Produced and Presented by Alessandro Sorbello h... (more) Added: November 01, 2007 Produced and Presented by Alessandro Sorbello http://AlessandroSorbello.com His Excellency Major General Michael Jeffery AC CVO MC Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia Launches Hear and Say WorldWide http://www.hearandsayworldwide.com at Admiralty House at Kirribilli A brief history of Admiralty House, Sydney The story of Admiralty House and of its site at Kirribilli begins in the 18th century with Thomas Muir, the Scottish constitutional reformer and one of the five celebrated "Scottish Martyrs". He was sentenced to transportation for sedition, but as a political prisoner was treated as an exile rather than a convict. In 1794 he was granted a farm "across the water" from his cottage on Sydney Cove beside the Tank Stream. This farm he named "Hunter's Hill" after his father's home in Scotland; it included all of Kirribilli. In time the name "Hunter's Hill" migrated some miles up the Harbour. Muir's own migration was more dramatic; there being little restriction placed on his movements he escaped with ease from the colony in 1796 aboard an American brig, never to return. Four years later, in 1800, Muir's "Hunter's Hill" farm, of some 120 acres, was granted to one Robert Ryan for his services in the Marines and subsequently in the New South Wales Corps; but by 1806 the property had come into the capable hands of Robert Campbell, the noted Sydney merchant. Campbell used part of it, near the present headquarters of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, as the site of Australia's first shipbuilding yards and in 1807, with Governor Bligh in attendance, his first ship, the Perseverance, a 136 tonner, was launched from the new shipyard. The rest of the property was long used for grazing under lease to Campbell's friend, James Milson, who gave his name to Milson's Point. Then, in 1842, the five acre site of Admiralty House was leased to, and later bought by, the Colonial Collector of Customs, Lt. Colonel J.G.N. Gibbes, as the site for his residence. There, in 1845-46, he built a graceful stone house, single storied with wide verandahs, which he later bought from Campbell's estate. Imagine Admiralty House without its later additions - the second storey, the colonnaded verandahs and the additions on the western end, and you have the original Gibbes house. Both Robert Campbell and Lt. Colonel Gibbes feature in an extraordinary double coincidence involving Australia's two vice-regal residences, Admiralty House and Canberra's Yarralumla: whereas Gibbes leased the Kirribilli land from Campbell's estate and built on it the original part of Admiralty House, some thirty-five years later Robert Campbell's grandson, Frederick, bought Yarralumla Station from Gibbes and, in 1891, built on it Canberra's present Government House. Thus, through the histories of both houses runs this Gibbes-Campbell strand. Gibbes did not long remain in his new Kirribilli home; it passed through a number of hands, acquiring the name. "Wotonga" in the process. In the 1850s there were two changes to its grounds; in 1854 a little over an acre was sold and on it Kirribilli House, now a residence for the Prime Minister, was built. In 1855, during the Crimean War, the tip of Kirribilli Point was resumed by the Government and fortifications built there, intended, together with Fort Denison on Pinchgut Island, to strengthen the defences of Sydney. Later Kirribilli Point again became part of the grounds of Wotonga but the fortifications and the old Marine Barracks remain. In 1936 the most recent chapter in the history of this fine old house began. In that year the Commonwealth reopened Admiralty House as a Sydney residence for the new Governor-General, Lord Gowrie. It has ever since been used by the fourteen succeeding Governors-General as their residence when in New South Wales. Formal title to Admiralty House finally passed to the Commonwealth by Crown grant in 1948 on condition that it be used only as a residence for the Governor-General. http://www.gg.gov.au/ Governors-General since 1901 23. 2001 - 2003 Hollingworth, The Right Reverend Dr Peter, AC OBE Adelaide, SA 22. 1996 - 2001 Deane, The Honourable Sir William Patrick, AC, KBE Melbourne, VIC A special thank you to my friends Erik Johansen (Tape8) http://www.tape8.com Music courtesy of Peter Cupples http://www.petercupples.com