The Mercer Family and Edinboro, Sydney Road ... - Manly Council

The Mercer Family and Edinboro, Sydney Road, Balgowlah.Andrew Mercer circa 1880Andrew Mercer was born in 1828 at Jedburgh, Scotland. His wife Robina Mercernee Watt was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. They migrated with their family fromScotland via Liverpool on The Empire, which departed Liverpool on 1 March 1853 andarrived Sydney 27 July 1853. 1Andrew and Robina lost one daughter (Robina) who was buried in Edinburgh andanother, newborn, who died at sea on The Empire. A third daughter, Barbara, died inSydney in 1855. She was buried at Devonshire Street Cemetery (now Central RailwayStation).Five further children were born in Sydney: Jane (1855-1940), Andrew junior (1857–1922), Thomas (1859-1946), William (1862-1922) and Frank (1865-1896).Andrew Mercer appeared on the Electoral Roll 1859-60 for St Leonards as ‘AndrewMercer, Manly Beach, freehold land, Burnt Bridge Creek.’ A Parish Map of Manly Covedated 1884 shows the location of Andrew Mercer’s 40 acres north of Burnt BridgeCreek. 2According to Miss Robina Zealand, great-granddaughter of Andrew Mercer, thefamily moved from the inner city to Manly (now Seaforth) around 1863, when hergrandfather, Thomas Mercer was four years of age. The family farm was located aroundwhat is now Judith Street, Seaforth, and is now partly occupied by Balgowlah NorthPublic School. It is likely that Andrew Mercer continued to work as a stonemason inSydney while his wife ran the small farm, as he is listed in Sands’ Directory for1861,‘mason’, 24 Yurong Lane (the only Mercer listed); and in Sands’ 1865, ‘stonemason’, 12Albert Place, both in Surrey Hills.1 AO 4/4931 (2464).2 Letter from George Champion, 10 March 2006.1

Andrew Mercer was not listed in Sands’ for 1867, 1869, 1870 or 1871. However, inSands’ 1875 he is listed as ‘A Mercer, stonemason, Balgowlah, Manly.’By 1873, Andrew Mercer had purchased additional land in what is now Sydney Road,Balgowlah and then variously known as Middle Harbour Road or, briefly, Electra Street.An expert stonemason, Mercer quickly set about building his family a new stone cottage,‘Edinboro’, in the simple ‘Georgian’ style. The stone walls and iron roof had only justbeen completed when the family moved in to the new home on Good Friday, 1874. Thehouse still had no windows or doors.The land Andrew purchased comprised Lot 4 of a subdivision of Suburban Portion 31of the original village of Balgowlah set out in 1827. Portion 31 had originally beengranted by the Crown to Robert Adamson on 5 February 1857.Miss Zealand recalls her grandfather, Thomas Mercer, telling her of his earlychildhood memories, first with his paddle-steamer ride across Sydney Harbour to Manlywith all the family’s possessions; then by cart to the Mercer farm at Burnt Bridge Creek(Seaforth); and a few years later moving into the new stone house, ‘Edinboro’ in SydneyRoad. 3‘Edinboro’ was named by Mercer after his beloved wife Robina’s city of birth. Itsspecial association with the women of the Mercer family begins with that name and theCertificate of Title, dated 16 October 1894 granting Robina Mercer a ‘Life Estate’ in newproperty. The land measured some three roods and 24 perches, approximately fiveacres. It extended from today’s Sydney Road to Willyama Avenue, and included muchof the frontage between today’s Boyle and Hill Streets, Balgowlah, on the north side ofSydney Road. Edinboro remains there today on the residual land, left after manysubdivisions over the period 1874-1925.According to the family, the exposed sandstone blocks were quarried on site. Thequarry was located to the rear of the adjacent modern apartments, ‘Coromandel’,developed on the former Mercer land in the 1970s. The sandstone shows the marks ofat least three different masons, suggesting that Andrew Mercer had begun to assemblethe skilled construction team that was to become Andrew Mercer and Son.Edinboro is believed to be the oldest remaining house in Balgowlah, and possibly inManly Municipality, to remain in continuous ownership by one family.Andrew Mercer was to become an important community leader both in Balgowlahand Manly. He was listed in the Sands’ Directories as living at Balgowlah (1875),Bulgowlah (1877), Middle Harbour (1879) (as Andrew Mercer and Son, contractors), atNorth Harbour (1882) and as ‘builder, North Harbour (1883); and as ‘Andrew Merser,contractor’ at Middle Harbour Road (ie Sydney Road) in 1884. Finally in Sands’ 1885,Andrew Mercer was listed living at ‘Edinbro’ [sic], the first time the house name wasused in Sands’, with Mercer as the first listing along ‘Middle Harbour Road’ beyondIvanhoe Park.By the 1880s, Andrew’s son Thomas was also listed as a ‘plasterer’ at Botany Street[Redfern] (Sands’ 1880) and in Crown Street [Surry Hills] (Sands’ 1882).On 3 January 1876, less than two years after the Mercers’ move into Edinboro,Andrew Mercer was prominent at a public meeting at the Pier Hotel in Manly to considersteps to form a municipality for the Manly district ‘under the name of the Borough ofBrighton’. Mercer was elected as one of a fifteen-man committee to consider theboundaries of the proposed municipality and report back. He was also a signatory to theformal petition for a Municipality of Brighton on 26 July 1876. 43 Interview with Miss Robina Mercer, 24 April 2006.4 Champion, S & G, Manly, Warringah and Pittwater 1850-1880, pp176-177.2

