

The organ was built in 1934 by the Melbourne branch of the English firm Hill, Norman and Beard. It has 61 stops and around 2,500 pipes. In the 1970s it was altered in the neo-Baroque style that was fashionable then. Restoration since 2009 has been reversing some of those changes, and a new console by Daniel Bittner of Australian Pipe Organs went in in 2021. Harry Chandler was organist for 50 years, from 1890 to 1940, which spans both the Phillip Street and Macquarie Street churches. The current music director is Mark Quarmby.

Dame Joan Sutherland grew up in this congregation. Her father was an elder and her mother sang in the choir, and she joined the choir herself at six. These days the church holds Friday lunchtime concerts and jazz nights as well as services.

Notable ministers

The ministers' list starts with Dr Robert Steel (1862–1893) and John Ferguson (1894–1925) at Phillip Street. James McLeod (1933–1939) took the congregation over to Macquarie Street. Gordon Powell (1952–1965) was the best known of them. He regularly preached to more than a thousand people on Sundays and at Wednesday lunchtimes, broadcast for thirty years, and is credited with bringing Alcoholics Anonymous to Australia. In 1956, according to the Dictionary of Sydney, St Stephen's broadcast the first televised church service in Australia. The Reverend Fred McKay, who took over from John Flynn at the Australian Inland Mission, was associate minister from 1974 to 1986. Two NSW governors, Sir John Northcott and Sir Eric Woodward, had their state funerals here.

Uniting Church, 1977

In 1977 the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches joined to form the Uniting Church in Australia, and St Stephen's went in with the union. The Dictionary of Sydney and the church's own history both give 1977. The heritage listing says the congregation's story is "interwoven with the development of the Presbyterian and Uniting Churches in NSW and Australia".

St Stephen's was listed on the State Heritage Register on 3 September 2004 as item 01704. In 2015 Hassell won a design competition for a 33-storey tower at 60 Martin Place, which curves out over the church's roof. The church says the developers, Investa, struck a deal that involved joining the two land titles for a time. Sydney Open says Tonkin Zulaikha Greer restored the east and west facades.

Macquarie Street in 2023. Photo: -wuppertaler, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

The church is open on weekdays from 12pm to 5pm. Next time you're on Macquarie Street, pop in and look up at the Carter windows. The congregation that started with 22 people walking out on Dr Lang has worshipped near Parliament for over 150 years.

Where this came from

• Dictionary of Sydney: St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Macquarie Street.
• St Stephen's Uniting Church: Our History and Our Building (ssms.org.au).
• Sydney Open (Museums of History NSW): St Stephen's Uniting Church.
• NSW State Heritage Register: St Stephen's Uniting Church (SHR 01704), as reproduced in the Wikipedia article (ministers' and organists' lists, organ details, notable members).
• State Library of NSW photographs by Sam Hood and Charles Percy Pickering, via Wikimedia Commons.

City Recital Hall – Angel Place, off Martin Place – Paling's, the Ash Street Music Precinct and Sydney's Shoebox Concert Hall – 1999 to Today

Most Sydneysiders who've been to a concert at City Recital Hall remember the walk in. You leave Pitt Street or George Street, duck into a narrow lane, pass under a cluster of empty birdcages hanging overhead, and come to a lit-up entrance tucked in under an office tower. That lane is Angel Place, and the hall at number 2 has been one of the best rooms in the country for chamber music since 1999.

The entrance to City Recital Hall in Angel Place. Photo: Jason7825, 2009, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Before the hall: Ash Street and the music shops

The hall sits in a pocket of laneways between George, Pitt and Martin Place, and this corner of town had music in it long before the City of Sydney built a concert hall here. The Dictionary of Sydney describes City Recital Hall as part of a big redevelopment of "the music and business precinct which had existed for over a century around Ash Street".

Much of that was down to one man. William Henry Paling was a Dutch-born musician who set up a music warehouse in Wynyard Square in the 1850s. The Australian Dictionary of Biography records that he opened a showroom at 352 George Street in 1875, another in Ash Street in 1880, and bought big premises at 356 George Street in 1883. The Dictionary of Sydney says Paling's building in Ash Street went up in 1888, straddling the Tank Stream, and that only its facade survives today.

