Company Transfer

Architecture Australia's July/August 2015 Dossier compiled recent work in architectural history presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ). Wendy Roberts examines the architectural influence of the Van Diemen's Land Company in Tasmania.

Architectural histories of the era of colonial expansion tend to give precedence to significant civic, administrative and domestic projects, placing the focus on major centres of developing colonies. There has been little focus on the dissemination of architectural ideas and practices beyond these bounds and research into this area is limited.

Trade and primary production were also intrinsic to the development of colonies but, of necessity, were located on the fringes of settlements, far from the influence of the city-bound colonial establishment. Their building practices and spatial organization, though, fundamentally influenced the architectural development of these regional settlements.

In what ways, and to what extent, were such companies actively transferring architectural ideas and practices to the colonial fringes?

This research is a preliminary investigation into one colonial company, examining its role in the dissemination of nineteenth-century European architecture. The research has also revealed evidence of the extent to which links between companies may have enabled the further translation of architectural ideas and practices from various sources via diverse trading and professional networks. This supports the need to look more broadly for sources of architectural influence in the colonies – beyond key projects and established centres.

The Van Diemen’s Land Company (the VDL Co.) was chartered in London in 1825 and is typical of the plethora of trading and agricultural companies operating throughout the British Empire at the height of colonial expansion. It was chiefly concerned with raising sheep, but later diversified into other enterprises. Granted the right to select land in the remote north-west of Van Diemen’s Land (Van Diemen’s Land was what the Europeans called Tasmania until 1856), the company chose several separate blocks – the largest running inland from Emu Bay (now Burnie), with others further west centring on Woolnorth and Circular Head. Required by the colonial government to select land beyond any settled areas – avoiding conflict with landowners – the VDL Co. thus became a key agent of expansion into new regions – signifying early on the company’s influence on the settlement patterns of the developing colony.

Elevations of shops and dwellings for the Van Diemen’s Land Company in Burnie, Tasmania by S. & A. Luttrell Architects.

Elevations of shops and dwellings for the Van Diemen’s Land Company in Burnie, Tasmania by S. & A. Luttrell Architects.

In 1827 the company erected warehouses at Emu Bay, establishing a convenient port to service its inland holdings. But its headquarters were founded in the lee of Circular Head at Stanley: the most fitting location, manager Edward Curr believed, for company headquarters. In Stanley, then, Highfield House was constructed by 1834 and served as both the manager’s house and company headquarters.

Many of the company records are held in the Tasmanian Archive. They contain detailed architectural drawings associated with VDL Co. buildings in Stanley and Burnie and on several outlying properties. Highfield House, though, has become the flagship of the VDL Co.’s architectural occupation of north-west Tasmania. Not only was it conceived as the face of the company, but as the most intact of the company’s structures (albeit partially restored), it is also a valuable source for understanding the architectural practices of a remote nineteenth-century outpost.

The original plans of Highfield House are generally attributed to Henry Hellyer, the company surveyor, with later additions designed by John Lee Archer. Although the archives contain three designs drawn up by Hellyer, none of these was fully realized; rather the building became an amalgam of several concepts. The finished building retains only a small two-storey section from Hellyer’s designs, which is almost hidden behind a sweeping hipped roof.

There is evidence that the brief required Hellyer to incorporate various prefabricated building elements – windows, doors and mouldings – shipped from England. The detailing of elements such as the chimneys and verandah closely resembles contemporary pattern book examples. Whether these were a direct influence on Hellyer’s choices, or simply indicates his general awareness of prevailing architectural trends in Britain, bears further investigation.

Archer was commissioned in 1843 to enlarge Highfield into a much more substantial residence. Two new wings were proposed to bookend the original two-storey section, creating a service courtyard – a layout also advocated in pattern books. However, rather than the elegant completeness of the proposed plan, works were ultimately limited to the addition of one incomplete wing and some reorganization of existing spaces. Cost overruns likely deterred the proposed plan.

The farm buildings surrounding Highfield House have also been extensively surveyed in recent years. The reports tend, though, to concentrate on structural analysis, providing only passing references to possible sources of the design details. There is an extensive archive of correspondence between the VDL Co. Board in London and its managers in Van Diemen’s Land, but it has yet to be fully taken into account in the analysis of this building.

Elevation and floor plan for the store and residence at Stanley, Tasmania for the VDL Company by Corrie and North Architects.

Elevation and floor plan for the store and residence at Stanley, Tasmania for the VDL Company by Corrie and North Architects.

Image: From the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, used with permission of VDL Company.

Beyond Highfield, the VDL Co. had a major influence on the buildings and towns of the Tasmanian north-west. Small settlements were established in areas key to its pastoral, mining and trade interests. Road and railway infrastructure – built to service the company – provided a foundation for key transport links between settlements, opening up a region formerly entirely dependent on shipping for communications. These infrastructural developments in turn encouraged settlers to a region that had previously been too isolated to contemplate.

The VDL Co. was also influential in the development of Burnie. The company created railway infrastructure connecting its port with the booming West Coast mines, and commercial, trading and administrative buildings and housing were also constructed. For the design of many of these buildings the VDL Co. commissioned noted architects rather than developing in-house expertise. The company thus facilitated the transfer of contemporary architectural ideas and practices to areas of the colony that otherwise would have been limited, by local skills and expedience, to purely functional structures.

Alongside Archer, chief among the architects favoured by the VDL Co. were the Luttrell brothers (Alfred and Sidney) and Alexander North. Between them they brought a wide range of experience and influences. Archer had worked in England and Ireland before his appointment in 1827 as the Civil Engineer and Architect of Van Diemen’s Land. Once a trainee architect under Richard Norman Shaw, North had travelled widely in Europe and, in the Antipodes, maintained projects in Tasmania, Victoria, New Zealand and Fiji. He was Patron of the Tasmanian Arts and Crafts movement and formed the Tasmanian Institute of Architects. These activities and connections allowed these architects to maintain links to a wide network of architectural ideas despite their apparent isolation.

Research has also revealed evidence of strong networks of architectural patronage between companies in the colony. For example, the Luttrells received commissions from the Mt Lyell Mining Company in Queenstown, the River Don Trading Company on the north-west coast of Tasmania and the Strahan-based trading company F. O. Henry. It is not unreasonable to infer that links between these companies – whether at the level of personnel or within a commercial imperative to keep pace with the competition – created a climate promoting the dissemination of architectural ideas, styles and practices to remote regions of colonial Tasmania.

Finding such intricate connections between companies in a small colony is perhaps not surprising, but it points to the wider possibility of the replication of similar networks of architectural influence in colonial outposts throughout the empire – and is a basis, therefore, for reading nineteenth-century Tasmania in terms other than an Australian architectural history. Further examination of the records and remaining buildings of these companies, within and beyond Australia, will doubtless provide considerable material from which to establish the extent to which “company transfer” contributed to the global dissemination of nineteenth-century ideas and practices in architecture.

Source

Discussion

Published online: 1 Sep 2015
Words: Wendy Roberts
Images: From the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, used with permission of VDL Company.

Issue

Architecture Australia, July 2015

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