East Melbourne, Powlett Street 010, 012, 014

The houses currently on the site are three separate but terrace style houses of two storeys and large proportions.

On 19 March 1853 Robert Ker, an estate and commission agent, married Virginia Jacomb at St Peter’s, Eastern Hill.  Keeping it very much in the family, just three months later his sister, Anne, married Virginia’s brother, Robert Elwall Jacomb; and on the 20 December 1855, in Manilla, William Ker, Robert’s brother, married Catherine Jacomb, Virginia’s sister. 

The Kers were the children of William Ker, a bookseller of Collins Street, near Elizabeth Street. He died in 1841.  He should not be confused with William Kerr, journalist, who at one stage was editor of John Pascoe Fawkner’s Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser and, after breaking up with him, started his own paper, The Argus.

The family, along with two other siblings, Charles and Margaret, arrived in Melbourne aboard the John Bull on 21 January 1840.

Robert and Virginia were in need of a home and Ker notified the City of Melbourne of his intention to build three houses, all in Powlett Street and all in 1853-54:
15 August 1853 Robert Ker will build for self a wooden house in Powlett Street;
30 November 1853 William Monger will build for Robert Ker a house in Powlett Street, Lot 20, Section 16;
9 August 1854 William Monger will build for Robert Ker a wooden house in Powlett Street. 

Only two houses eventuated. It seems probable that Ker decided that it would be better to have the projects managed by a contractor rather than himself and that the first notice was superseded by the third. Another possibility is that after the first house was built, which may have been a small portable house for instant accommodation, he may have decided to extend the house with a larger brick addition.  The house on the site of 10-14 Powlett Street fits this description. The house on the site of 22 Powlett Street was entirely of wood. 

On 17 March 1854, at their house in Powlett Street [No 10-14], Virginia Ker gave birth to a son. He lived only five days. Three months later she too was dead, aged 18.

The following year C Thompson moved into the house.  Nothing is known about Thompson except that he signed Robert and Virginia’s marriage certificate as a witness.

About 1860 Mrs Annie Bowler, Robert Ker’s twice widowed mother, moved into the house.  She died in 1875 and we learn from her will that she was, in fact, the owner of the two houses. 
The houses were sold soon after and the real estate advertisements give a good description of them:

Lot 1. [No 10-14]
Allotment 20, section 16, and part of allotment No 2, section 16, having a frontage of 82ft. 6in to Powlett street, by a depth of 165ft for 76ft 6ins of the frontage, and a depth of 132ft for the remaining 10ft of the frontage, as per plan, with a right-of-way 10ft. wide, from Powlett street, on the south side of the ground, on which is erected a BRICK HOUSE, With corrugated iron roof over shingles. The small back rooms are of wood, with similar roof. Entrance-hall, 18 x 7; passage, 5ft. wide; dining-room, 18 x 15; drawingroom 18 x 15; library, 18 x 16 ; bedrooms, 16 x 14, 16 x 14, 16 x 16, 12 x 9 ; dressingroom, 11 x 6 ; kitchen, 14 x 12 ; storeroom, 12 x 7 ; pantry, bathroom, 11 x 10 ; verandah, 7ft. 4in. wide, 134ft. long. The principal rooms are fitted with marble and enamelled slate mantlepieces. All the sitting and bedrooms have fireplaces.  Most of the rooms are over 12ft. high, and the house is remarkably cool in summer. The outbuildings are two-stall stable, coachhouse, hayloft, and man’s room of brick with slate roof, washhouse, sheds, etc. The house is all in excellent repair, and well and faithfully built.

The house on the site of No 10-14 was sold to James Ford Born.  He called it Edgecombe Villa.  He still owned it in 1886 when The Argus on 23 October advertised:
‘TENDERS invited until 10 am Wednesday, 27th Inst, for the PURCHASE and Removal of EDGECOMBE. Powlett-street East Melbourne. GEORGE RAVENSCROFT, Architect, Russell and Mackenzie streets.’
Followed by ‘TENDERS invited for the ERECTION of Three two story RESIDENCES For J F Born Esq, GEO RAVENSCROFT, architect, Russell and Mackenzie streets.’

The following year Born built two more houses at 13-15 Simpson Street, again using George Ravesnscroft as architect.  Born was living at Torquay, 15 Simpson Street when he died in 1889.  His obituary claims that he too came out on the John Bull in January 1840. His name does not appear on the passenger list but he and his wife may have been among the twelve un-named passengers in steerage. It is quite a coincidence that Ker and Born should come out on the same ship.  It seems unlikely they would have met on board with the Ker family in cabin class and the Borns in steerage. 

On arrival Born bought a block of land at the bottom end of Collins Street and established a business as a cooper.  Later he moved to Fitzroy and became a councillor.