Ben Chifley's House is a heritage-listed former residence and now museum in Bathurst, in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia.
Walter Spencer was a leading medical practitioner in Bathurst and an active speculator in property and mining ventures.
The raising of a mortgage after purchase by Bartlett suggests the house may have been built during this period of ownership (1887-1891), possibly as a speculative investment.
It housed railway families and was eventually purchased in 1903 as a rental property investment by George McKenzie, engine driver.
Ben was demoted to engine cleaner for his part in the 1917 Railway strike, which paradoxically lead to his increased involvement in politics.
The property would remain their home even during Chifley's parliamentary career which began in 1928 when he was elected as the Labor member for Macquarie, a constituency covering Bathurst and its surrounding districts.
After her death, a public appeal allowed Bathurst City Council to purchase the house and its contents in 1972 as a memorial to Ben Chifley.
NSW Premier Bob Carr, writing in his reflections on his public life, recalled (in the third person): The house is a small Victorian Italianate semi detached residence of rendered brick under a hipped iron roof.
[1] Internally the house consists of two bedrooms, a parlour, dining room, kitchen and pantry, and then a bathroom at the rear accessed by a covered verandah.
[1] Ben Chifley's House was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 23 December 2002 having satisfied the following criteria.
The house demonstrates the domestic life of a Labor prime minister whose lifestyle and political views had been formed, in part, by growing up in the Bathurst district during the economically hard times of the 1890s-1900s, and working in the nearby railways.
The house also demonstrates the lifestyle of a mid-twentieth century woman in an Australian country town that yielded little to the sophisticated imagery often associated with a national political leader (HO)[1] The place has a strong or special association with a person, or group of persons, of importance of cultural or natural history of New South Wales's history.
The simple, mass-produced furnishings, the home-made decorations, the domestic nature of the gardens and yard, the location of the house in the working class "Milltown" area of Bathurst, and the collection of books, photographs and other memorabilia contained in the house evidence the associations with Ben Chifley, and with his image as a plain speaking local man with a vision for the whole nation, best expressed in his words: a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand[1] Ben Chifley's House is of state significance for an association with Premier Bob Carr who has written in his recently published memoirs of moving as his first motion at his local ALP branch meeting 'That Ben Chifley's home at Bathurst should be made an historic memorial as a tribute to the greatest-ever prime minister'; and for its associations with prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke whose visits to the house are commemorated by plaques adjacent to the front door.
[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
Ben Chifley's House is of state significance for its associations with the people of New South Wales and Australia, who continue to hold Ben Chifley in high regard for his leadership of the country during his term as prime minister in the early post-war years between 1945 and 1949 when he promoted full employment, industrialisation, bank nationalisation, publicly funded social welfare, constitutional reform, missile defence, migration, national development and Australian independence as Australia's "Golden Age" (HO)[1] The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
(HO)[1] The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places/environments in New South Wales.
Ben Chifley's House is of local significance as a representative example of the type of working class housing built in the South Bathurst or "Milltown" area of Bathurst between the 1880s and 1910s using mass-produced materials, such as brick and corrugated iron, on small lots in the vicinity of the main industrial and transport, especially railway, facilities in the town, still containing the furnishings and other contents associated with its residential use during the mid-twentieth century.