A mansion on Rathdowne St

On the south-west corner of Rathdowne and Pelham streets in Carlton there is a brick pillar that looks out-of-place. It is all that remains of a brick wall that once surrounded a substantial house on the site.

The house was that of Sir Redmond Barry, a prominent figure in colonial Melbourne.

Barry was one of the pioneering settlers in Melbourne, having arrived in 1839, before the gold rush. He was a qualified solicitor from Dublin and quickly rose to prominence in the small town on the Yarra.

He became Victoria’s first Solicitor-General, and in 1852 a judge of the bench of the new Supreme Court of Victoria. Later he served as acting Chief Justice and Administrator of the government. As a judge, Barry presided over some of Australia's well-known early trials, including that of the Eureka Stockade rebels in 1855, and Ned Kelly in 1880.

Barry devoted great energy to developing Melbourne's institutions. Among his most significant achievements were the founding of the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria. He was the inaugural Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, serving from 1853 until his death in 1880, and president of the Trustees of the State Library.

In 1856 he had this house built in Carlton – a substantial building with 14 rooms plus stables and coach-house set in spacious grounds – and lived there for the next 20 years.

Barry never married but had four children by his mistress Louisa Bridget Barrow whom, judging by their correspondence, he obviously loved dearly. She was quite a fiery character, and they used to have terrible rows.

She never lived with him in the big house on Rathdowne St. Initially she lived in Flinders St, and after 1860 in a house that Barry bought for her in Brunswick St, Fitzroy. When they first met, she was a married woman with a daughter. But then the affair with Barry started and she eventually had four children by him, all of whom Barry acknowledged and supported.

Even after Louisa became a widow in 1859, Barry did not marry her. This may have been because, although they were both Irish, she was working class and Catholic while he was upper class and Protestant.

Barry died on November 23, 1880, and was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery. Buried with him in the same grave are his mistress Louisa Barrow and several of their children.

Some time before his death, Barry sold the house in Rathdowne St and moved elsewhere. When he died in 1880, he was living in East Melbourne. In 1876 the property in Rathdowne St became the Hospital for Sick Children, and his former house became “the old surgical ward” of the hospital. New buildings were erected around it, and eventually it was demolished in 1912.

Captions: Sir Redmond Barry’s house in the 1880s. Photo: Royal Children’s Hospital Archives. 

The brick pillar on the corner of Rathdowne and Pelham streets. Photo: J. Atkinson. •