A Hampton Story - by SDHS member Margaret Watts
My great grandparents, John Silk Sherrard junior and his wife Jane, nee Potter, started marital life in Melbourne in 1876. Neither however would have contemplated that they would ultimately probably hold the record for the most unusual living arrangement in Hampton.
When John and Jane’s fortunes fluctuated in the depression, he left to find work in North West Tasmania. Jane stayed on with their four daughters in Melbourne’s Tin Pan Alley and she worked as a midwife.
Jane was also entrepreneurial and built a large home at 12 Crisp Street, Hampton to accommodate holiday-makers who rented rooms from her circa 1912 – 1918. (The house was built by a Mr. Frank Jackman who was the husband of one of her daughters, Florence.)
