Ernest William

1/01/1869

Architect E.W. Senior travelled across Australia to oversee the design of several public halls and district hospitals but found most success in the domestic field in Adelaide during a brief period post-1910.

Ernest William Senior was born in New South Wales c.1866-1869 to Frank Senior and Eugenie Adelaide Senior (nee Saville) (1834-1869). His father, Frank Senior (1821-1895) had been born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in England and came to Australia in the early 1850s. Three years after Frank’s arrival he began a pharmacy in George Street, Sydney. Frank and Eugenie (known as Adelaide) had two sons (Ernest and Frank Jnr) and a daughter ("The Late Mr Frank Senior" 1895). Adelaide however died on the 10 Feb 1869 when the children were small and was buried at the Rookwood Cemetery, NSW. Frank remarried Elizabeth Sarah Brown on 10 July 1869.

Ernest W. Senior’s membership of the Sydney Rowing Club brings him to notice as a 19 year-old, by which time he claims to have received some training in Chicago, U.S.A., under an architect named Charles Harris (Mail 1915). After looking for openings as an architect in Hobart and Melbourne, Senior opened an office in Sydney while, it seems, he was studying a course of civil engineering. Between 1890 and 1892 E.W. Senior completed a set of municipal buildings. Subsequently, 'E.W. Senior C.E., Architect' executes the Elizabeth Street branch of the London Mortgage, Loan & Deposit Bank in Sydney (Daily Times 1891).

Ernest Senior married Lizzie Louisa Lamb (c.1870-20 May 1950), daughter of auctioneer Charles Fisher Lamb on 16 March 1892 in Woollahra All Saints Anglican Parish in Sydney. Charles Lamb was a partner in Bradley, Newton and Lamb Auctioneers in Sydney with the family living at "Kilvington" in Woollahra. Ernest and Lizzie had one daughter Ella Ianthe Senior in 1895. Ernest and Lizzie's daughter Ella Ianthe Senior married engineer, Harold Ernest Leslie Townsend on the 12 June 1923 at Cathedral Church St Andrew's in Sydney (Sydney Anglican Parish Registers and Marriage Reg. 5017).

On the coat-tails of E.A. Clifton C.E., with whom Ernest formed a partnership for the purpose, Senior next built the fairly grand Narrabri Town Hall for £3509 in 'French Renaissance' style (SM 1893; Sydney Morning Herald 1892, 1893) but fails in competitions to secure commissions for a number of other regional halls. Work becomes scarce in the later 1890s (Sydney Morning Herald1894). In 1900-01 he completed Cootamundra Town Hall (Cootamundra Herald 1890).He had gained a position on the staff of the Auburn Borough Council can be abjured (Cumberland Argus & Fruitgrowers' Advocate 1897). But the occasional cottage and terraced house emanating from a succession of office addresses more and more remote from the city centre could not sustain an existence on the near North Shore.

In 1903, the Seniors transfer to Perth, Western Australia, where a draftsman's post in the Lands Department is offered (West Australian 1903). The placid Swan River tempts Ernest to ply the oars again and he joins a cricket club. Minor private architectural work gotten from letting agents, yet collaborations with rural practices (West Australian 1905) prove, however, insufficient to foresee a future in the West, so another fresh start is made in Victoria.

An added incentive to move to Victoria is a winning entry in a competition to extend the Wangaratta District Hospital (Corowa Free Press 1906). From a base in, firstly, North Carlton and, secondly, Collins Street, Melbourne, Senior wins second prizes in further competitions to build small halls in country towns (Prahran Telegraph 9 May 1908). By June 1908, he is engaged in the conversion of a Bourke Street boxing arena into a fancy coffee palace, a substantial undertaking which precedes the remodelling, worth £1000, of the Williamstown and Footscray District Hospital - once more a competitive design (Prahran Telegraph 27 June 1908; Age 1908).

Despite these signs of an ascendant career, the Seniors are next found in Brisbane (Brisbane Courier 1909; Queensland Times 1907). He redons the creams for the Oxley Cricket Club early in the summer of 1909-10 before heading to Adelaide via Carrieton, South Australia, where he finds a distant relative: a son of soon-to-be Federal Senator William Senior (1850-1926) of North Croydon (Quorn Mercury 1910; R 1926). For the better part of 1910, the architect attracts attention in the South Australian newspapers only for his involvement in the Wayville Cricket Club.

