On 3 January 1863, the Sydney Morning Herald and Empire newspapers carried a notice to contractors, seeking tenders ‘…for extensive repairs to Newington House, out-offices, and Church, Newington Estate, Parramatta River, for the committee of the Wesleyan Collegiate School.’ Tenders were sought for excavation, drainage, masonry, bricklaying, carpentry, joinery, shingling and fencing, along with a range of interior works. Tenders were to be submitted to the architect Thomas Rowe, who later designed what is now the Founders Wing at Stanmore.

The once fine mansion was in a state of serious disrepair. Recent tenants had used the kitchen as a piggery and the dining room as a barn, while the surrounding grounds and buildings had been used for salt-making and slaughtering. The lease agreement provided for the first five years’ rent to be applied to restoring and improving the mansion and grounds.

News of the proposed new school soon spread across the Australian colonies. On 17 January both the South Australian Advertiser (‘from our Melbourne Correspondent’) and the Ballarat Star reported that ‘Newington House has been leased to the Wesleyans for a college’, while the Hobart Mercury reported the same thing on 22 January.

It was in Hobart some days later that the Australasian Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church gave the final approval, following the decisions in New South Wales in 1862, for the establishment of the new school. Appointed as ‘Principal’ was one of the project’s chief proponents, the Reverend John Allen Manton.

David Roberts
College Archivist