East Melbourne, Simpson Street 021, Nyoora

The house was built in 1854 for George Smyth.  He was at the time a marine and fire insurance broker and later manager of the Professional Life Assurance Company.  In September 1853 he advertised for an ‘Imported Wood house about 40 feet by 30 feet, for a private residence’. Two months later he notified the City of Melbourne that he intended to build a wooden house in Simpson Street.  

We can assume that this was one of the many portable houses erected around Melbourne, and particularly East Melbourne, during the early days of the gold rush. They provided a quick solution to housing at a time when building materials were in short supply, and demand was high due to an ever-increasing number of new arrivals. 

The house was large by the standards of the day, nine rooms plus stabling and coachhouse, and was on a double block of land 133ft by 140ft, according to the rate books. Smyth lived there with his wife, Lucy, and their young children.   

Smyth died in 1859 and the house was sold soon after to William Harris Woodville, also an insurance agent, previously of Jolimont. He had recently married and moved in with his wife, Alice (nee Dittmar). They called the house Nyoora. Several children were born there. Woodville died in 1880 but the family continued to live there for many more years.  The three daughters all married at the nearby Trinity Church. The second eldest daughter, Alice, married Alexander Balcombe, son of Alexander Balcombe snr, who lived in another portable house just around the corner in George Street on what is now the site of the East Melbourne Library.  The Balcombes country home was The Briars in Mornington, now a museum house. 

In 1885 Mrs Woodville subdivided the land and sold the southern half which presumably had housed the stabling and coachhouse. The two terrace houses now numbered 13 and 15 Simpson Street were built there shortly afterwards.

Mrs Woodville died in 1891 and the house was let to tenants until finally sold in 1903 when it was demolished and two new house, Nos 17 and 19 Simpson Street were built.