by Cathy Jones 2024
’Elouera’ 75 Albert Road Strathfield, is a Federation Queen Anne style house built in 1900 by John Lyon Gardiner, a prolific builder of high quality houses of the Federation period in Strathfield. It is part of a group of three houses at 71-75 Albert Road built by Gardiner.
This property is situated on the original Thomas Rose grant of 1793. The land passed to Edward Powell and by the 1880’s the land was generally owned by William Russell. In October 1888, six acres in the northern part of Russell’s land was acquired by the President and Fellows of Camden Congregational College, with the intention of building a theological college in Strathfield. An additional five perches fronting Homebush Road was added from the Frederick Meredith 1793 grant, thereby the land fronted Albert Road, Homebush Road and Beresford Road.
The Congregational Church was well established in the Strathfield area in the late 19th century with many high profile members including merchant George Todman, architects Charles Slatyer and Harry Chambers Kent, and the extended members of the David Jones family (including members of the Jones, Thompson, Nott, Ross and Wilshire families). The Strathfield-Homebush Congregational Church (now Korean Uniting Church) was located opposite this land on the corner Homebush and Albert Road Strathfield. Likely in response to poor economic conditions in the 1890s, the plan to develop the land became unviable and the College Trustees opted to subdivide the land and offer it for residential sale in 1898. This subdivision includes land in Albert Rd (65-103 Albert Rd), Homebush Rd (25-39 Homebush Rd) and parts of Beresford Rd.
In September 1898, John Lyon Gardiner, a builder of Strathfield, acquired land from this estate with the intention of building a house to be on sold. Garden was a prolific builder in the Federation period in Strathfield and built many high quality houses in Redmyre Rd, Churchill Avenue and Vernon Street. Gardiner was born in Scotland in 1851, the son of William Gardiner and Anne Lyon. He married Isabella Stoopes (1863-1940) in 1891. Gardiner ceased to be listed as a builder in trades directories by 1915. According to the notice of his death in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday 18 February 1929 (p17), Gardiner had been in retirement for some years and was formerly a teacher of carpentry and joinery at the Sydney Technical College.
It is likely that the house was constructed in 1900. An entry is recorded in Sands Sydney Directory in 1901 noting Robert Beardsmore as the occupant of a house called ‘Elouera’ (Sands Directory generally references the previous year).
In November 1900, John Lyon Gardner transferred the property to Ethel Mary Clack of Summer Hill, spinster. The transfer was in the form of a life estate, with the conditions that if there were no children (of Ethel Clack) that obtained the age of 21 years, the property would transfer to Henry Robert Clack, draper (her father). Clack died in 1906. A later notation states the estate would pass to her children as tenants-in-common.
In 1901, Ethel Clack (1876-1949) married Robert Beardsmore (1873-1959). The couple had four children with two, Ruth and Henry surviving past the age of twenty-one and their mother’s death in 1949. Following the death of Ethel Beardsmore (formerly Clack), the property transferred to her children Ruth Waters and Henry Robert Beardsmore. Ruth married Thomas Waters, son of Alexander Waters of ‘Steephurst’ Albyn Road Strathfield.
Ethel Clack registered a condition on the land Certificate of Title (v.1399 f.96) restricting development on the land lot to one dwelling house which “shall include all ordinary outhouses and stabling”.
The house was originally numbered 55 Albert Road, but was renumbered 75 Albert Road in 1947.
‘Elouera’ was the home of Ethel and Robert Beardsmore for over 40 years from 1901. Col. Robert Beardsmore, DSO, OBE was one of Strathfield’s most illustrious residents and achieved prominence in the military, public service and business. Educated at Sydney High School and the University of Sydney (BA., 1895), he became a clerk in the public service in July 1890 and worked in the Department of the Postmaster-General in 1890-97, the office of the Public Service Board in 1897-99 and the Chief Secretary’s Department in 1899-1914. He was secretary of the Aborigines Protection Board in 1904-14. He achieved the military rank of Colonel, commencing his military service with the NSW Military Imperial Forces in 1895. He enlisted in 1914 to serve in World War I.
Beardsmore volunteered for service with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force which captured and occupied German New Guinea. He then enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 5 August 1915 as a major in the 30th Battalion, and reached Egypt in December. In June 1916 his battalion embarked for the Western Front and on 19-20 July had a bloody baptism in the battle of Fromelles. Beardsmore, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry, was wounded early, but continued to lead his company for ten hours before having his wounds dressed; the citation praised his ‘great coolness and courage’. He was promoted Lieutenant-Colonial on 28 July and appointed to command the 32nd Battalion. In January 1917 he was mentioned in dispatches; next April he was transferred to the general list on account of his health, and was placed in charge of the 5th Australian Division base depot at Etaples. He later became a staff officer for demobilisation at the Australian depots in the United Kingdom.
Beardsmore was discharged from the A.I.F. on 13 February 1920 and resumed employment with the New South Wales Public Service as an accountant in the Department of Lands. In December 1929 he organised the police camp at the Rothbury colliery near Maitland when, in an attempt to reopen the mine, the State government gave armed police protection to non-unionists and a violent clash followed. In his capacity of chief accountant to the department, in 1932 Beardsmore was to precipitate the final chain of events which led to the dismissal of the premier Jack Lang. On 10 May the government issued a circular instructing its officers to pay into the State Treasury all revenue collected in New South Wales; this contravened an earlier Commonwealth proclamation which directed that any revenue due to the Federal government should be paid into the Commonwealth Bank. Beardsmore was the only departmental executive who refused to comply with the State order. His action forced a crisis: Governor Sir Philip Game ruled the circular was illegal and on 13 May dismissed the Lang government.
Beardsmore was sent on indefinite leave and later resigned from the service. He became treasurer of the Australian Jockey Club in 1935- 49 and was also a member of the State Superannuation Board; from 1947 he was a director of B. J. Heath Pty Ltd, crockery merchants.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 26 September 1916. He was awarded the Order of British Empire (OBE) on 6th June 1938.
Beardsmore continued to live at ‘Elouera’, after the death of wife, and until his own death in 1959.
In 1959, the property transferred to Ruth Walters (later Gray as she remarried) and her brother Henry Beardsmore as tenants in common. In May 1960, Ruth and Henry transferred ownership to Leonard Waters and his wife, Mary as tenants in common.
References
Argent A., ‘Beardsmore, Robert Henry (1873 – 1959)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, Melbourne University Press, 1979, pp 231-232.
Malcolm, S ‘Recollections of early Strathfield’, Strathfield District Historical Society Newsletter, Vol.3 No.10 June 1981.
NSW Land Registry Services
Strathfield Council Valuations Lists
Sands Sydney Directory published by John Sands until 1932
Wise’s Post Office Directory 1904, 1908, 1936
