North Hobart Post Office was built on part of a seven-acre (nearly 3 hectares) allotment originally granted to John Swan who was considered by many of colonial Hobart’s social elite to be a man with a shady past – he had been acquitted of ‘receiving’ at the Old Bailey in London. By the late 1820s, Swan had a successful haberdashery business and his family acquired several properties in North Hobart including this allotment. By the 1840s a cottage and extensive garden had been built, but by the 1890s, the allotment was subdivided and Swan Street created. In 1903, the Commonwealth acquired the site for the new post office (refer to http://www.hobartcity.com.au).
Surveyed in 1912 and built in 1913, the North Hobart Post Office was constructed to a design by the Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways under the aegis of architect, J S Murdoch although Warmington cites the Department of Works’ Office (Warmington, 1987). The scope of this citation has precluded further research to clarify architectural attribution. An early (undated) postcard of the building depicts it as freestanding on a large corner site, flanked either side by picturesque picket fencing and landscaped areas.
Tacky Raccoons 