Several months of 1911 are spent in Sydney and in Inverell, N.S.W., where he oversees the construction by a separate relative, William Senior, of the Delungra Post Office (Inverell Times 1911). And, although tenders are called in South Australia for a timber-framed cottage (said to be for a Mrs Senior) (Advertiser 1911), cricket and, soon, baseball also become his passions. Without deserting Wayville Cricket Club, Senior manages to join, perhaps strategically, the committee of the Semaphore Club of veteran cricketers led by the engineer, Fred Assheton (licensee of the local Federal Hotel), a brother of both Rowland Assheton, architect, and Arthur Assheton, builder (Advertiser 1912).

From May 1913 onwards, Senior sets about developing a series of domestic projects, mostly situated on the eastern side of Adelaide. Working from A.M.P. Chambers, Adelaide, (also the address of H.E. Sibley, Architect (d. 1917) and Albert Dawe, Land Agent), he makes up for lost time, inviting tenders for no fewer than 27 jobs - from a brick and stone residence in Alberton East to a lightweight bungalow in Paradise. There are indications that most of these contracts will have been redrafts of standard plans negotiated on behalf of builders, estate agents and modest speculators (Adelaide City Council 1913). Nonetheless, the 'First Class Residence at Toorak' of September 1913 could well be 136 Watson Avenue, built to order for John Deane, a Norwood plumbing contractor (Advertiser 1913). 1914 brought only one commission per month but more variety, including an Anglican Mission Hall at Forest Range (for which Senior waives his fee) and the Prospect Presbyterian Church. On the latter, he oversees a design provided by Adolph Hanson, an active builder-architect and land trader (Advertiser 1914; Mail 1914). Advent Hall, for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, also of 1914, is a rare survivor which perhaps typifies Senior's winning approach to community buildings; it stands, renamed as Liquor Trades Hall, at 116 Grote Street, Adelaide (Adelaide City Council 1914).

During World War One, when the horror of the Gallipoli campaign strikes home in 1915, architectural work began to dry up. Senior, tempted by big prizes, consequently, enters a competition to expand the facilities of the University of Melbourne. As it turns out, it was not worth reconnoitring interstate or drawing brilliantly; even the winning scheme was to be scandalously abandoned by the Victorian government in order to substitute its own; Senior had justifiably complained about this practice 15 years before (Mail 1915; Age 1916; EN 1900). A house for a doctor, one of only two commissions obtained in 1915, appears to be the last on public record until 1920 when an undertaker commissions a bungalow on the Millswood Estate (Register 1920).

Senior struggles on during the lean, immediate post-war years, renting a shopfront office beneath the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Rundle Street (Certificate of Title). Late in 1921, he buys a single-fronted cottage in Angas Street - his first property purchase. This he improves a few years later, remaining there with his wife until, with a view to 'remove to America', he sells in 1927 (Advertiser 1924, 1927). Yet, in the interim, he cannot settle and, either for business or pleasure, travels widely by motor car - from Wilcannia to Meekatharra to Naracoorte, and by ship from Tasmania to New Zealand to Kangaroo Island. It is evident that Senior comes into money to the extent that he dabbles in horse-racing and even plays the mortgagee (Advertiser 1927). But the move to America does not eventuate; and the Seniors instead end up in South Melbourne. Ernest died in 1929, it is at the age of 60, having not fully recovered from being hit by a car at a tramstop on St Kilda Road (Sydney Morning Herald 1929; Weekly Times 1929).

Office Addresses

106 King St, Sydney (with E A Clifton, C.E.) 1889
163 King St, Sydney 1892
P.O. Box 280, GPO, Sydney 1894
Bank Chambers, Pitt St, Sydney 1900
Central Chambers, 173 Pitt St, Sydney 1901
49 Hunter St, Sydney 1903
16 Lombard Chambers, St George's Tce, Perth 1903
Austral Chambers, Barrack St, Perth 1905
17 Amess St, N. Carlton, Victoria 1907
Ludstone Chambers, Collins St, Melbourne 1908
A.M.P. Chambers, King William St, Adelaide 1913
P.O. Box 286, GPO, Adelaide 1915
PTA 40, Rundle St, Adelaide 1919
360 Angas St, Adelaide 1925
23 Coventry St, S. Melbourne 1928-9

Giles Walkley
(updated and edited with new information by Julie Collins 2025)
Citation details
Walkley, Giles ‘Senior, Ernest William’, Architecture Museum, University of South Australia, 2019, Architects of South Australia: [http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=160]

Giles Walkley