Communist Party of Australia

Jenner is a quaint nineteenth century house in Macleay Street, in Sydney’s Potts Point, for many years the suburb of the very rich. The house has been placed on the Register of the National Estate, and should qualify for the very highest level of heritage protection. It was built in 1871 for Lebbeus Hordern, a historically-significant early merchant, and was designed as a two-storey house by Sydney’s most famous nineteenth-century architect, Edmund Blacket, who also designed the original buildings of Sydney University. Another famous architect, Colonel Thomas Rowe, added a third storey in the 1880’s.

The building was used from the 1920s as a private hospital. It was compulsorily acquired by the Commonwealth government during WWII, to facilitate construction of the Captain Cook graving dock at the adjacent Garden Island naval base, but the hospital continued to operate under leasehold.

In 1953, despite the vigorous protests of the hospital’s formidable Matron McMaster, the lease was terminated and the building was converted to use as a “wet canteen” (i.e. a pub) for navy personnel. Deprived of her life’s work, and deeply depressed, Matron McMaster died not long afterwards. Jenner was later used as a Navy photographic laboratory and as the editorial headquarters for “Navy News”.

Sailors are by reputation notoriously superstitious, and Navy personnel who worked in the building frequently complained that they felt they were being watched, and that there were other oddities in the building, like the scent of perfume and keys that jangled for no apparent reason.

Some have suggested that Matron McMaster, who was noted for her penetrating gaze, and who apparently always wore Bond Street perfume and carried keys that jangled at her waist, will haunt the building until it returns to its former use!

But if Jenner’s treatment to date has upset her, imagine how she must feel about the current proposals for its future treatment. About 12 years ago the federal government sold Jenner, and now the new private owners want to excavate its exquisite garden and crush another building and two swimming pools onto the site.

The Jenner story is significant, not just because of its importance as heritage, and certainly not because of the colourful stories about ghostly presences, but because it illustrates the potentially disastrous effects of government policies which favour privatisation and development at all costs.

Ownership by the Commonwealth preserved the property, but its sale has led inevitably to a grasp for maximisation of profit from the site. Sydney Council approved the development, but if it hadn’t, the NSW government could easily have stepped in and declared the project to be of state significance. And as far as heritage and the NSW government are concerned, that’s the end of that.

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