A ROMANTIC SYDNEY HOME: BURDEKIN HOUSE PASSES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 852, 28 August 1933, Page 6

A ROMANTIC SYDNEY HOME: BURDEKIN HOUSE PASSES.

A Sydney Letter.

Memories of Picturesque Figures in the City’s Cultural and Political History.

(Special to the “Star.”) SYDNEY, August 17. Perhaps the last and certainly the most famous of the surviving residences in Sydney built here in the old colonial days, and linked closely with Australia’s history, is Burdekin House. It stands in Macquarie Street, immediately opposite Parliament House, and its white facade, with the heavily moulded white pillars supporting the verandah, is the most familiar of all the landmarks that still recall the great city’s youth or childhood. It has stood for close on a hundred years, and now the edict has gone forth for its destruction.

r JMIE DEMOLITION of Burdekin House is one of the many indirect consequences of that extension of Martin Place toward Macquarie Street, which has been mentioned in these letters. The new Martin Place, when it reaches Phillip Street, will swallow up St Stephen’s, one of the oldest of our Presbyterian churches. This is in itself a calamity, for St Stephen's, like many of Sydney’s brown sandstone buildings, is architecturally a beautiful structure, and its spire is one of the most graceful and impressive of all our ecclesiastical adornments. When it was decreed that St Stephen's must disappear, the church trustees looked about for a suitable site in the vicinity—■ and th£y decided on the land now occupied by Burdekin House. The home of the Burdekins had passed out of the hands of the family; it was for sale and it w f as bought for £50.000. The City Council meantime had agreed to pay the trustees £IOO,OOO by way of compensation for the resumption of the land in Phillip Street, and this left a fair margin for expenditure on the new church. It has been planned on the same lines as the first St Stephen's —a modified perpendicular Gothic—and with a frontage of 80 feet on Macquarie Street, a commanding spire, an imposing flight of steps leading up to the vestibule and the beautiful stained glass windows that belonged to the old church, it should be one of the finest of all Sydney’s ecclesiastical edifices. Incidentally it is estimated to cost only £48.000. so that the new- church will open free of debt. Like Any EaiTs House. In the early ’forties of last century, Colonel Mundav, who lived here during Governor Fitzroy’s term of office, wrote to a friend at Home: ‘‘There is a house in Sydney as fine as any earl’s house m London.” This was the home built by Thomas Bxirdekin on Macquarie Street in 1841. The Burdekin came out from Sheffield in 1826, and founded a hardware business, from which grew the enterprise of Holdsworth and Macpherson. for many years one of Sydnej’’s greatest hardware firms. The Burdekins were already prosperous when their new home was completed, and though Colonel Munday’s description of it as a noble residence may have been a pardonable exaggeration, the mansion, with its fine pillars and massive Georgian front, must have seemed to the ‘‘ colonials of those days fit even to rival the stately homes of England.” Sydney was still mostlv “ packed away on the other side of Pitt Street,” the Governor lived in a straggling old building in Bridge Street—the Government House of to-day was not completed till 1845 —and the contrast with the ' surrounding primitive simplicity was quite enough to confer on this new “ spacious and aristocratic dwelling ” the distinction and the social prestige that it so long enjoyed. The heir to Burdekin House and a large share of the family possessions was Sidney Burdekin. He was only five years old when

his father died. and. as his mother said, he “ took after ” the founder of the house. Though cultured and capable, he had little taste for business and no thought of the value of money; and he spent most of his time on one or other of his father’s properties in the country. There he married Kathleen Burns, the daughter of another “ old colonial ” family, and her influence and love of social life brought him back to Sydney. Mrs Sidney Burdekin is the member of the family around whom most of its traditions centre, and who did most to give it distinction and fame. She was famous for her magnificent dresses and the lavish hospitality that she dispensed made the Burdekin family for manv years the centre of not only the social but the political life of New South Wales. Sidney Burdekin took an active part in public affairs. He was twice Mayor of the city, and for many years member of Parliament, and. as Parliament House lies just across the road, Burdekin House became naturally a resort and rallying point for all politicians who shared his Liberal views. Sir Henry Parkes, Sir George Dibbs and Sir George Reid were in turn familiar figures at Burdekin House; and many Acts were drafted, more than one Cabinet was formed, in drawing room or study, where Bxirdekin and his friends would sit smoking and conversing and planning sometimes throughout the night. So Burdekin House was for many years an important factor in that old political and social order which closed when Federation came and the Commonwealth supplanted the States. Sidney Burdekin died in 1900 —aged only 60—and though his wife survived him for thirteen years. “ with him died much of the glory of those spacious days.” Historic Memories Remain. And now the end of all things has come for Burdekin House. In a few weeks every vestige of it will have vanished, and there seems little hope that the tradition can be perpetuated by means of any material relic. But the historic memories will remain for all who care to revive them—memories of Prince George, then a midshipman on the Bacchante, now his Majesty King George V., who, with his brother the Duke of Clarence. accepted the Burdekin hospitalit}’; of the foreign dignitaries who flocked to Sydney more than 50 years ago to attend that great exhibition which still forms part of the shadowy background of the city's life; or “ Sir Henry ” Parkes, with his shaggy beard and his rugged eloquence; of ‘‘ Damn Chicago ” Dibbs, pungent, frank and irascible: of “Yes-No” George Reid, with his inevitable eyeglass and his inimitable smile; of many more whose words and actions loom large in Sydney’s annals —and behind them all, presiding over all, the vision of “ the lovelv lad} r ,” attired in robes that an empress might envy, whose spirit “ radiated culture and refinement ” over the city, and whose smile was an inspiration to devoted husband and loyal and admiring friends through all those “ golden years.”