Did you know? – St Johns Road

By Rodney Hammett, from Bulletin 8 of 2025 (October)

A recent enquiry to the Glebe Society asked if No. 225 St Johns Road had been a shop. On the corner of St Johns Road and Junction Street, the building has a large window on the St Johns Road frontage.

Sands Directories gave a clue by showing Alexander Gray, a butcher, listed at the end of St Johns Road in 1879 (see Figure 1). In previous directories there was only an alphabetical list of the heads of households in Glebe. This was first time Glebe and Forest Lodge streets were listed in this manner.

We can see that for 1879 there were only five buildings on the northern side of St Johns Road between Ross Street and Junction Street.

1885 was the first year St Johns Road had street numbering (see Figure 2) and now there were six buildings with Alexander Gray, the butcher, at No.125.

The 1889 Directory revealed that more development had taken place (see Figure 3), now showing 14 buildings, plus the street numbering had changed somewhat. William Elvy was now the butcher which had changed to No. 121. Four new buildings had been built at the end of the street, the end being a grocer shop run by Augustus E Lawson.

Concurrently with my Sands investigations I had found the ownership details of the land at this end of St Johns Road. The land shaded yellow in Figure 4 had in December 1874 been purchased as a vacant lot by Michael Corbett, a publican in Parramatta Street, and his wife Mary. This land was sold to Henry Albert Brigg of The Glebe in July 1876 and Henry retained ownership until September 1911.^[1]

This is the same Henry Albert Brigg who is listed in Sands in Figures 1 and 2 and I believe it was he who built the dwellings we see today, numbered 213 to 225. From the Sands records these would have been built in the period 1888 to 1890.

So yes, No. 225 had been a shop and over the years the street numbering has changed several times.

Year	Number	Head of Household at current No. 225
1889	-	Augustus E Lawson, grocer
1891	135	Mrs Foley, grocer
1897	141	Wren and Smoody, fruiterers
1900	141	Mrs Mary Power, grocer
1907	225	George Roberts, fruiterer
1912	225	George Roberts, fruiterer
1920	225	F W Cork
1933	225	V Gray, grocer

House numbering in St Johns Road

House numbers in St Johns Road have changed several times since 1885 when numbering was used for the first time. The length of St Johns Road was initially only from Glebe Point Road to Junction Street, but in 1906 it was extended to include the previous Denman Street, from Glebe Point Road to Wentworth Park Road.

The Municipality of The Glebe was proclaimed on 1 August 1859 and voting for the first aldermen took place on Monday 29 August 1859. Early references to roadworks undertaken by the new Municipality show work on St Johns Road during 1860.

Sands Directory does not have any reference to St Johns Road until 1866 and then it only describes a section between Glebe Point Road and Derwent Street.

By 1868 the road has been extended, and Sands describes it from Glebe Point Road through to Junction Street.

 ^[1] NSW LRS; Volume 195 Folio 72