Robert Joseph Haddon

Haddon worked extensively on councils, examining boards and committees, while writing a number of articles in technical magazines, as well as a book (Australian Domestic Architecture) in 1908.

He also consulted with regional practices including Camperdown (Victoria) based firms Tombs & Durran and Michael McCabe & Perry Knights, as well as Geelong architects Buchan & Laird.

Buildings they may hint at his hand include elevations composed with balanced asymmetry, windows of varied shapes and sizes, but set simply without architraves in plain wall surfaces, with an area or feature with a burst of extravagance.

[6] In his own house, "Anselm" at 4 Glenferrie Street Caulfield, Victoria, Australia, built in 1907, Robert Haddon implemented his Art Nouveau ideas with his originality of unconventional architecture.

Anselm plays with the hierarchy and scale of Art Nouveau classics such as a dominant octagonal tower, visible chimney stacks and steep pitched roofs that bleed onto the building as decorative façade elements.

Broad arched windows represent the most overt art nouveau element of the design with tracery reflecting vine-like interpretations of traditional Gothic fenestration.

The similarities with St Stephens, Caulfield, built 20 years later, are striking, particularly the powerful cement column that divides the main façade symmetrically and draws the eye upwards to the apex of the gable and beyond.

the addition of vine and acanthus leaves is seen in corbels for the hammer-beam roof and around the pulpit, which is placed off-centre to relieve space (possibly also reflecting doctrinal changes in Presbyterian churches at the time) and giving the communion table the focal point of the interior.

Short and squat with an octagonal castellated tower, the windows, brickwork and restrained adornment look decidedly "Haddonian" as Professor Miles Lewis AM of Melbourne University states in a 1991 National Trust of Victoria publication.

[16] While Professor Lewis goes on to describe the cantilevered wrought iron lamp over the entrance and a blind oculus in the western wall, he is clearly not a fan and calls the spire "risible".

Similar to Malvern and St Stephen's, Caulfield, the Oakleigh church enjoys a cement gable treatment enhancing the focus on the apex, and proudly displaying the year of construction.