Albert Purchas

Alone or with Swyer, Purchas is said to have designed over 140 houses, offices, churches, banks and cemetery buildings in Victoria in his long career.

Berkely Hall St Kilda dating from 1854 is one of his first buildings, and still exists, though the original house is obscured by an early 20thC verandah.

[5] Another notable early design was the head office of the Melbourne Savings Bank, built on the corner Flinders Lane and Market Street in 1857-58, in an elaborately detailed Renaissance Revival style.

During his pupilage to Purchas, Black won several prizes offered by the RVIA, among them the Royal Victoria Institute of Architects' award in December 1885.

[15] Purchas was a keen inventor having applied for a patent for an invention for lighting a railway carriage with gas in 1861,[16] and won a competition for a model farm complex, in 1862.

[42] In 1883 he purchased the Isle of Wight Hotel on Philip Island from John Richardson, possibly as a retirement interest or investment.

[43] In the early 1880s his son, Robert Guyon Whittlesey Purchas was articled in his office, who went on to become a prominent architect himself, championing the Arts & Crafts in the 1890s-1900s.