East Melbourne, Gipps Street 121, Wooroonook

Builder, Joseph Baxter, built this house for himself to the design of C Langford in 1882.  This was in the early days of Clements Langford’s career but he went on to be a master builder working on many of Melbourne’s well-known churches and commercial properties. [see link below]. 

Baxter lived in the house for only a few years before selling to Mrs Clara Russell who ran it as a boarding house until about 1896. One of her tenants in that year was H Weedon, no doubt Sir Henry Weedon, business man and lord mayor of Melbourne 1905-08, and after whom Weedon Reserve in East Melbourne was named. [see link below]  By this time the house was known as Wooroonook.  

Mrs Russell sold to recently retired inspector of police, Charles Jesse, who lived there until his death in 1915 when it passed to his daughter Emily (Lily) who had married Archibald James Stodart.  Lily died in 1935 when the house was sold to George William Dwyer who died in 1943 when his son, John Christopher Dwyer inherited it.  In 1947 he sold it to solicitor Hubert Warner Browne who died only two years later.

The house was advertised for auction in early 1950 but bought prior by journalist, Stewart Cockburn. He wrote a piece called ‘A Christmas Story’ for the Australian Home Beautiful, December 1950, about his experiences doing the house up. It is illustrated and a photo of his sitting room shows three arm chairs covered in a fabric designed by Frances Burke, known as ‘tiger stripe’. A photo of the exterior of the houses shows the ground floor verandah with a timber frieze which looks to be of a later design than the rest of the house.  This has now been replaced. 

Stewart Cockburn was at the time writing for The Herald, and it seems that almost the minute he had finished his renovations he was sent to London.  There, he came to the attention of Robert Menzies and was selected by him to be his press-secretary.  He resigned in 1953 due to illness and returned to his home state of South Australia.  His daughter, Jennifer Cockburn, has written his biography in a book called Writing for his Life, published in 2022.

To see Stewart Cockburn's article click on the catalogue reference link below.