Inside Paling's there was a concert hall. The AusStage performing arts database lists Paling's Concert Hall at 2 Ash Street from 1904 until it closed at the end of 1963, used mainly for recitals and to show off the instruments Paling's sold. In January 1964 the hall's fittings, including 210 chairs, were advertised for sale. AusStage also records radio test broadcasts there in January 1923. From 1942 to 1957 part of the old Paling's building was L'Hermitage, a French restaurant run by Henry and Jeanne Renault. The Dictionary of Sydney says Robert Menzies was one of its regulars.

A wet day in Angel Place in the 1930s. Photo: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The City of Sydney's laneways policy says Ash Street was formed by a subdivision in 1886 and was once lined along its whole length by "richly modelled 19th and early 20th Century buildings". It says the lane's architecture and atmosphere once rivalled Rowe Street. The policy also lists Palings Lane, describing it as a rare pedestrian route from early Victorian Sydney, a forerunner of the great shopping arcades.

As for Angel Place, a City of Sydney Archives photograph from 1989 shows the corner of Pitt Street and Angel Place, where the building was "formerly the Angel Hotel". I haven't found a primary source that says for sure the lane was named after the hotel, so take that link as likely rather than certain.

The Rhine Castle Bistro in Angel Place, January 1966. Photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Sydney needed a middle-sized hall

By the 1990s Sydney had the Opera House and the Town Hall, but nothing in between that was built for chamber music. City Recital Hall's own history says the venue was designed to answer the city's need for a mid-sized hall with the acoustics for serious music. It had to be intimate enough for the players and the audience to feel close, but big enough to pay its way for concert promoters.

The answer was a deal between the City of Sydney and AMP. AMP was building a new office tower, and the ground floors would be given over to the hall. The architects, Peddle Thorp and Walker, describe the project as part of a large commercial development jointly funded by the AMP Society and the City of Sydney. An older venue listing on Eventfinda says the hall was held on a 99-year lease from AMP.

The hall was officially opened on 30 October 1999, and the Dictionary of Sydney gives the same date. The hall says it was the first purpose-built music venue in Sydney since the Opera House opened in 1973. Historian Lisa Murray wrote the City of Sydney's history of how it came about, Musical Chairs: The Quest for a City Recital Hall, in 2005.

The Angel Place tower, with the hall in its lower floors. Photo: VirtualWolf, 2014, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

A shoebox, on purpose

The inside is a shoebox, a long rectangular room. Peddle Thorp and Walker say they drew on the 19th-century concert hall, with its shoebox form and two U-shaped galleries, to give "a strong sense of occasion". The seats are in three tiers, with gently raked stalls and the two galleries wrapping around the sides and back. The architects give the capacity as 1,250. The hall itself and the Dictionary of Sydney both say 1,238, and that's the figure the venue uses now.

The finishes are French grey, gold leaf, light timber panelling and plum-coloured seats. A white Carrara marble staircase sweeps up from the foyer to three levels of lobbies. The architects say they marked the entrances with brightly lit tower elements so you could see them from the ends of the narrow laneways.

Inside the hall: the shoebox shape and the wrap-around galleries. Photo: Jason7825, 2009, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

How it sounds

The acoustic designers were Arup Acoustics. Eventfinda's venue notes say they worked closely with the groups who would use the room: Musica Viva, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. A paper by the Arup acousticians Rob Harris and Peter Griffiths, presented at the 2010 International Symposium on Room Acoustics, gives the occupied reverberation time as 1.75 seconds. Other sources round it to 1.8. The paper says the room is large for a recital hall because the economics of seat sales against the cost of touring ensembles from overseas pushed it that way.

The same paper explains a few of the tricks. The angled balcony fronts send early reflections in from the sides, and the architecture itself was designed to scatter sound. A performers' balcony sits where a pipe organ would normally be the visual focus. The hall also has banners that move up and down, and sound-absorbing panels, so it can be tuned from an orchestra down to a speaker at a lectern. The architects say this variable system was there so the hall could host conferences and AMP's annual general meetings too.

