443 & 445 Kent Street, with lane at the back, Sydney, Dec 1875

PXA 984/15

series

1875

Graphic Materials, Photographs

421825

Photographs - 1 albumen photoprint - 12.8 x 19.6 cm., on mount 20.5 x 27 cm.

Personal inspection by sub-committee no.1, consisting of, R.B. Read, Esq., and M. Chapman, Esq.
Eleventh day, Monday, 6 Dec, 1875
No. 443, Kent-street (Smith, agent), is an old two-roomed weatherboard badly ventilated building, close and hot, and almost suffocating at night ; rented at 7s. a week.
No. 445 is an old weatherboard house of similar character, rented at 8s., and very filthy ; tenant complains that besides being suffocating at night the house is swarming with bugs.
We inspected three or four other old wooden tenements of the same description in a lane at the back, let at 4s. a week each. One house was 15 ft. x 6 ft., and the average height 6 ft. Also one which was only 8 ft. square and 5 ft. high, just large enough to accommodate its sole occupant, an old woman of 74, who objected forcibly to the stench proceeding from the closet, the free ingress for the rain through the roof, and the broken condition of the door, which would neither open nor shut.
We looked into another house which had two rooms, one occupied by a vendor of watercresses ; the large heap of cresses under the table looked anything but inviting. The tenant of the other room was not in, and we felt no desire to await his return. We inspected three more houses in this lane, and it is sufficient to say that they were about on par with those we have already described. The closet accommodation for this place is very bad. It consists of a large pit, about 8 ft. square and 4 or 5 ft. deep, with seats erected over it. It is situated within a few feet of the end of the house, and the stench which proceeds from it is atrocious. The whole of this property it is alleged belongs to the Wentworth Estate ; and as Mr Wentworth has already made great improvements on his estate by pulling down several old uninhabitable buildings, application should be made to him to remove these houses, which are quite unfit for human beings to live in.
-- Excerpt from: Sydney City and Suburban Sewage and Health Board : Eleventh progress report. Evidence taken before No. 11 Committee / NSW Legislative Assembly. Sydney : Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1876. p.29 (Q628.0991/S Mitchell Library)
Digital order no:a424015

Page 29 / 443 & 445 Kent St. / with lane at the back (Wentworth Estate) / 11th day 6th Dec 75 -- in pencil below image at lower left