Lachlan Macquarie was never happier than when planning and laying out towns and communities. This interest he shared with his wife Elizabeth Campbell whom he appears to have been devoted. She was more than a demure wife and like Macquarie’s first wife Jane Javis, who died shortly after their marriage, seemed to enhance his ethical compass and encouraged new age thinking as exemplified in the reformer William Wilberforce. Indeed it was Elizabeth that lent books on architecture to Francis Greenway as she shared her husbands passion for building.
Shortly after arriving in the colony Macquarie instructed his surveyor James Meeham, an Irish political convict, to lay out model towns with pages of detailed instructions, this included Windsor in particular.
It was believed that ordered town planning lead directly to ordered societies and great care was taken in the placement of schools, churches, civic spaces, courts and hospitals. This passion extended even to dwellings where room heights and abundant windows along with building materials and fireplaces were dictated to improve health and quality of life.
He planned for the future with grid roads with set wide widths and attention to drainage and flood proofing. The plan for Windsor was huge and covered a large table and encompassed all of south Windsor. Indeed the scope of the plan showed a degree of forward planning not common today. It was only after 160 years that population pressure exceeded his town plan boundaries. Few realise that from the southern edge of south Windsor to the Peninsular we are walking over a 200 year old town plan much as it was laid out. Central to this was Thompson Square.
It was this plan Macquarie was to return to with Francis Greenway, an ex convict from Bristol, to build his iconic Georgian buildings that still exist today.
One can envision the Governor and his wife in 1816 reviewing this original master plan done in 1810 from Government House situated in the Domain near Thompson Square with people such as Meeham and Greenway trying to set in stone and brick a new egalitarian world where the quality of life of its citizens as moral agents was a major consideration. The fact an ex Irish Catholic rebel and an ex English thief were his surveyor and civil architect working on his dream validates this conclusion.
Windsor is precious as a physical manifestation of this ideal. We do not have to invent it, only preserve it. Are we the match of our ancestors?
Shortly after arriving in the colony Macquarie instructed his surveyor James Meeham, an Irish political convict, to lay out model towns with pages of detailed instructions, this included Windsor in particular.
It was believed that ordered town planning lead directly to ordered societies and great care was taken in the placement of schools, churches, civic spaces, courts and hospitals. This passion extended even to dwellings where room heights and abundant windows along with building materials and fireplaces were dictated to improve health and quality of life.
He planned for the future with grid roads with set wide widths and attention to drainage and flood proofing. The plan for Windsor was huge and covered a large table and encompassed all of south Windsor. Indeed the scope of the plan showed a degree of forward planning not common today. It was only after 160 years that population pressure exceeded his town plan boundaries. Few realise that from the southern edge of south Windsor to the Peninsular we are walking over a 200 year old town plan much as it was laid out. Central to this was Thompson Square.
It was this plan Macquarie was to return to with Francis Greenway, an ex convict from Bristol, to build his iconic Georgian buildings that still exist today.
One can envision the Governor and his wife in 1816 reviewing this original master plan done in 1810 from Government House situated in the Domain near Thompson Square with people such as Meeham and Greenway trying to set in stone and brick a new egalitarian world where the quality of life of its citizens as moral agents was a major consideration. The fact an ex Irish Catholic rebel and an ex English thief were his surveyor and civil architect working on his dream validates this conclusion.
Windsor is precious as a physical manifestation of this ideal. We do not have to invent it, only preserve it. Are we the match of our ancestors?