On 15 January 1877, Mercer was again in the news, seconding a resolution carried ata crowded public meeting held in the Pavilion, Ivanhoe Park in relation to delays by theNSW Colonial Secretary replying to local demands for a municipality and review of thelease arrangements for Manly Wharf. 5In January-February 1880, Mercer was an unsuccessful candidate for the new ManlyCouncil, incorporated in 1877. On 25 August 1880 a letter from Mercer, signed ‘Sandy’,was published in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Manly Wharf and the Port JacksonSteam Boat Company’ in which he expressed his grievances against the Company. 6Mercer appears to have subdivided his original Burnt Bridge Creek farm andmortgaged portion. On 15 November 1877 the Sydney Morning Herald advertisedportion of the Mercer land for rent, as follows: “20 acres of land and two stone cottages,situated about 20 minutes’ walk from the steamboat pier and commanding magnificentviews of Middle Harbour and the Heads.”A mortgage to William Wallace is recorded in the Vendors Book 1871-76, NSW LandTitles Office, described as 20 acres 8½ roods of ‘Mercer’s 40 acre purchase’ at ‘ManlyCove near Burnt Bridge Creek’. 7 Later mortgages were also taken out to the ‘SavingsBank’ (Bank of NSW) over the Burnt Bridge Creek land and portion of Lot 1, section 5,on the corner of Addison Road and High Street in the Clifton Heights Estate; and toRobert Fox over the same lot, ‘a resubdivision of section 15 of Bassett Darley [Estate]known as Clifton Heights’. 8William Mercer, Andrew’s third son (1862-1922), also purchased land, perhaps inconnection with the family’s construction and contracting business. In 1884-85, he isshown with a mortgage to the Australian Joint Stock Bank over two parcels of land at‘Thornton’s Hill, Manly’ at present-day Fairlight, not far from the Mercer family home. 9The Mercer family has a photo from this period of Andrew with a local residents’committee that agitated successfully for the excavation of Sydney Road at Red Hill,Fairlight, to reduce the severe gradient following a serious accident involving therunaway wagon of a travelling circus.On 5 November 1883, Andrew Mercer became the owner of four acres of MathewCharlton’s original grant at Brookvale. As there was no local brickworks operating at thattime, Andrew decided to establish one on the site as an adjunct to his constructionbusiness, Andrew Mercer and Son. However, on 10 March 1885 Mercer sold thebrickyard to Samuel Bloomfield. The land now forms part of the Brookvale Bus Depot.No bricks were manufactured on the site. Bloomfield’s brickworks were at FrenchsForest. 10Meanwhile, Andrew Mercer led efforts to obtain a public school for the 26 childrenaged between 4 and 14 scattered over a three-mile radius from Balgowlah. According toThomas Mercer, Miss Zealand’s grandfather and Andrew’s son, who attended theschool, the petition was signed in the Mercers’ front parlour. Dated November 1880, theapplication for a provisional school was successful and an old cottage was leased at £30per annum for use as a school. The enrolment in 1881 was 32. Following an adversereport from the Manly Council Inspector of Nuisances and a meeting with the Secretaryof the Education Department, two acres of land for a new school were resumed on the5 Op cit, p190.6 Letter from George Champion, 10 March 2006.7 LTO, Book 149, number 163M.8 See LTO, Book 207, number 801; Book 230, number 431; Book 240, number 920.9 LTO, Book 322, number 896.10 Letter from George Champion.3

