Spencer Lodge - Millers Point
(For the 'Sunday Times' — By MARY SALMON.)
The picture of Spencer Lodge as it ap-pears to-day does not present a building in accordance with our present idea of a gentleman's residence, but those who knew Sydney a little over fifty years ago have many stories to tell of the pleasant time they have spent with hos-pitable Captain Lamb & his wife, when a family of handsome daughters & bright happy sons gathered under the roof of the home at Miller's Point, which was the rendezvous for naval officers visiting this port. To-day the old homestead still serves a useful purpose, as a Casualty Ward & outdoor department of the Sydney hospital, & is convenient as being near the wharves & the large warehouses where accidents are of likely occurrence.
The garden grounds are much curtailed from the olden days, only a tree or two standing, where once there were lawns, rosaries, & plantations of flowering shrubs. Whilst the bare walls remain, the building is shorn of everything that would suggest an old family mansion ; but there is one thing that can never be taken away — the glorious panoramic view of sea & land stretching in an uninterrupted vista for miles beyond. Balmain, Cockatoo, the openings of Iron Cove, Lane Cove, & the Parramatta River, are in the distance.
Immediately beneath are the ship-ridden waters of Darling Harbor ; in the days of the Lamb's residence these were known as Cockle Creek. Further round towards Dawes' Point was the old wharf, now re-constructed under the Harbor Trust, known in early times as Lamb & Buchanan's Wharf, where the Captain brought his brig Resource, laden with merchandise & carrying as passengers his wife & a couple of little ones. It was this shipment of goods that started the firm as merchants, & from which the large & important house of Par-bury & Lamb has evolved.
Although Captain Lamb came to Sydney as a permanent settler in 1829, yet it was by no means his first visit to our beautiful harbor, which was well known to him from occasional voyages when in an East Indiaman after he had retired from the navy. A few words concerning the early career of one of the FOUNDERS OF THE COUNTRY'S COMMERCE may be of interest. Captain John Lamb was born in 1790, & when only 11 years of age, in 1801, entered the navy, when he is said to have served under Bligh, previous to that boisterous but valiant commander being made Governor of New South Wales.
Governor Gipps was also an early friend, as in 1813, when Mr. George Gipps was engineer officer in charge on the east coast of Spain, young Lamb was put in command of some soldiers to place guns in position there. When in 1837 they met again in New South Wales, there was much to be recalled of their midtime career, & a firm cementing of the friendship begun just before the Peace of Europe was signed, when Captain Lamb retired from the navy, on half pay, as Commander. He then went into the merchant marine service, & used to tell how he was OFFERED NEARLY THE WHOLE OF WOOLLOOMOOLOO as a grant if he would settle here, but he said Sydney itself would not have tempted him in those days. However, when he married Miss Emma Robinson (daughter of the deputy chair-man at Lloyd's for fifty years), he began to think that a family might have great chances in a new country, & thither he sailed in his own vessel, which he filled with goods likely to be salable to start business in Sydney.
A stone bearing the date 1833 is in the ground adjacent to the homestead of Spencer Lodge, therefore it may be pre-sumed the family took possession soon after they arrived. In the early fifties old residents remember visiting the Lambs there, & some old-timers assert that Dr. Bland afterwards lived in the house, when, in 1855, Captain Lamb & his wife returned to the old country,
leaving part of a grown up family behind. The Captain did not intend to return to Australia, building a house at Clapham Park, but the ties of 26 years of active life were too strong, & he re-turned to Sydney, where, until his death in 1862, he served his country as a member of the Legislative Council, & in other honorable capacities.
In a corner of Randwick Cemetery rests both Captain John Lamb, R.N., &, four-teen years afterwards, his wife, leaving a large family of seven sons & five daughters to carry on life in the State where their parents had come almost as pioneer settlers. Many of the family have passed on — Mr. Walter Lamb, of Woodstock, Philip, a squatter in Queensland, Edward William, John De Villiers, Alfred, & Charles, are all held by old colonists in affectionate remembrance. Lieut. Chatfield, Commander Simpson, Mr. Archibald Bell Cox, Mr. Henry Carey Dangar, & Mr. Henry Thompson married the Misses Lamb. It was a difficult matter for merchants in the depressed forties to keep from losing any moneys that the good years previously had given them.
Squatting was ONLY IN ITS INFANCY, & outside of a pastoral life there was little means of accumulating wealth. Captain Lamb went through the ups & downs of a merchant's life, & though he may not always have been affluent, was looked on as invariably honorable & straightforward, both in business & in his political career. With the discovery of gold in 1852 came a great change in fortunes, & in 1855 the Captain went out of business with a large amount of money. It was not the man who found nuggets of gold as a rule who was permanently enriched, but he who left the gold-getting to others & stuck by the business he had in hand.