Who plays there

The hall calls itself the CBD home of five key presenting partners: the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, Pinchgut Opera and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Its program has spread a long way from the classics. It now runs jazz, rock, indie, cabaret and world music, and since 2023 the seating on level one can be taken out for standing and dance events.

In 2015 City Recital Hall Limited was set up as a not-for-profit company to run the venue for the City of Sydney. The hall says it remains a City of Sydney venue on a long-term lease from the building's current owners, Mirvac. A big refurbishment of the foyers, bars and amenities was finished in 2024, and the same year a new d&b Soundscape sound system went in.

City Recital Hall at night. Photo: Jason7825, 2009, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The birdcages

Those birdcages over the lane are an artwork called Forgotten Songs by Michael Thomas Hill. The City of Sydney Archives say it began as a temporary installation and was made permanent. The Dictionary of Sydney says it remembers the songs of fifty birds that were once heard in central Sydney before the city pushed them out. Stand under it at night and you can hear their calls playing.

Forgotten Songs, the birdcage artwork over Angel Place. Photo: Setimmp, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

A closer look at the Forgotten Songs cages. Photo: Greenpark79, 2024, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Next time you're heading to a concert, walk in through Ash Street instead of the front. You'll be passing the old Paling's facade, where Sydney bought its pianos and sheet music for the best part of a century.

Angel Place, looking along the lane. Photo: VirtualWolf, 2017, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Where this came from

• City Recital Hall: About City Recital Hall (cityrecitalhall.com/about).
• Dictionary of Sydney: City Recital Hall; Palings Warehouse; The Hermitage; Angel Place.
• PTW Architects: City Recital Hall – Angel Place (project page).
• Rob Harris and Peter Griffiths, "Auditorium acoustic design: 30 years, 15 projects", ISRA 2010, Australian Acoustical Society.
• Eventfinda: City Recital Hall, Sydney (venue notes).
• Edward Duyker / ADB: William Henry Paling, Australian Dictionary of Biography.
• AusStage: Paling's Concert Hall, 2 Ash Street (venue 14974).
• City of Sydney: Policy for Management of Laneways in Central Sydney; City of Sydney Archives: Angel Place; John and Merivale's Place, 1989.
• Lisa Murray, Musical Chairs: The Quest for a City Recital Hall, City of Sydney, 2005 (cited, not read).

John Challis – Challis House – Martin Place

Martin Place between the GPO columns and the Cenotaph, the sandstone-and-bronze wall with the university’s name still quietly on it — that’s Challis House. It was built as an income-earning investment, not a memorial. The building at 4–10 Martin Place was erected for the University of Sydney from the Challis Bequest. Merchant and philanthropist John Henry Challis (1806–1880) left a major endowment (the heritage listing cites £276,000; the Australian Dictionary of Biography says about £200,000 reached the university in 1889) that funded professorships and other university purposes; the Martin Place property was built to keep producing income for that legacy.

The first Challis House rose in 1906–1907 under architects Robertson and Marks with Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon. Early lower-floor tenants included railway ticketing and the Government Tourist Bureau. In 1936–37 the building was substantially reconstructed with a new Art Deco sandstone, granite and bronze façade by Hennessey and Hennessey, skilfully folding in much of the earlier fabric. In 1973 the building was gutted inside, except for the lifts and fire stairs, according to the heritage listing. Challis House is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register.

Who Was John Henry Challis?

Walk past Challis House on Martin Place and most people wouldn't give the name a second thought. But behind it is a bloke who turned up in Sydney in 1829 with, as the Australian Dictionary of Biography puts it, no "fortune or expectations", made a packet in wool and property, and then handed the lot to the University of Sydney. That gift changed the place for good. Here's his story, and the things that still carry his name around town.

The marble statue of John Henry Challis in the Great Hall at the University of Sydney. The ADB credits it to the sculptor Simonetti. Doug butler, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

A soldier's son from England

John Henry Challis was born in England on 6 August 1806. His father, also John Henry Challis, was a sergeant in the 9th Regiment. His father married again in 1819 and retired as a lieutenant in the 1st Royal Veterans in November 1828. Young John went to several different schools and trained as a clerk, according to the ADB.

