East Melbourne, Vale Street 024

This house was built for G A Gibbs by Timmins & Moles of 27 McKean St., Fitzroy in 1891.
George Arthur Gibbs was secretary of the Metropolitan Board of Works, a post he held for 37 years. He was less faithful to his place of residence and sold it in 1897 to Eliza Welch.  

Eliza, along with her husband, her sister and her sister’s husband, started the popular department store known as Ball and Welch in Flinders Street.  She became a substantial landholder in East Melbourne owning many properties. Eliza owned the Vale Street house until her death in 1916 and shortly afterwards the house was advertised for sale along with her other property. 

It appears to have taken some years to sell and remained in Eliza’s estate until about 1923.  In 1922 a tenant of the house, Elizabeth Carter, had her niece, Audrey Fenton, staying with her.  Audrey was an up and coming young dancer with bright future ahead of her.  She had married Allan Fenton who turned out to be a cruel and controlling husband and so she had left him. However one night she agreed to meet up with him and next morning both their bodies were found on the Yarra Bank near the old Friendly Society Gardens (roughly AAMI stadium).  He had shot her and then himself, having first dosed himself with cyanide, just to make sure. 

Mary Ann O’Neill was the next owner.  While previously it appears that the house was let as a boarding house Mary, certainly by 1937 and possibly earlier, had reconfigured it into two flats.  One upstairs and one down. Other subsequent owners were Ford Henry Roberts from about 1940, followed by Dorothy Evelyn Prendergast.  One of the tenants during this period was Minnie Edith Leigh, an artificial flower maker.  This was an era when hats were habitually worn, and hats for women were commonly decorated with artificial flowers.  Minnie was no doubt very busy.

Rose Skinner was owner of the house and occupier of the downstairs flat between 1949 and 1952.  Rose and her husband Joe were natives of Perth and it is not known why they were in Melbourne for this short period.  They proved to be an interesting couple. Joe was a builder, a real estate agent and a collector of antiques. During his time in Vale Street he put his building skills to use, renovating their flat quite extensively.  It resulted in a four page spread in Home Beautiful [see link below].  In the spirit of the fifties the couple chose to paint the house ‘mist-green, with a strawberry-pink front door’.
The Skinners returned to Perth where, in 1958, they built a stylish art gallery which was named Skinner Galleries, an institution in Perth for the next eighteen years. In its time it held 214 exhibitions, hosting many of Australia’s most well-known artists. It was furnished with a grand piano, and was frequently used for concerts and literary events. In the early years there was also a bookshop.’ Rose became one of the country’s most important art dealers and fostered the careers of many artists.  For this work she was awarded an MBE in 1972. 

The next owners were John and Audrey Rogers. Not much is known about John Richard Nevil Rogers other than that he was an artist.  A little more is known about Audrey Jean, nee Baird.  She grew up in Toorak, was educated at St Catherine’s and went to finishing school in Switzerland. On her return home in 1939 she travelled with her mother and two sisters to Vienna right at the start of the war.  She was there to witness Jews being dragged out of their homes and shops and sent off to the concentration camps. Back home she trained as an orthoptist. She married John at St Peter’s Eastern Hill in 1953, the same year the couple bought the Vale Street house. 

The Rogers sold to Leila Kathleen Derbyshire in 1966.  She converted the house back to its original single occupancy.  She then sold to Catherine and Percy Page about 1971, who sold it to former prime minister, Billy Snedden, and his wife Joy, in 1973 for $57,500. They sold it a year later for $73,000.