About Glebe

• A Unique Village Environment
  
  
• History - Places
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Edmund Thomas Blacket (1817 - 1883)

Edmund Blacket arrived in Sydney in 1842 and was appointed Colonial Architect in 1849 -- he was the Gothic Revival architect best-known in Sydney for specialising in church architecture and for his designs for the University of Sydney (1854-62).

St John's Bishopthorpe, on the corner of Glebe Point Road and St John's Road, was another product of Blacket's practice. In this project he was ably assisted by a young Canadian, John Horbury Hunt (1838-1904). St John's, which was opened in 1870, is of romanesque design and is constructed in Pyrmont sandstone.

Blacket served on the Borough Council for eleven years. From 1853-1870 he and his family lived in Glebe closer to the Allen Estate, now St. Scholasticas College. It was in Glebe that Sarah gave birth to five of his eight children and his son, Cyril, continued the Blacket architectural practice.

Glebe was still heavily forested in the1850s and it is reported that Edmund Blacket, on returning home from his city office by ferry (to the wharf once at the bottom of Ferry Road), would employ an escort of four men to see him safely through the bushes!