Sydney Architect Howard Joseland (1860-1930)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Previous page: Rippon Grange, Wahroonga Next page: Rochester, Gordon NSW]

• See also: Shingle styles in Australia

Howard Joseland, architect, was also the founder and the first Secretary of the Rod Fishers’ Society.

Malvern, Joseland’s home at 41 Burns Road, Wahroonga

Howard Joseland (1860-1930) was an English architect who migrated to Australia and pursued a successful and influential career there.

Early life

Richard George Howard Joseland was born on 14 January 1860 at Claines, Worcestershire, England.

• In the early days of his career, he was articled to the Haddon Brothers at Hereford, but moved to London in 1881.
• There, he obtained a position as assistant to George Robinson in the architectural company George Trollope and Sons.
• In time, his health suffered as a result of overwork, and he was advised to migrate to a more temperate clime. He went to New Zealand, where he worked on the railways for six months.
• He then moved to Sydney, Australia, in 1888, where he married Alice Taylor.

 

Career in Australia

Walter Vernon

In Sydney, Joseland met Walter Liberty Vernon, another English architect who had migrated to Australia for health reasons. The two architects joined forces and entered a competition to design a model suburb [Centennial Park?]. It was the first of several projects they would work on together. In 1890, Vernon became New South Wales Government Architect, as a result of which he handed his private practice over to Joseland.

Career in Australia

• Joseland had relatively little work during the Depression of the early 1890s; The practice took on a variety of commissions, including commercial buildings, but Joseland’s clientele was predominantly well-off people who required comfortable homes.
• Many of them were moving into the new residential areas in Sydney’s north, where suburbs like Wahroonga and Warrawee developed. Joseland is credited with designing something like nineteen homes in these areas.
• His output included his own home, Malvern, which he built in 1900 in Burns Road, Wahroonga.
• He designed it in the Federation Bungalow style, featuring a prominent veranda to create shade.
• From 1914 to 1919, Joseland conducted a solo practice before joining forces with Glynn Gilling, another young English architect who had migrated to Australia.
  

  1900 Coolabah, 39 Burns Road Wahroonga

• Joseland retired in 1929, selling the business to Gilling, who retained the business name Joseland and Gilling. Joseland was active in various community activities and musical societies, as well as being a keen fisherman and author of the book Angling in Australia and Elsewhere, which was published in 1921.
• He also found time to visit England twice with his wife Blanche. He died of cancer in the eastern Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst on 20 July 1930, and was buried at South Head Cemetery in another eastern Sydney suburb, Vaucluse.

Influence

Joseland was one of the earliest architects in Australia to reject the Victorian architectural styles that had developed in England and which had little relevance to the Australian climate.

• He wrote a magazine article, Domestic Architecture in Australia (published in 1890), in which he advocated architectural styles that were suitable for the local climate.
• Like Walter Liberty Vernon, he favoured the styles of the Federation era (1890-1915) and actually contributed to the development of the Australian version of the Queen Anne style, which ultimately became the most popular residential style in Australia in the first decade of the 20th century.
• This latter style had arrived in Australia in 1885 with the construction of Caerleon, Bellevue Hill; its influence can be seen strongly in the homes Joseland designed for his clientele, along with the Arts and Crafts style that was also popular.

Joseland Houses

1891 Mount Alverna, Burns Road, Wahroonga: 49-51 Burns Road and 10A Water Street

“The original residence ‘Greystanes’, (was) designed by renowned local architect Richard George Howard Joseland, (and) was built in 1890 from Scottish sandstone and its large stone arches are a dominant feature.”

• “The design is a particularly fine example of the architectural idiom which expresses the transition from High Victorian style to Australian Federation style, with the two-storey verandah, its soaring chimneys, gables and bays arranged asymmetrically being typical of this style.
• The house, trees, gates, and the Burns Road fence are noted on the National Heritage List. (Mt Alverna (Friary & Retreat House)
• Mount Alverna was built for ophthalmic surgeon Dr Francis Antill Pockley.
• The property become a retreat and monastery for the Franciscan Order from the 1950’s to the 1980’s.
• Sold for $4.6 million, Mt Alverna, Burns Rd, Wahroonga… Seller: Daley, Buyer: Simon 1999 (THE TOP 200 PRESTIGE HOMES)
• The original 13 acres of land was subdivided in 1987 and Mount Alverna now comprises 6,800 square metres of park-like grounds.”

