History of The Residency
Under the Commonwealth Bruce-Page Government, a decision was made to split the Northern Territory into two separate administrations under the Northern Australia Act, 1926. Major Robert Hunter Weddell was appointed Government Resident of North Australia, residing at Government House, Darwin, and John Charles Cawood was appointed Government Resident of Central Australia to be based at the capital, Stuart, (as Alice Springs was then known). Cawood's appointment was speedily arranged and he arrived in Stuart in 1927 to take up his appointment.
The Residency was still not finished, however, and Cawood and his party were forced to seek alternative accommodation on their arrival in Stuart. A number of options were suggested – from taking up rooms at the Stuart Arms, to borrowing a tent.
D.D. Smith, Division Engineer for the Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways, supervised the building of the Residency. The corrugated iron roofing materials were brought up by camel-train from Oodnadatta, which was then the terminus of the railway from Adelaide. The Residency furnishings were provided by the Government and chosen by the Cawoods and a Government officer in Adelaide. The building was to consist of six main rooms including a detached kitchen, three bedrooms, one drawing or reception room, one dining room, bathroom, laundry, and separate woodshed, garage and Aboriginal servant's quarters. The verandah was to be suitably screened, with a concrete floor.
Cawood was enthusiastic to take an active role in the building and was mindful of the need to build in response to the Alice’s climate. He asked that boundary fences be included to enable tree planting and preparations for gardens to be made, and that ceilings be installed in the verandahs. Cawood moved into the Government Residence in November 1928, when the building was still not quite finished.
The building had foundations, but the concrete floors are laid directly on the earth. The hollow concrete bricks, which resemble stone, were made in sculpted moulds. They were chosen as suitable building blocks because of the availability of raw materials and because of the economy of time and money such material provided. The similarity of the style (only one type of brick was actually used) was concealed by a varied pattern of laying.
The main feature of the building is a central breezeway running though the centre which was used mainly as a lounge. Rooms open off each side and a wide fly-wired verandah enclosed the building. In Cawood’s time a punkah operated by an Aboriginal servant cooled the breezeway.
Cawood handed over to his deputy, Vic Carrington in November 1929 and retired in 1930 to live at Cronulla, New South Wales. The Territory was rejoined in 1931 and the North and Central Australia Commissions were abolished. Carrington stayed on as Assistant Administrator.
Various modifications of the building were undertaken by the occupants, including an additional maid’s room, partitioning of the verandah, the addition of a bathroom and a separate store room and laundry was added to the rear of the house.
During the years of World War II, with the military encroachment upon Darwin in the north, the Residency once again became the centre for the administration of the Northern Territory. At the end of the war, the Northern Territory Government Resident, ‘Aubrey’ Abbott and the Northern Territory Administration, moved back to Darwin and the Residency was briefly the base for the Government Secretary of the Northern Territory, LHA Giles.
After Giles left, the Residency was tenanted by a colourful character, Lionel Rose, the Chief Veterinary Officer for the Northern Territory. Many stories were told of Rose's bushcraft and love of life, his exuberant lifestyle and his ‘frontier-style’ of informality. Reginald McCaffery, his wife 'Billie' and their large family followed Rose at the Residency. District Officer McCaffery evidently found the number of rooms at the Residency inadequate and added a number of internal partitions in the verandah space to provide extra accommodation.
Dan Conway, together with his wife Jillna, in 1960 was the last District Officer to occupy the building before it was handed over to the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in 1973. The Conways undertook fairly extensive renovations for the Royal Visit to Central Australia in 1963, when the Royal Party was accommodated at the Residency, including air conditioning, a new roof and installation of two new bathrooms for royal use.
After 1973, MAGNT used the building as office space, workshop and museum, most of which was removed again when it was opened as a in 1995 with the interior returned to the conditions of the 1930s. The building is currently leased to Heritage Alice Springs Inc.
