Melbourne
Melbourne in the early 1850s was a rough and primitive place with potholed roads. Robbery was commonplace, and the poverty caused by the soaring inflation, and streets that were in 1854 described as open sewers ensured that disease was rife. It was into this environment came men seeking fortunes digging for gold. Within ten years the gold rush had transformed Melbourne from a provincial outpost of the British Empire to a wealthy and rapidly expanding city. Between 1853 and 1854 Melbourne doubled in size, however many of its new and expanding population lived in tented villages within the city. This need for building coupled with available funding drew aspiring young architects from around the world, among them John James Clark, Peter Kerr and in William Wilkinson Wardell.
As the newly arrived and appointed Government Architect, Wardell immediately began work on St Patrick's Cathedral, a task which was to occupy him for much of his life. In 1867 the Wardell Family moved into a large new house known as Ardoch, at 226 Dandenong Road, St Kilda, at the time one of the smartest and most expensive residential areas of Melbourne. The 13-roomed two-storied house in an Italianate style was built for £225 in 1864. The Wardell family purchased it in 1867 and moved from their previous home in Powlett Street, East Melbourne. Wardell designed both the Catholic churches dedicated to St Mary in St Kilda East where he personally worshipped. The first was completed in 1859 and its larger replacement completed in 1897.
In Melbourne, Wardell was not only the state-employed Government Architect, but also had a flourishing private practice as well, building houses, shops, and business premises for all who could afford him. He did not work in any one exclusive style, and could design in any architectural form his patrons required - Palladian, Neoclassical plus the various forms of Gothic, including notably at the ANZ Bank the floral Venetian Gothic.
In 1877 Sir Graham Berry became the premier of Victoria. His mission, considered radically left wing at the time, was to redistribute the grazing land of Victoria, and to introduce a bill providing for the payment of members of the Legislative Assembly, which would enable working-class candidates to be elected. When his aims were rejected by the Legislative Council, he embarked on a public campaign of "coercion". "We coerce madmen," he said, "we put them into lunatic asylums, and never was anything more the act of madmen than the rejection of the Appropriation Bill." On 8 January 1878, known afterwards as "Black Wednesday", his "coercing" began. Using the reasoning that without his bill civil servants could not be paid, Berry began to dismiss public servants, starting with police and judges. Wardell's was one of the many heads which fell - dismissed from office, he left Melbourne to seek employment in Sydney.
During his time in Melbourne, Wardell designed numerous buildings, including 14 parish churches, in both the private and public sectors. While St Patrick's Cathedral is the largest and best known, other notable buildings are listed below.
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