Part One of a 2-part series

IN the 1940s the Women's Auxiliary of Sydney Legacy Club saw the need to provide a holiday house in the mountains.

The first Legacy Club had been established in Melbourne in 1923 to care for war widows and their children.

A Sydney Club was formed in 1926 and groups were subsequently established throughout Australia. Legacy's activities were intensified by the casualties of WWII, and had widespread community support.

It was Mrs Doris Lazarus, president of the Sydney Women's Auxiliary, who first suggested a holiday house for war widows and their children.

She received the enthusiastic backing of Legacy members and a sub-committee was formed to investigate the purchase.

In 1944 it decided upon a property at 32-34 Valetta Street, Moss Vale.

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The house was a stylish two-storey residence, built in the 1920s, well situated at the top of a rise on a large block, once part of the Throsby Park estate.

Legacy opened it as a holiday house in 1946, extended it in 1991, and it is still in operation today. As the history of the property is not complete without its Throsby land connection, an overview of this follows here.

In 1819 Dr Charles Throsby, a surgeon, explorer and pastoralist with a property near Liverpool, had settled on land beside the Wingecarribee River at Bong Bong.

He was granted 1500 acres there, named Throsby Park by Governor Macquarie in 1820. By 1826 a four-bedroom timber cottage and large brick barn were erected and Dr Charles and his wife Jane, who had no children, visited for extended stays.

After the unfortunate death of Dr Charles in 1828, his nephew and heir, also called Charles Throsby, inherited the estate.

With his wife Eliza Broughton (known as Betsy), he developed it into the finest in the district. In 1834 he built a 27-roomed Georgian colonial house of sandstone and cedar, along with stables and a large mill.

By the 1850s, the Throsby estate spread for several thousand acres. Charles and Betsy had 17 children of which 12 survived.

Charles died in 1854 and by 1866, with all but the youngest girl married, Betsy moved into the cottage and leased the main house.

It served as a holiday home for prominent Sydney residents, including NSW Governor the Earl of Belmore, Anglican Bishop Barker and the Fairfax family.

After Betsy died in 1891, a son and his large family moved into the house. During WWI the mill was lent to the Red Cross for use as a convalescent home for injured combatants.

The estate continued to be farmed but portions were gradually sold.

Home to five generations of Throsbys, the house and remaining 75 acres were purchased by the NSW Government in 1972.

Throsby land from the Moss Vale Showground through to Valetta Street was sub-divided in the 1890s for housing.

The block on which Legacy's house now stands was part of this sale.

It was "some 4 acres, 14 perches bounded on the south-west by Valetta Road", a prime location with extensive views and convenient to town.

THE first owner was Alice Osborne who purchased it for 122 pounds.

In 1895, she sold it to Frederick Joseph Fletcher who mortgaged the property for one hundred pounds.

From 1897 the property was owned by the McCleery family who had an engineering business at the corner of Argyle Rd and Valetta St.

As they owned several houses, this land was most likely an investment and in 1909 they sold it for 400 pounds.

The purchaser was Dr George Rennie.

He was a Sydney medical practitioner, born in 1861, who resided at Point Piper.

The deed was in the name of Hester, his second wife, whom he married in 1895.

He had three children from his first marriage and Hester bore him another three. By around 1912 the Rennie's had erected a holiday home in Valetta Street.

Whether this structure was enlarged or replaced is unknown. However by the late 1920s a stylish, two-storey rendered-brick residence graced the block.

No record of the architect or builder can be found, but perhaps it was erected by the prominent Bowral-based firm of Alf Stephens & Sons, as the style is similar to some of their other buildings, such as Dormie House.

In 1934 the property was purchased for 1,025 pounds by Milton and Isabel Atwill, also of Point Piper, who made use of it as a holiday home until 1945, when they sold it to the Sydney Legacy War Orphans' Fund.

The Women's Auxiliary was then able to fulfil their aspirations.

To be continued

This article compiled by Phillip Morton is sourced from the archives of the Berrima District Historical & Family Society.

For more information, call 4872 2169, visit the office in Bowral Road, Mittagong, email bdhsarchives@gmail.com or visit www.berrimadistricthistoricalsociety.org.au

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