Friday, 22 November 2024
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa

Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands and waterways, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging.

Tonight is very much a ‘welcome back’ to Government House. The last time we had the privilege of hosting a Sydney Conservatorium High School concert was in 2019, a spectacular evening of music then, as it will be tonight.

We are delighted that you are here, not only so we can enjoy the music of the talented students of ‘the Con High’, but also to remember the long connection between the building that is home to their school and the Governors, which is intrinsically linked to the bigger story of the early colony and, in particular, Governor Macquarie’s vision for a fitting Governor’s residence, offices, and stables.

This building is, depending on one’s point of view, either the second or third Government House. The first was the calico hut erected by Arthur Phillip when he landed; that was soon replaced by what was a reasonably passable residence on the site of what is now the Museum of Sydney, on Bridge St, near Circular Quay – but, by 1815 or so, was becoming run down and, in a word, ‘grotty’. 

Macquarie engaged convict architect Francis Greenway to design a new residence and stables. Work on the stables commenced first, with Macquarie laying its foundation stone in 1817, despite the fact he hadn’t received approval from the Colonial Office to do so.^[1]   For this, every lover of music in our state and beyond should be grateful, because 98 years later, Greenway’s Stables, designed in the “Gothic castellated style”^[2], became the Conservatorium of Music, with the first concert performed on the occasion of the Conservatorium’s opening by Governor Strickland, the 23^rd Governor of New South Wales, on 6 May 1915.^[3]

Four years later, in 1919, the Conservatorium’s first Director, Henri Verrbrugghen, decided the provision for general high school work needed to be added to the curriculum for its younger pupils, under the theory that a good general education is as much a necessity to a musician as to a lawyer or a medical practitioner.^[4] Thus was born the Conservatorium High School, committed to educational as well as musical excellence.

But, back to the early 19^th century, and Macquarie’s plans for a new house and stables.

The Colonial Office, alarmed at Macquarie’s vision not only for a new Government House but for the colony generally, had appointed a Commissioner, Thomas Bigge, to check on, amongst other things, Macquarie’s building programs. On arriving in 1819, he was shocked to find not only that the Stables existed at all and were nearing completion – too far along to stop – but also, that they were so grand.   “I cannot help expressing astonishment” he wrote back to England, “at the useless magnificence of […] this building”^[5].

With that, Macquarie’s plans for his even grander House to go along with the Stables were quashed. So, when finished in 1821, the Stables became something of a white elephant, “out of context, out of scale,” and barely used^[6].

Indeed, in 1825, the Governor succeeding Macquarie, Sir Thomas Brisbane, could loan the building “for the temporary accommodation of the newly formed Australian Agricultural Company’s sheep, horses and cattle.”^[7]

There was a suggestion that the Stables could be converted into a Governor’s residence, but that idea, fortunately, never came to fruition^[8] and the building of a new Government House was approved instead, the one we are in today, ready for occupation in 1845.

The architect was Englishman Edward Blore, who had designed some buildings for King William IV, and never set foot in the colony. Some drawings of the Stables had been sent back to England to help the British authorities decide on an architect,^[9] and presumably were shown to Blore as he, too, chose the Gothic Castellated style, but on a much smaller scale than Macquarie had envisioned.

Initially, Blore’s Government House was to be built adjacent to the Stables, but with its scaled down footprint, it was thought that it might be overshadowed by the Stables, and in any event might have been a little testing on one’s olfactory sensibilities – so close to the horses. It was thus moved a little down the hill to here, and no-one has ever complained of the view since.

More than a hundred years after its establishment, the ‘Con High’ continues to remain faithful to its founding commitment to excellence and to its students. Its alumni feature among the shining lights of the Australian and international music scene, some of whom have performed in this very room, including Richard Tognetti and Madeleine Easton, whose Bach Akademie will be resident at the High School commencing in 2025.

Tonight, we have the opportunity to experience and celebrate the next generation of our musical superstars.

We’ll be hearing music from the Renaissance through to the 20^st Century, with 10 works including from China, Italy, Germany, Russia, and France.

Please join me in welcoming our first performers, the ‘Con High’ Brass Ensemble, as they open tonight’s concert with Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sonate Pian’e Forte.

[1] Memorandum from Macquarie to Greenway, 4 July 1817, cited in Casey & Lowe Archaeology & Heritage, Archaeological Investigation Conservatorium Site Macquarie Street, Sydney. Volume 1: History and Archaeology, July 2002, p.56, available here. The exact date was 16 December 1817, the same date Macquarie laid the foundation stone for Fort Macquarie on Bennelong Point, as well as the day on which Francis Greenway, architect of both the Fort and the Stables was granted his conditional pardon: ibid., p.57.

[2] Memorandum from Macquarie to Greenway, 4 July 1817, cited in Casey & Lowe, Archaeological Investigation Conservatorium Site, op. cit., p.56.

[3] The program featured “Sydney’s three leading conductors” Mr Alfred Hill, Mr Joseph Bradley, and Mr Arundel Orchard [who would later become the Conservatorium’s 2^nd Director] , conducting, respectively, “the consecration of the house […], Elgar’s symphony in A flat, […] and “the overture to ‘The Mastersingers’”: ‘Music Conservatorium: To-morrow’s Opening’, Daily Telegraph, 5 May 1915, p.13, available here

[4] ‘Principal Message’, Conservatorium High School website, available here

[5] Bigges to Bathurst, 18 October 1819, quoted in Casey & Lowe, Archaeological Investigation Conservatorium Site, op. cit., p.59.

[6] Casey & Lowe, Archaeological Investigation Conservatorium Site, op. cit., p.63. The building was barely used by the two Governors following Macquarie, Sir Thomas Brisbane, who chose to live in Parramatta, and Sir Ralph Darling, who, although he did spend some time in the city, used the refurbished stables attached to the First Government House: ibid., p.69.

[7] Lionel Gilbert, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. A History 1816-1985, OUP, 1986, p.42, cited in Casey & Lowe, Archaeological Investigation Conservatorium Site, op. cit., p.70

[8] This ‘two birds, one stone’ solution had first been suggested by Governor Brisbane, whereby – in his words – the “utterly useless” stables which sat “on the pleasantest site of the Domain” might be turned into a new Government House: Sir Thomas Brisbane to Lord Bathurst, 25 May 1825, cited in Rollo Gillespie, Viceregal Quarters, Angus and Robertson, 1975, p.62. Sir Ralph Darling, upon his departure from London in 1825 to succeed Governor Brisbane, was given permission by Lord Bathurst to build a new Government House if he found the old one uninhabitable. Although some plans were attempted, including a competition in 1827, nothing was nothing came of them: Barry McGregor and Associates, Government House Sydney Conservation and Management Plan; Volume I, 1997, pp.17-20.

[9] McGregor and Associates, Government House Sydney Conservation and Management Plan, op. cit., p.25