East Melbourne, Powlett Street 140, 142

Thomas Upton was a councillor with the city of Collingwood, and later a mayor of Oakleigh. He died in 1914. He built the two houses as a speculative venture. They appear to have been very quickly built. In November, 1866 he advertised for tenders for masonry work, and in February 1867 he advertised for tenders for plastering. On completion he sold the houses to George Alfred Badger, an architect. Badger, the following year, built the house next door, No. 138, known as the Opera House. It appears that Badger arranged to have the land subdivided and two titles created, as subsequent to his ownership the houses had different owners. No. 140 passed into the ownership of Mrs. Catherine Russell between 1881 and 1885. Mrs. Russell, at the time, also owned No. 138. Sometime after 1885 Mrs. Jane Keenan, widow, became the owner. The ownership of No. 138 also passed to her. Badger retained ownership of No. 142 until sometime between 1876 and 1880 when William James Hutchins, Colonel in H.M. 12th Regiment, became the owner and occupier. He died in 1897 still resident at the address, with his wife, Julia Anne, but the property was not listed amongst his assets. Possibly it was in his wife's name, but by the time she died in 1910, she had moved to South Yarra and again the East Melbourne property was not listed in the inventory. It was listed for sale with the name Oldcourt in 1910 under instructions from Pierce Cody, Esq. Pierce Cody was a wine and spirit merchant and was no doubt the owner who Winston Burchett referred to as making a whisky called Old Court and naming his house after it. (The whisky was advertised in the Argus, e.g. 23 Nov 1926, p.4) A descedant of Pierce Cody, Marie Marchetti, has since clarified this claim. She states that Oldfield was named after the family home in Ireland, and that Cody simply imported whisky of that name. When it was sold in 1914 the house was described as, "TWO STORY BRICK HOUSE. Containing: 5 rooms, small vestibule, servant's bedroom, conveniences. &c, all in thorough order." Another ad. in 1935 still refers to it as Oldcourt. In the 1950s the facade of 142 was encased in concrete besser blocks, and the roof was converted to garden complete with "Roman" ruins.