Brooksby - Darling Point - Near Greenoaks Avenue - Lower Ocean St - Double Bay
Brooksby was a mid 19th Century Mansion in Darling Point. It was built on the original Darling Point Allotment bounded on the east by Lower Ocean Street
Its most known resident was solicitor Robert Ebenezer Johnson, who lived there till his death in 1866. Johnson was amongst one of the first appointees to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1856.
Brooksby also served as Mrs Robinson's Preparatory school for Boys.
Since then the house has been lost to subdivision & development.
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Brooksby – Lower Ocean Street / Greenoaks Avenue – Darling Point / Double Bay – NSW
Mid-19th-century mansion · Robert Ebenezer Johnson MLC · Later Mrs Robinson’s preparatory school · Demolished after subdivision
Brooksby stood on the old Darling Point allotment bounded on the east by Lower Ocean Street. Its best-known resident was the solicitor-politician Robert Ebenezer Johnson, who lived there until his death in 1866. Later it became Mrs Robinson’s Preparatory School for Boys, and in the end it was lost to subdivision and development. Woollahra Council’s 1930s photographs and a 1923 auction catalogue keep the house visible.
At a glance
- Location: Darling Point allotment on the Double Bay fall, bounded east by Lower Ocean Street, near Greenoaks Avenue
- Address: the 1923 auction catalogue gives 35 Lower Ocean Street, Double Bay; the Woollahra photo catalogue gives 45 Ocean Avenue, Double Bay
- Built: mid-19th century; architect and exact year unknown
- Principal resident: Robert Ebenezer Johnson, solicitor; among the first appointees to the NSW Legislative Council in 1856; lived at Brooksby until his death in 1866
- Later use: Mrs Robinson’s Preparatory School for Boys
- Fate: Demolished, lost to subdivision and development; 1930s photographs survive in Woollahra Council’s collections
Site & setting
Eastern Darling Point / upper Double Bay — Greenoaks (Bishopscourt) neighbourhood, Lower Ocean Street edge. Nineteenth-century marine-suburb allotments here fed schools and flat redevelopment in the twentieth. Aboriginal Country: Cadigal. Keep Greenoaks / Bishopscourt and other Ocean Street villas as neighbours, not aliases.
The Solicitor’s House on the Double Bay Side
Brooksby sat on the Darling Point allotment that spilled east toward Lower Ocean Street, the edge that later reads as Double Bay’s Ocean Avenue rather than the Greenoaks Avenue ridge. The Dictionary of Sydney places two solicitor-politicians here in the 1850s: Robert Ebenezer Johnson at Brooksby and James Norton at neighbouring Ecclesbourne. Johnson, named to the first New South Wales Legislative Council in 1856, made Brooksby his home until his death in 1866.
That is the civic heart of the house. Later it did quieter work as Mrs Robinson’s preparatory school for boys, one of those small eastern-suburbs academies that filled the big rooms when the original families moved on. A 1930s photograph in Woollahra’s local studies still shows tennis on the lawns at what the catalogue calls 45 Ocean Avenue, Double Bay. The mansion itself is gone to subdivision and flats; the name survives in the local-history file.
Walk from Greenoaks Avenue down toward Ocean Street and you are tracing the old estate edge: Mort’s Greenoaks (Bishopscourt) up the hill, Brooksby and Ecclesbourne on the eastern fall. Brooksby is the solicitor’s house on the Double Bay side of the same story.
The address depends on which record you read. The 1923 auction catalogue gives “Brooksby” as 35 Lower Ocean Street, Double Bay, while Woollahra’s 1930s photograph catalogue lists it as 45 Ocean Avenue, Double Bay.
Timeline
- Mid-19th century – Brooksby built on its Darling Point allotment.
- 1856–66 – Robert Ebenezer Johnson MLC in residence; dies 1866.
- Later 19th / early 20th century – Mrs Robinson’s preparatory school.
- 29 May 1923 – James R. Lawson auctions the furniture at “Brooksby”, 35 Lower Ocean Street, Double Bay, for Mrs C. W. Little, after the sale of the property.
- 1930s – Woollahra Council photographs the house.
- After – Demolished for subdivision and development.
- Today – House gone; street pattern and Greenoaks Avenue context remain.
Architecture & interiors
Going by its later use as a school and the size of the 1923 furniture sale, Brooksby was a big mid-Victorian house. The 1930s photographs below are the best record of what it looked like.
People & anecdotes
Robert Ebenezer Johnson – solicitor, appointed to the Legislative Council in 1856, lived at Brooksby until 1866. Mrs Robinson – ran her preparatory school for boys in the house, the kind of reuse many eastern-suburbs mansions saw before the flat boom. Mrs C. W. Little – sold the contents in 1923 after the property was sold.
What stands today
Brooksby does not stand. The Lower Ocean Street and Greenoaks Avenue edge has been redeveloped. Greenoaks (Bishopscourt) still stands up the hill as its neighbour.
Sources & further reading
- Dictionary of Sydney — Darling Point entry (neighbourhood context): https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/darling_point
- SLNSW — Darling Point subdivision plans content list
- Woollahra Local History photographic collections — Brooksby / Lower Ocean Street
- Trove — search: Brooksby Darling Point; Brooksby Double Bay; “Robert Ebenezer Johnson” Brooksby; Robinson preparatory Ocean Street
Related on this blog
- Greenoaks / Bishopscourt – Darling Point
Brooksby - Photos Taken 1930's - Woollahra Council Website
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Transcription (Auction catalogue cover, James R. Lawson, sale of Tuesday 29 May 1923)
[Label:] 142 [handwritten, partly hidden by the label: … Lawson's Catalogue / Private]
CATALOGUE
OF THE
Valuable Furniture
COSTLY APPOINTMENTS AND EFFECTS
AT
"BROOKSBY,"
35 LOWER OCEAN STREET, DOUBLE BAY.
To be Sold by Auction (at the residence)
ON
Tuesday, 29th May, 1923
as instructed by and for and on account of
MRS. C. W. LITTLE
(in consequence of the Sale of the Property)
On View on Monday, 28th May, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Morning of Sale from 9 o'clock.
CHILDREN WILL NOT BE ADMITTED AT ANY TIME.
JAMES R. LAWSON
Valuer, Fine Art, Furniture, and General Auctioneer
196 & 198 CASTLEREAGH ST
(Near corner of Park St.), Sydney
Telephone City 7456
Websdale, Shoesmith Ltd., Printers, Sydney
Brooksby - 35 Lower Ocean Street - Double Bay - Tuesday 29th May 1923 - Auction Flyer Catalogue
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