Merchandise went up, ships were in great requisition, houses could not be got at treble rents, & workmen's wages in-creased. Those who had battled through the previous years of depression reaped rich harvests of profit. In the present day when we are so in touch with the world outside, that what happens in London or St. Petersburg comes to us in a few hours, when our mail bags arrive with unfailing regularity every week, it is difficult to realise what commercial life was to men in the days when there was no cable, not even an organised mail service, when newspapers & letters came from the old world in
the casual & uncertain arrival of merchant sailing vessels, which took three months or more from London or Liverpool to Melbourne or Sydney.
Even then there was a great casualness about letters reaching their proper owners, & orders transmitted to British firms might receive attention if no better way of disposing of goods than supplying the colonies turned up. It was in such days that Merchant Lamb had to struggle until the elysian times that the finding of gold brought to the country. When the city of Sydney had an extra member allowed to represent it in the Council (about 1847) prior to Responsible Government in 1856, Captain Lamb was elected with Wentworth & Lowe, Dr. Bland, who had always been the colleague of Wentworth, being at the bottom of the poll. Captain Lamb (though, per-haps, lacking the mentality of his com-peers) was a popular favorite, & had the respect of everyone, so when three members were appointed, instead of two, for the city, Captain Lamb got a seat.
But it was as AN ANTI-TRANSPORTATION AGITATOR that he made his mark, & there are some still living who will remember the great gathering at Circular Quay on June 8, 1849, when the Hashemy arrived with its cargo of unwanted convicts, & over 8000 men gathered in tho pouring rain to listen to Robert Campbell, John Lamb, a young man named Henry Parkes, & others, speak for hours from the top of a bus to the effect that no more convicts were to be forced upon New South Wales. "We will allow this lot to land, but no more" was the verdict ; & it was Captain Lamb & Mr. Chas. Cowper (young also then, & a coming on man), who took the resolution along to Government House.
Later on the two men were again to be associated, when Captain Lamb was one of the directors of THE FIRST RAILWAY COMPANY, & Mr. Chas. Cowper was chairman of the same. We have just been interested in the Jubilee of the wreck of the Dunbar, & the youth of to-day can scarcely realise that the loss of a single vessel could have caused so profound a sensation throughout the community as did this shipwreck on August 20, 1857. But it must be remembered that Sydney was only a quarter the size, & every man was an individual of particular value in the then youthful settlement. Captain Lamb, as Chairman of the Marine Board, went to the "Gap" with a steamer to try to rescue some of the unfortunate passengers, or, failing to get any alive, he had a number of coffins in which to place such bodies as could be recovered.
The Lodge, in Macleay-street, built for, & lived in by Col. Treasurer Rid-dell, is another house associated with the Lambs, whilst the beautiful castle at Potts Point, with its embattled turrets, has long been the home of Mrs. H. C. Dangar (Miss Lucy Lamb, one of tho "toasts" of Sydney Society of years ago). Woodstock, Rooty Hill, was where Mr. Walter Lamb carried on fruit pre-serving, & had a fine estate, but to "old-timers" the Lambs & Spencer Lodge, Miller's Point, will always be intimately associated.
Captain Lamb was not a racing man, but he imported some fine horses. Among these were Peter Fin, Cutty Sark, & Spaewife. They were from the stables of Sir William Maxwell, of Ayrshire, one of the greatest sportsmen of his day. The glory of Miller's Point, as a fine
residential quarter, has long departed; but there are as well as Spencer Lodge, many other old built mansions which even in their decay, speak loudly of having been the ancestral halls of some important families of the past. So, some are, however, entirely effaced, for in-stance, Mr. William Walker's House (uncle of the late Thomas Walker, of Concord), which stood where Milton Ter-race now is a conspicuous object. Mr. Walker was a canny Scotchman, who left his native land with money, deter-mined not to lose "baubees" in the new country.
When he returned to Scotland it was as a very wealthy man. A story told by the late Mr. Thomas Walker shows the foresight of the original found-er of the family, "I was sent overland with a dray, laden with provisions, in which were packed many sovereigns, to be in time for the FIRST MELBOURNE LAND SALE. The Government would not take bills. We had a pleasant, though lengthy, trip over, coming across nothing more formid-able than blacks, to whom the food was more temptation than the gold. Yes, we were in at the sale, & the land bought then laid the foundation of the great fortune gained by me when com-paratively an elderly man."
SPENCER LODGE, MILLER'S POINT.
