East Melbourne, Simpson Street 078

Single storey, double fronted bluestone cottage. The veranda is not original.

The house was built in 1859 for Robert Sperring. He added a kitchen in 1862, and then, using builder, Josiah Messiter, he added a veranda in 1864. N.K. (Norman Kinamond) Harvey lived in the house as a child and later wrote of his memories:

As the family had reached its full complement of eight persons, a larger house was now necessary, and this was found at the corner of Hotham and Simpson streets. This had two entrance doors, one in either street, a circumstance which gave to the house an unusual advantage. In those days a firm bringing a new product onto the market would frequently send out a person to leave samples at houses in suburbs, going from door to door, first along one street, then along another, and so on. A sample would thus be left at each door of our house, the second on the assumption that it was at a house which had not been visited before.

At this period it was the custom for small groups of people to roam round on New Year's Eve at midnight and paint or otherwise mark the date of the new-born year on gates and fences. I can distinctly remember seeing on our gate (back) the date 1890; I was then six years old.

1859-c.1864: Robert James Sperring (owner and occupier)
1864: Thomas Luke (occupier)
1870: Thomas Luke (owner); S. Luke (occupier)
c.1888-1891: John Henry Harvey, architect and photographer, and family. His son, Norman Kinamond Harvey became a school master and war historian who wrote the unit history entitled From Anzac to the Hindenburg Line: the history of the 9th Battalion, A.I.F. (1941)