Steerage to Sydney, 1829

On 9 May 1829 he stepped off the Pyramis at Sydney. He'd come out as a steerage passenger, the cheap seats. He soon got a start in the office of the merchants Marsden & Flower. In 1842 the firm was reorganised as Flower, Salting & Co., and Challis became a partner, dealing in wool and other goods. The early university historian Henry Barff wrote that he got that junior partnership "on his merits and, it is believed, without capital".

It wasn't all smooth sailing. The ADB says the firm hit trouble in the slump of the early 1840s. Then gold was found, and the boom that followed set it up nicely.

Wool, whale oil and a stake in the whaling fleet

Wikipedia adds that the business also traded in whale oil. Citing the whaling voyage records at whalinghistory.com, it says Challis was a full or part owner of nine ships that made 26 whaling voyages between 1840 and 1852.

The whaling ship Pacific, painted by William Duke in 1848. Challis had a share in nine whaling ships in the 1840s. William Duke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He was busy outside the office too. The ADB says he opposed Governor Gipps's squatting regulations in 1844, but wouldn't sign up to the "injurious expressions" of the Crown Lands Grievances Committee. He was among the employers who tried, and failed, to bring in labourers from India to replace convict labour. He also helped launch ventures such as the New South Wales Assurance Co. He loved sailing and helped run regattas on the harbour in the 1840s and 1850s.

Land at Potts Point and runs in the south

Challis bought up plenty of real estate, the ADB says, including "a large holding at Potts Point" and valuable wharf properties. By 1850 he held pastoral licences over more than 12,000 square miles in southern New South Wales, running more than 3,500 cattle and 11,000 sheep.

Two old newspaper articles I've put up on this blog fill in the Potts Point side. The Sydney Morning Herald's "Progress of the Suburbs" piece of 1 November 1913 says the property running from Macleay Street down to Woolloomooloo Bay "came later into the possession of Mr J.H. Challis (Manager for Messrs Flower, Salting & Co)". It says he gave it, with another property, as a bequest to the University "valued at 250,000 Pounds". The same article, and the Sydney Sun of 4 January 1941, both say Challis was a tenant of the cottage that Mr Sparke later enlarged and named "Maranamah".

Woolloomooloo Bay in 1875. Challis once held a big slice of Potts Point running down towards these waters. Unknown photographer (A.D. Edwardes Collection, State Library of South Australia), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Looking east across Woolloomooloo Bay to Garden Island, with Potts Point behind. William Hetzer and J. R. Clarke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Challis Avenue, Potts Point

His name is still on the map up there. Challis Avenue runs off Macleay Street and Victoria Street at Potts Point. You can see it marked on the old Grantham subdivision plan on my Historic Sydney Mansions blog. Wikipedia's Potts Point article notes the terrace and townhouse group at 13 to 29 Challis Avenue is on the Register of the National Estate. I haven't found a fetched source that says outright the street was named for him, so take the link as likely rather than proven.

Potts Point and Kings Cross today. Challis Avenue runs through this part of town. Stefano, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A friend of the university from early on

Challis backed the push for a grammar school. In 1856, the ADB says, he "generously subscribed" for the stained glass windows in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney. When he came back to visit in 1859, he gave £750 for the "Royal Window".

A stained glass window in the Great Hall. Challis gave money towards the hall's windows in 1856 and again in 1859. Doug butler, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another of the Great Hall's stained glass windows. Doug butler, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

More of the Great Hall glass. Doug butler, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Back to England, and death at Menton

In 1855 he sold out of Flower, Salting & Co. and went back to England, where he invested part of his money. Apart from that 1859 visit to Sydney, he mostly travelled on the Continent. He married Henrietta in about 1878. He died at Mentone (Menton) on the French Riviera on 18 February 1880 and was buried in England.

The Challis Bequest

What the will said

Challis left an estate valued for probate at £60,000 in England and £101,000 in New South Wales. He left annuities to plenty of friends and relatives. The rest, the residue, went to the University of Sydney, but with strings attached. Henrietta was to get the income for the rest of her life. After she died, the money had to build up for another five years before the university could touch it. Wikipedia's Challis Professorship article quotes the will: the estate was "to be applied for the benefit of that Institution in such manner as the governing body thereof shall direct".

