The house at 17 Simpson Street is an [early twentieth century] building with alterations and additions dating from inter-War period. The bungalow style addition facing the street comprises a broad gabled section with brick lower walls (now painted) and roughcast rendered walls above. Windows are timber framed double hung sashes with nine paned upper sashes and corbelled brick sills. Above the windows is a continuous projecting hood supported on timber brackets. To the south there is a tall slender chimney stack, rendered with a red brick capping. The polychromatic brick chimneys of the original house are visible at the rear. [i-Heritage]
The house was built by builder and contractor, Charles Osborne Luff, for the Rev David Meadowcroft in 1903. At the same time Luff built the house next door at No 19 for himself. Both houses occupied land previously the site of a large wooden house. Luff was at one time a member of the Richmond Council.
The house has been altered by an interwar addition to its front, but possibly originally was similar to No 19, although not identical. Google maps’ aerial view gives enough information to show that No 17 had a slightly longer footprint, although both were described in the Rate Books as having 8 rooms. No 17 has chimneys of polychrome brick whereas those at No 19 are plain red.
Rev David Meadowcroft spent his early years as a missionary in Madras, India but by the late 1860s had arrived in Australia. His first years here were mainly spent in Perth, but in 1877 he moved to Melbourne where he took up the position as pastor of the Congregational Church in Wellington Street, Collingwood. In 1885 he moved again to the Congregational Church in Victoria Parade, corner of Simpson Street, East Melbourne. Since 1932 this church has been the St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church.
Meadowcroft did not live very long at his new house before moving down the road closer to the church. It remained in the hands of his son, Frank, who rented it to Dr Stewart W Ferguson who eventually bought it circa 1912. He sold to Dr John Francis Wilkinson around 1917. Wilkinson lived there until his death in 1935 at St Ives Hospital, Vale Street, East Melbourne. His career was a distinguished one. [see link to ADB entry below]
The property was then sold to three brothers, Patrick, James and Henry Conlan. They named the house Summerhill. Henry, an investor, died in 1941. James died in 1942. He had been Superintendent of Victorian Railways. Patrick, also an investor, died in 1943. The house remained in Patrick’s estate for some years. It was initially occupied by his sister, Mrs Julia Mary Stutt, who died in 1950.
It seems the house was then divided into two units, one occupied Iris Victoria Howe, and the other by Isabel Jessie Hunt. Mrs Howe was the contact for people wishing to apply for a dietetics bursary. Training was to be provided by the Royal Melbourne, Alfred and Queen Victoria hospitals with accommodation included.
For a short time in the early 1960s Helena Doris Rapley, a retired public servant, ran the house as a private hotel. But by 1965 it had been bought by the Association of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor.
City of Melbourne Rate Books, Albert Ward
Australian Dictionary of Biography: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wilkinson-john-francis-9103
Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/
Building history, 21 Simpson Street: https://emhs.org.au/history/buildings/east_melbourne_simpson_street_021_...