“Mount Alverna has grand vistas across sweeping lawns of specimen trees, palms, and some areas of mass plantings.”

• “Mount Alverna has some of the oldest and tallest trees in Wahroonga. Some of the heritage-listed trees include two very large Bunya Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), Brush Box (Lophostemon confertus), Chestnut (Castanea sativa), several Plane trees (Platanus x hybrida), and others lining the Burns Road frontage, Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) by the porte cochere, species of Palms (singly and in groups) especially down the driveway, and Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera) on the adjoining property that shares the Water Street entrance.” See the very informative Wahroonga Heritage Organisation page at http://www.wahroonga.org/mount_alverna.htm

1894 Westholme, 1 Water Street, Wahroonga.

• Designed in Arts and Crafts style for John Bennett, built 1894.
• For Sale for $4.9 Million

Dining Room with Fretwork Arch	Living room with timber trim, ceiling

• “Landmark Early Federation residence designed by renowned architect Howard Joseland.
  “Located at one of the vantage points of East Side Wahroonga, desirable for its breathtaking streetscape of unique architectural beauty & convenience.” – http://www.markallan.com.au/property/1_water/1_water.htm

 

1894 Mananga, Princes Highway Berry NSW.

• • Believed to have been designed by Joseland (very probable, see his biography:…”He had little or no work in 1897, although on 6 April he married Blanche Augusta Hay at Coolangatta near Berry; her family was connected with the (David) Berry estates, on which Joseland had first done work in 1892.”)
    • Built 1894 for the Stuart Family by John Hay who was the manager of Alexander Berrys Coolangatta estate.
    • “…built in 1894 as a dairy farm, Mananga with its Victorian Design and complex gables and verandahs.”
    • (Despite claims, this property is not a heritage listed item.)
    • This property operates as a guest house: “…set on 5 acres of magical gardens, views and paddocks, this magical home is for holiday lets, a quick walk into the Historic town of Berry, 7 minute drive to beaches and 15 minutes to Kangaroo Valley, wide full verandahs and state of the art facilities…”

view of homestead

guest lounge room

camellia room

cast iron restored bath in en suite

 

1895 LynburnPrinces Highway Bomaderry.

Lynburn Timber Federation Residence

Built 1895 by George Muller for the widow of Henry Morton, manager of the David Berry Estate near Nowra, and Mayor of Numbaa 1868 to 1895. Still lived in by the Morton Family (?)

• “Lynburn (is) an outstanding timber Federation house by noted Sydney architect Howard Joseland which incorporates several interesting and unusual design features. The house is of high integrity. Special local historical interest as an employer-provided house on the former Berry Estate.” “An ornate Federation residence with unusual arrangements of gables and skillion-roofed verandahs.”
• “There are two front gabled projections; one interrupts the verandah; the other projects over it.
• Construction is of weatherboard with unusual timber decoration to gable ends. There is a complex slate roof, including skillion verandah, terracotta ridge capping and apex ornaments and tall brick chimneys, one of which is constructed on the diagonal.
• There is a faceted bay window, with stained glass panes, under one of the front gables; and a verandah with a striking fretwork fringe under the other. Brackets to verandahs are large.
• The interior joinery is cedar and although a fire in 1981 seriously damaged the roof the integrity of the interior woodwork was mainly preserved including part of the original lathe and plaster ceilings.
• Features of the interior are 6 Italian marble fireplaces, 3 in bedrooms of ornate design, 1 each in the Dining Room, Drawing Room and Library. The grounds contain many magnificent mature trees. The Cedar of Lebanon at the gate and a Virginian Swamp Cyprus on the south side of the drive date back to the 1890s. Condition: The exterior was authentically restored after the 1981 fire.” – NSW Heritage Council

 

1896 Midhope, 60 Burns Road, Wahroonga.

Built 1896 for Sir James Murdoch, then became St Edmund’s School for Children with Special Needs.

• St Edmund’s School, including the house “Midhope”, at 60 Burns Road, corner Wahroonga Avenue, was established by the Christian Brothers in 1950s, originally as a school for blind boys, now catering to children with a range of special needs;
• Listed by the National Trust