The taxman steps in

Henrietta died at Hove in England on 19 September 1884. Then the English Inland Revenue Commission claimed legacy duty on the New South Wales part of the estate, because Challis had been living in England. The university's chancellor, Sir William Montagu Manning, fought the claim with what the ADB calls "such pertinacity" that the commissioners gave up.

Sir William Montagu Manning, the chancellor who fought off the English tax claim on the Challis estate. John Watson Gordon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Manning in later life. Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1889: the money arrives

In 1889 the bequest, by then worth about £200,000 according to the ADB, was handed over to the university. The ADB says it brought "a transformation" to a university that had long trailed behind Melbourne.

The Main Quadrangle at the University of Sydney, the university Challis's fortune changed. Jason Tong, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Main Quadrangle in 2005. KittySaturn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A panorama of the Main Quadrangle. Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Challis Chairs

In 1890 the fund paid for new chairs in anatomy, zoology, engineering, history, law, logic and mental philosophy, and modern literature. Wikipedia says £7,500 from the fund's income paid half the cost of a new chemical laboratory, and £1,900 paid for a marble statue of Challis in the Great Hall. The ADB names the sculptor as Simonetti.

The Challis professorships are still going. Wikipedia lists some well-known names among the holders:

• Philosophy: Francis Anderson (1890–1921), John Anderson (1927–1958) and David Armstrong (1964–1991).
• History: George Arnold Wood (1891–1928) and Stephen Roberts.
• Law: Pitt Cobbett (1890–1909).
• International law and jurisprudence: Julius Stone (1942–1973).
• English: John Le Gay Brereton (1921–1933).
• Anatomy: James Thomas Wilson (1890–1920).
• Biology and zoology: William Haswell (1890–1917) and Charles Birch (1960–1983).

John Le Gay Brereton, Challis Professor of English from 1921 to 1933, at his desk in 1935. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The cloisters of the Main Quadrangle. Jason Tong, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A turret on the Main Quadrangle. Jason Tong, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A sandstone crest carved on the Great Hall. Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Challis House, Martin Place

The land

According to the heritage listing (as reproduced on Wikipedia), the site was resumed by the Government in 1889 from W. H. Paling and the estates of Thomas Perkins and Thomas Holt. That was part of the plan to open up a grand public street north of the GPO, which became Martin Place. Holt's land, east of the Tank Stream, had first been granted to the free settler John Connell in 1837.

The first building, 1906–07

The university built the first Challis House in 1906–07 with money from the bequest. Robertson and Marks were the architects, working with the Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon. From day one it was a commercial building tied to travel, with the Railways ticket office and the Government Tourist Bureau on the lower floors. A caretaker's room was added in 1912.

Challis House as pictured in Building magazine in 1907. Building magazine (Federated Builders' Association of Australia), 1907, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Art Deco rebuild, 1936–37

In 1936 the building was "virtually reconstructed" to a design by Hennessey and Hennessey. It went higher, the old frame was pulled out and replaced, and it got the sandstone, polished red granite and bronze Art Deco front you see today. The heritage listing reckons the way much of the 1907 façade was folded into the new building is "probably unique in New South Wales". The height matched the 45-metre building limit of the time, lining up with the City Mutual building and the bank head offices nearby.

Sam Hood's photo of the new Challis House façade beside the columns of the GPO, Martin Place. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The entrance hall of Challis House, photographed by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The foyer of Challis House, by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A counter inside Challis House. The building was long tied to travel and ticket offices. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A wet Angel Place in the 1930s. Challis House has a façade on Angel Place as well as Martin Place. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A backdrop to the Cenotaph

Challis House sits right behind the Cenotaph, which went up in 1928. The heritage listing says the building has been the backdrop for national ceremonies held in front of it ever since, and has often been decorated for the big occasions.

