Family, Faith and Fortune in Victorian Sydney

The grandest private house surviving in Sydney from Colonial times is unknown, even to many in the heritage movement. Here at long last is the book which introduces “Edina”—and the people who lived there in its opulent heyday. Unspoilt, and beautifully preserved by the Uniting Church, Edina is a showpiece, rich in pictorial art, ornament and garden features. Michael Waterhouse has discovered an amazing array of pictures, showing the Eastern Suburbs before Sydney swallowed them up, and many aspects of the lives of generations of children and adults whose home was the Edina estate. His very readable text opens up a bygone era; it tells the story of Jeanie Vickery, whose tastes and Scottish background set the cultural style of Edina, and her husband Ebenezer, faithful churchgoer, devoted family man and hardnosed industrialist.