House built for Professor Harry Brookes Allen (1854–1926) in 1887
Description
The house is within University of Melbourne grounds, seen from outside the fence.
The increasing inconvenience of the professors apartments in the Quadrangle, the growth in the numbers of professors, the Registrar's desire to live close to his work and the need to free up more space for administration and student services led the University to seek grants from the Government to build new professorial houses in the grounds.
In 1884 the Registrar's house and one for Professor Nanson (Mathematics) were completed near Tin Alley. In 1887 six more were built, five on a north south axis along what is now Professors' Walk facing the South Lawn and a sixth near the Medical precinct, where Harry Brookes Allen and his family resided.
Sir Harry Brookes Allen (1854-1926) married Ada Rosalie Elizabeth Mason (1862-1933) in 1891. They had three daughters: Edith Margaret (1893-1962), a journalist, who worked on the Argus and Australasian but was best known for her cooking notes in the Herald under the pseudonym 'Sarah Dunne'; Mary Cecil (1893-1962); and Beatrice (Biddy) (1898-1972), a musician.
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