The Governor arrives for Anzac Day 1937 in Martin Place. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The New Zealand contingent at the 1938 Anzac Day commemoration in Martin Place. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

An Anzac Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in the 1930s. The heritage listing notes Challis House has been the backdrop to ceremonies like this since 1928. State Library of New South Wales, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

A Fighting French Joan of Arc celebration at the Cenotaph. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Martin Place in the 1930s. Royal Australian Historical Society, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

A taxi stand at night in Martin Place, about 1938. State Library of New South Wales, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

1963, 1973 and today

The building was repaired in 1963. In 1973 it got a major refit under Edmund-Dykes, Coward and Chaplin. Everything inside was gutted except the lifts and fire stairs, air conditioning went in, and the old railway ticket offices became a shopping arcade with a restaurant underneath. The bronze-coloured mansard roof is the biggest change to the outside since 1937. Today the upper floors are offices, with shops on the ground floor. Wikipedia notes Giorgio Armani was a ground-floor tenant as of December 2018. Challis House went on the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 (number 666). It's still a university property, still earning money for the Challis legacy.

Challis House today, still owned by the University of Sydney. Jason Tong from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The ground floor shopfront at Challis House. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Challis House on Martin Place. Maksym Kozlenko, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Cenotaph in Martin Place, right in front of Challis House. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The former GPO, Challis House's neighbour across Martin Place. Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 6 August 1806: John Henry Challis is born in England.
• 9 May 1829: He arrives in Sydney on the Pyramis as a steerage passenger.
• 1840–1852: Wikipedia says he part-owns nine ships that make 26 whaling voyages.
• 1842: He becomes a partner in Flower, Salting & Co.
• 1844: He opposes Gipps's squatting regulations.
• 1850: He holds pastoral licences over more than 12,000 square miles.
• 1855: He sells his business interests and returns to England.
• 1856: He subscribes for the Great Hall windows at the University of Sydney.
• 1859: He visits Sydney and gives money for the Royal Window.
• c.1878: He marries Henrietta.
• 18 February 1880: He dies at Menton, France (the ADB date).
• 19 September 1884: Henrietta dies at Hove, England.
• 1889: The bequest, worth about £200,000, passes to the university. The same year, the government resumes the Martin Place site.
• 1890: The Challis chairs are founded.
• 1906–07: The first Challis House is built.
• 1928: The Cenotaph is unveiled in front of the building.
• 1936–37: Challis House is rebuilt in Art Deco style.
• 1963: Repairs are carried out.
• 1973: The interior is gutted and refitted.
• 2 April 1999: Challis House is listed on the State Heritage Register.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Date of death: the ADB says Challis died on 18 February 1880. Wikipedia's Challis article says 28 February 1880.
• The Royal Window gift: the ADB says £750. Wikipedia says £700.
• The size of the bequest: the heritage listing (via Wikipedia) says £276,000. The ADB says it was worth about £200,000 when it reached the university in 1889, with probate values of £60,000 in England and £101,000 in New South Wales. The 1913 Sydney Morning Herald said £250,000. The gap is probably down to the five years of build-up and how each source counted it, but none of them explains it.
• The Potts Point property: the 1913 Herald says the land from Macleay Street to Woolloomooloo Bay came into Challis's possession. The 1913 and 1941 papers say he was a tenant of the Maranamah cottage. Both could be true, but the papers don't line up neatly.

My Earlier Posts

• Martin Place – Sir James Martin – Sydney – New South Wales
• Progress Of The Suburbs – XVI – Potts Pt & Darlinghurst II – SMH – Sat 1 Nov 1913
• Historic Harbourside Homes Doomed Mansions Of Potts Point – The Sydney Sun – 4 January 1941
• Original Villas Of Darlinghurst
• Maranamah – 64 Macleay Street – Potts Point (Historic Sydney Mansions)
• Grantham – Potts Point (Historic Sydney Mansions)
• Federation – 1 January 1901

Sources

• David S. Macmillan, "Challis, John Henry (1806–1880)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 3, 1969: adb.anu.edu.au/biography/challis-john-henry-3186
• "John Henry Challis", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Challis
• "Challis House", Wikipedia, which reproduces the NSW State Heritage Register listing H00666 under CC BY 4.0: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challis_House
• "Challis Professorship", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challis_Professor
• "Potts Point, New South Wales", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potts_Point,_New_South_Wales
• "Progress of the Suburbs", Sydney Morning Herald, 1 November 1913, p. 8, as transcribed on this blog
• "Historic Harbourside Homes: Doomed Mansions of Potts Point", The Sun (Sydney), 4 January 1941, as transcribed on this blog
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, with the photographers and licences credited under each picture