By Cathy Jones
‘Wilverley’ is located on the Woodward Avenue Heritage Conservation Area, which includes predominately Victorian style houses, in Woodward Avenue, The Boulevarde and Albyn Road. This precinct is built on the 1880 subdivision of the Woodgreen Estate and is one of Strathfield’s earliest residential developments.
‘Wilverley’ 8 Woodward Avenue was built c.1889 for its owner Richard Glinn Vallack, who named the house ‘Arcadia’. Vallack was the son of R G Vallack, managing director of W. Gardiner & Sons, soft goods merchants. After Vallack’s death in 1901, the house was leased by his estate to Alfred Stroud Watts, who named the house ‘Cheyne’ and then by William Robinson, an engineer, who resumed the house name ‘Arcadia’.
By 1907, the house was owned by Robert Freeman, which was then known as ‘Wilverley’. It was owned from 1908-1910 by T P Adam [JP for Queensland] [1908-1910] and by Christopher Cookson 1911-1914.
From c.1915 to at least the 1960s, ‘Wilverley’ was owned by the Thompson family, initially by Methodist Minister Rev. Gustavus Thompson (d.1933), then by his widow Miriam Ellen Thompson (1858-1937). Ownership transferred to their daughter, Ethel Constance Thompson in 1937, who owned the house until the late 1950s.
References
Department of Valuer-General, Valuation Lists, Municipality of Strathfield 1924, 1939, 1957
Fox & Associates, Strathfield Heritage Study, 1986
NSW Electoral Roll, 1903, Electorate of Parkes
NSW Electoral Roll, 1915, Electorate of Nepean
NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages
Sands Sydney Directory, published by John Sands [1889-1932]
Strathfield Council Building Registers
Strathfield Council Valuation Lists 1894, 1896, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1907, 1914, 1917
Strathfield Heritage 