User:Jaydelapena/sandbox

Jenyns House
Location	Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
Built	1915 - 1916
Architect	Lange Powell

The Jenyns House also refered to the “The House of Jenyns“ is a three-story building located in 327 George Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. The most famous Australian fan-lacing corsets manufacturer, registered as a limited company in 1922 was the longest lasting corsets building spanning over a decade. They patented their own type of corsets naming in the Jenyns corset. This house was owned by Ebenezer and Sarah Ann Jenyns and was the core of the business of Jenyns Patent Corsets Pty Co. The building was established and moved into in 1916 and was being built in 1915 by Lange Powell a famous local Brisbane Architect in the early 20th Century.

Style

Powell did not follow any type of style but was creating hybrid sorts, which is evident in the Jenyns building, where the arches are made of brick forming a window base and pushing the window base inside possibly for shading, this building is Renaissance detailing in a more simplified form, so basically Neo-Renaissance and the building is not as well presented as the B. A. F. S Dispensary next to it as is aesthetic compared to it. The reason the building is the same is that he was designing the Parbury house, the Exton & Co. Ltd., the Preston House and the Robert Reid’s Building all in the same year. It is evident to see that the arches built seem familiar to each of the other buildings such as the Exton & Co. building and the Robert Reid’s building where the arch is basically a frame for the window.

Observations

B. A. F. S. Dispensary 331-333 George Street, Brisbane

The building was meant to relate to the B. A. F. S. Dispensary next to it, while not as aesthetically fine as the B. A. F. S. building he built the building with the same materials but differently to each other. In the Jenyns house he used bricks as the frame around the windows where he dug into the building (he made an arch) and then placed the window, while in the B. A. F. S. building he placed the bricks as the main type of material and have concrete as the arch where he placed the windows, a simplistic way of being reminiscent of Renaissance buildings, Neo-Renaissance. He built seven buildings in the same year, these include the Parbury House in Eagle street, Exton & Co. Ltd. Building in Ann Street, Preston house in Queen Street, Robert Reid's building on the corner of Edward & Charlotte Street B. A. F. S. Dispensary in George Street and the Hide & Skin Store on the corner of Longland & Master streets. If you examine these buildings most of the same ideas were re-used in most of the buildings.

History of the Client

In the early 1900’s a married couple named the Jenyns born in Australia set up to become one of the top corset manufacturers in Queensland. Ebenezer Randolphus Jenyns and Sarah Ann Jenyns, were surgical instrument makers and corset manufactuers. The husband was employed by the company Guyatt & Co which developed surgical instruments in Sydney.

The family was poor to begin with. Ebenezer which was employed by Guyatt & Co. original worked as a cutler in 1905, and a few years later he self-proclaimed himself as a surgical instrument maker. The married couple assisted each other and soon the business that they started finally started to prosper.

In 1911 Sarah Jenyns started to act independently and started her own business in George street where she make what his husband did and also corsets and belts where she panted these abdominal belts and started trying to advertise her works by going overseas. She patented a large amount of styles which were considered improvements of the old abdominal belts and while in England she finally found a company that would make her corsets, under license and this company was Symington & Co, of Market Harborough, Leicester. Once she obtained a license she proceeded to other countries to sell these corsets, these countries include Germany, United States of America and Canada.

In 1915, Sarah and her husband Ebenezer formed the official company and named it Jenyns Patent Corsets Pty Co. to market her surgical and fashionable corsets, this company in 1922 this became registered as a limited company.

In the year 1916, Sarah asked a man named Lange Powell which was famous around the parts of the local Brisbane area, Sarah had built a three-story premise in the City at 327 George Street and this commercial building was to be her core building for her business.