corner of Sydney Road and Frenchs (Forest) Road. The current stone building waserected in 1893. 11By 1881, Andrew Mercer was operating a substantial construction company,operating as Andrew Mercer and Son. He successfully tendered for the construction ofthe new Manly Post Office to be built on the corner of Sydney Road and Belgrave Street,(now a vacant site opposite the Manly Congregational Church). The new stone PostOffice opened in March 1883. Tragically unsympathetic alterations and additions weremade in the 1920s disguising the Mercers’ fine stonework and, finally, it was demolishedfor an ill-conceived road-widening scheme that never came to fruition. 12The 1891 Census for Fairlight Ward listed ‘A Mercer 2 males 4 females’ living in(Edinboro) Sydney Road. In 1894 the NSW Electoral Roll, District of Warringah, showedAndrew Mercer, contractor, Balgowlah. 13 Andrew died the same year and is buried inManly Cemetery near his beloved home, Edinboro.Thomas Mercer (1859-1946), the second son of Andrew and Robina, was trained asa carpenter and worked with his father in the Mercers’ construction business for anumber of years. Later he became a missionary for the Sydney City Mission,Woolloomooloo in 1927.Scan 6.6.05, Front of Edinboro, 2005.On Andrew Mercer’s death, his oldest surviving daughter, Jane inherited Edinboro.Jane had previously worked as a live-in servant to Sir Thomas Walker at ‘Yaralla’ inConcord. She continued gradually selling off portions of the Mercer land asdevelopment progressed along Sydney Rod toward Balgowlah. These had beenpaddocks where neighbours were allowed to run their horses. Some was sold to meet11 Swancott, Charles, Manly 1788-1968, p102.12 Swancott, op cit, p89, also see Manly Daily 15 December 1973.13 Letter from George Champion.4

family debts while other parts were sold to fund various improvements and propertymaintenance. She let the front rooms to holidaymakers and provided meals to localworkmen.The family also purchased land in Waratah Street, Balgowlah, opposite Edinboro,and family members built two Californian bungalows there (now nos 9 and 11 WaratahStreet). Jane Mercer lived in one of the cottages for a period, with a boarder, beforemoving back to Edinboro.Around World War One, Jane Mercer was asked by Manly Council to sell a portion ofEdinboro’s land to enable the laneway behind to be extended from Hill Street through toBoyle Street to create what is now known as Northcote Avenue with direct access fromHill to Boyle Streets. Miss Mercer agreed, but another landowner refused to sell (aMember of the NSW Parliament, perhaps Arthur Griffiths, Minister in the Holman LaborGovernment). In 1919, Miss Mercer sold the one-quarter perch portion to AugustusSydney Knight. According to family sources this was done to prevent the otherlandowner having access to Northcote Avenue, which was never able to be built throughto Boyle Street. 14Jane Mercer in back paddock of Edinboro, 1920sIn 1925, Miss Jane Mercer sold the remaining portion on the eastern side as twosubdivided lots on which two semis were soon constructed – one fro Ernest and AdaJeffery (joint tenants) and one for Robert Holland. The residue, including the houseEdinboro, was transferred to Thomas Mercer (Miss Zealand’s grandfather) in 1927. 15Thomas Mercer then ‘of Randwick, gentleman’ mortgaged Edinboro to a Wahroongawidow in 1929 but discharged the mortgage in 1931. 1614 LTO, Vol 193, Folio 80, 13 November 1919.15 LTO, Vol 3761, Fol 104: transfer to Jeffery (16 Sept 1925); to Holland (17 Dec 1925); and toThomas Mercer (27 Oct 1927).16 LTP, Vol 4071, Fol 208.5

