David Charteris McArthur, Melbourne's first banker (with the Bank of Australasia), sportsman (player in first recorded cricket match in Victoria and later captain of the Melbourne Cricket Club)[1] and prominent public figure (the McArthur Gallery in the National Gallery of Victoria[2] is named for him),[3] purchased 84 acres (34 hectares) for £350 in 1838 from one Thomas Walker.
[7] With the depression of the late 1880s, grand rural properties became practically valueless, and it was let to a dairy farmer, who (from September 1890 to 1904) let the south wing to painter Walter Withers and his family.
They lived there from 1890 to 1894 before moving to nearby Heidelberg[8] and sublet rooms to artists Hal Waugh, Arthur Bassett, Fred Monteath, Tom Humphrey and Leon Pole.
Violet Teague, Mary Meyer and Ina Gregory were among those who studied under Fox and painted in Charterisville's then vast grounds (the property was subdivided in 1916, 1920, 1927 and 1939).
Etcher John Shirlow, watercolourist Alexander McClintock, pastellist Alf Fisher, sculptor W. Wallace Anderson, W. S. Wemyss and Frank Crozier are recorded as having worked there.
Charterisville had a later role in the art history of Australia: outdoor scenes for the very successful 1905 movie The Story of the Kelly Gang were largely filmed there.