Hennessy & Hennessy

Born in 1887, Jack Hennessy had studied architecture at Sydney Technical College and at the University of Pennsylvania, returning to Australia in 1911, joining his father's firm the next year.

The year the younger Hennessy joined the firm they gained one of their most prestigious commissions, the completion of the huge Gothic Revival St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.

In 1925 Jack Hennessy produced a plan for a huge church intended to be "the largest sacred building in the Commonwealth" for a site in Fortitude Valley on the edge of the central city.

The Renaissance/Baroque style design, inspired by St Paul's in London, had a dome and paired front towers, and was to be called the Holy Name Cathedral Construction began in 1927, but by the early 1930s only some retaining walls and the crypt had been built, and no further work was ever undertaken.

[1] The series of buildings for the Colonial Mutual Life insurance company were all versions of each other, in different sizes, in an elaborate Romanesque/Norman style, complete with gargoyles.