C.H.E. Blackmann

C.H.E. Blackmann (1835 – c. 1912) (Carl Heinrich Edmund Blackmann), a leading Sydney architect and member of the Institute of Architects and Surveyors and the Royal Society, was associated with over 130 buildings in a career of 20 years in Australia. He came to Australia from Germany at the age of 21, joined the Gold Rush and was naturalized in Victoria in 1861. He returned to Berlin for two years to complete his architectural training and brought his new wife Bertha Wilhelmina Mueller back to Victoria in 1866.

Blackmann had a spectacular fall from grace in 1886 when he sailed to California with a younger woman, abandoning his wife, seven children and new business partner (Sir) John Sulman. The ensuing notoriety resulted in the marginalisation of his contribution to architecture; his outstanding work was subsequently ascribed to his much younger partner Varney Parkes (Blackmann & Parkes 1880-1885) or to John Sulman (Blackmann & Sulman 1886). Authors have repeated the rumour that he ‘fled the country with a barmaid leaving Sulman liable for his tubulars"’.

During his lifetime, Blackmann's contemporaries lauded his skills in mining engineering, drawing, design, project management and architecture. Recent research has shown that Blackmann left Sulman, a recent migrant to Sydney, with an exclusive office suite and a flourishing business with rich bank and insurance clients. Sulman purchased the other half of the partnership in 1889. Bertha was left with property and funds and in 1890 took the two youngest sons to California to live with Blackmann and the woman, who had been the family’s nanny, according to his descendants. Bertha and the five older children subsequently flourished in West Australia, where Bertha died in 1927.

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