Hardy's Cottage

Statement of Significance

It has cultural heritage value as one of the last remaining nineteenth century cottages overlooking the Harvey Estuary. • The cottage and Thomas Hardy, the original lessee, were well known to early travellers between Mandurah and Australind. • It is Victorian Georgian in design and representative of the simple dwellings erected during the early settlement of the coastal strip south of Mandurah between the Harvey Estuary and the sea. • It is a good example of the simple way of life in rural areas during the latter half of the nineteenth century with agricultural workers leasing a small holding and working for larger land owners. • Aesthetically it has pleasing proportions and is well located in its environment retaining its relationship to the estuary as a fairly isolated place on an early track to Australind. • The original walls inside and out and the central chimney are intact and the restoration of the roof, doors and windows has been sympathetically carried out and retains the building's original proportions.

Physical Description

Hardy's Cottage is situated south of the Park Ridge development in Dawesville in the South Ward of Mandurah on the west side of Estuary Road and overlooks the Harvey Estuary. It is on a bush block of 1.8 hectares and there is evidence of cultivation in the vicinity of the cottage with an old fig tree nearby. It is a simple rectangular Victorian Georgian cottage measuring 45ft by 26ft, built of local limestone rubble which has been painted white. There is a centrally placed door with small side windows which opens into a central room with a chimney place opposite the entrance. On either side of this room are two smaller rooms each with a window opening to the front. Across the front there is a verandah with a concrete floor. The hip roof is of corrugated iron. Behind the three front rooms are three smaller ones which were probably added shortly after the original construction by extending the side walls and adding a lean-to roof. During restoration a dormer window was added to the middle back room in order to let in more light.

History

Assessment 2006 Construction ca 1856 Original use: labourer's cottage Two colonizing schemes in the 1830's and the 1840's were responsible for the original European settlement of the coastal strip between Perth and Bunbury in the south west of Western Australia. The earlier one was headed by Thomas Peel who arrived in 1830 and took up land north of the Serpentine and Murray rivers. Because of incompetent management, illness and unsatisfactory conditions this scheme failed with many of the original settlers leaving the district. By 1837, only Thomas Peel and the Eacott, Hall and Tuckey families remained at the mouth of the Peel Inlet and the Harvey Estuary which became the townsite of Mandurah. The second scheme was organized by the Western Australian Company and was headed by Marshall Waller Clifton (1787-1861) as Chief Commissioner. He arrived on the "Parkfield" on 18 March, 1841 with his family and staff and was granted land near the Leschenault Inlet in order to found the settlement of Australind. This scheme fared a little better then Peel's but its development was still very slow. John Sutton (1800-1857) arrived with his wife Eleanor and son in the Swan colony on the "Hindu" on 20 April, 1839 and took up part of Henry Hastings Hall's grant south of the mouth of the Estuary at Mandurah and on the western side of the Harvey Estuary. He leased the ferryboat which plied across the river entrance from Thomas Peel and made arrangements with the government whereby he would operate the ferry service for a free publican's licence and a free depasturing licence. In 1842 Marshall W. Clifton had selected a route between Australind and Mandurah so the ferry service was well used until a bridge was built in 1894. Sutton had an inn, the beginning of an orchard and a thriving dairy herd as well as 10,000 acres leasehold extending southward along the western side of the Harvey Estuary. When he died in 1857 his widow and son carried on his business but when the latter died in 1861, Henry Sutton, a nephew of John Sutton arrived on the "Western Australian" on 1 September, 1862 to assist his widowed aunt. When she died in 1868 he inherited her estate by which time he had purchased the land on which Hardy's Cottage stands. He married Jane McLarty and they had 13 children. In 1871 he became a member of the Murray Roads Board. Thomas Hardy arrived in the colony on 15 October, 1841 on the "Ganges" and was employed by the Cliftons as an agricultural labourer. In 1846 he married Celia Egan of Australind and leased "Rosamel" from the Cliftons. It is not known whether he built the cottage which bears his name or whether it was built for him but he and his wife lived there from the 1850's leasing it from the Sutton family for whom he worked herding cattle. His wife became mentally deranged probably because of the isolation and wandered into the bush and died in 1869. Hardy is frequently mentioned in the Sutton family Day books and the Rev J. R. Wollaston in his Journal of 1856 mentions Hardy's place went travelling between Australind and Mandurah. In his later years Hardy was looked after by the Suttons and died at their place on 15 December, 1890.

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