Semi-retired by the 1930s, Thomas Mercer spent much of his time at Edinboro withhis sister Jane. His brother, William Mercer, a stonemason like his father Andrew, alsolived nearby. In 1934, Thomas enclosed the front verandah of Edinboro, with woodenshingles covering the enclosed room either side of a new front door. Remnants of thisenclosure can still be seen in photos taken in 1976 for the architectural heritage surveyof Manly Municipality. 17 Other alterations were made to help accommodate a family offour orphans whom Jane Mercer fostered and virtually adopted.Invitation to 1877 resident Thomas Mercer to Manly’s Diamond Jubilee in 1937During the 1930s, the Zealands returned to live in Edinboro, including their daughter.Robina Dorothy Zealand, Thomas Mercer’s granddaughter. It was from her grandfatherthat Miss Zealand was to learn much of the Mercer family history. Born in 1929, Robinaremains a living witness to the Mercer family’s up and downs, and alterations toEdinboro since the early 1930s. Miss Zealand’s Great-Aunt Jane Mercer lived on inEdinboro until her death in 1940 at the age of 85.After Thomas Mercer’s death, Edinboro passed in 1944 to his oldest daughter,Robina May Saunderson (nee Mercer), the wife of Richard Saunderson, telephonist ofBalgowlah; then after her death in 1970 to her husband, her sister Alice May (‘Bessie’)Zealand (nee Mercer) and the Saundersons’ son, Ronald Richard Saunderson; then in1974 to Ronald Saunderson and Alice May Zealand as tenants in common.Eventually, Alice Zealand and her daughter Robina became the owners, buying outRonald Saunderson’s share in 1975 assisted by a mortgage from Saunderson. On her17 See Buildings of Historical and Architectural Interest, Manly Council, 1976, p15-17.6

mother’s death, Robina Dorothy Zealand became the registered proprietor bytransmission on 1 March 1989. 18In 2005, Miss Zealand had the verandah enclosures removed. This has revealedEdinboro’s fine sandstone front again for the first time in over 70 years. Otheralterations over the years have been mainly internal, and at the rear of the property.These have included enclosure and sandstone brick extensions over the rear verandahwhich originally housed a wash-room with tin bathing tub (c1905-1910); removal ofinternal walls between the original stone-built utility and smoke-room (to smoke meat) tocreate a new dining-room (c1933-34); internal bathroom and toilet (c1970s); new kitchenc1970s; replacement of front windows with French doors and creation of high sidewindows by removal of sandstone blocks in front rooms (c1930s). The original well onthe eastern side of the house has also been filled in.Andrew Mercer’s Edinboro is one of the most important remaining colonial homes inManly Municipality, and probably the earliest remaining in Balgowlah. It was built onlyeleven years after Manly’s Congregational Church (1863), the oldest building in Manly.Edinboro pre-dates the incorporation of Manly Municipality in 1877, an event in whichAndrew Mercer played an important part.It is remarkable that his modest hand-built home survives, largely intact. It isimperative that it be afforded protection by listing as a heritage item under the ManlyLEP.Terry MetherellMay 2006.Scan 6.6.05 Edinboro, 2005.Additional:18 See LTO Vol 4071, Fol 208.7

18.1.07, Mrs Zealand recalled that there had been at one time two Norfolk Island pinesin the front garden of Edinboro, and that the collapse of the roots many years after theyhad been cut down led to some subsidence of the front garden. Her great-gradnfatherAndrew Mercer had at one time headed a committee which advised on the re-alignmentof Sydney Road, and a photograph of the committee was taken at the time, which shethought may survive in a Government archive somewhere.8