Sydney Ancher was born in Woollahra and educated at the North Sydney Boys High and Sydney Technical High Schools, then was articled to EWS Wakeley (1924-26) while studying at night at the Sydney Technical College, from where he graduated in 1930. From 1926 to 1930, he worked in the drawing office at Wunderlich. then Prevost Synnot and Ruwald and Ross & Rowe. In 1930, he was awarded the Australian medallion and a travelling scholarship from the NSW Board of Architects and he left for a work-study tour of the UK and Europe. In London, he worked for several leading architects, including Verity and Beverley, Joseph Emberton, Textaphoto and Thompson and Walford; he also travelled in Europe to see new works by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, who especially impressed him. Back in Australia in 1936, he worked for Emil Sodersten and then with Reginald Prevost. In 1937, he became Prevost’s partner in Prevost & Ancher, and their practice gained a great deal of work doing hotels. In 1939, he again left for London, where he heard four RIBA lectures by Frank Lloyd Wright, and travelled in Scandinavia. On return to Australia after the declaration of war, he worked briefly for the Commonwealth Government, then with John D. Moore, before joining the Australian Imperial Force as a sapper. In March 1942, he was back in Australia and worked at Land Headquarters, Melbourne, on architectural and engineering projects. Resuming his own practice in 1945, he designed about 10 houses a year until 1951 and renovated numerous hotels. His own home at Killara was awarded the 1945 RAIA Sulman Medal. In 1952, he took two of his assistants, Stuart Murray and Bryce Mortlock, into partnership and they continued to design domestic and hotel projects, including the first all-concrete house in Australia, at Rosedale Road, St Ives (1959). Around 1960, the practice expanded into council chambers, municipal libraries and university buildings, and appointed Ken Woolley a partner in 1964. In 1966, Ancher retired and moved to Coffs Harbour, where he built a house in 1968. After his wife died in 1970, he moved to another self-designed house at Camden, NSW, then moved again to Fosterton, near Dungog. In 1976, he won the RAIA Gold Medal.
Sources
—Ancher Mortlock Murray & Woolley project database under construction by Anne Higham for the NSW RAIA 20th Century Buildings Committee.
—Ancher Mortlock Woolley website www.amwarchitects.com.au
—Apperly, Richard and Peter Reynolds. 2000. ‘Ancher, Sydney Edward Cambrian’ in John Ritchie (ed.) Australian Dictionary of Biography 1940-1980 (Vol. 13). Canberra: Australian National University.
—Clippings archived by the NSW RAIA’s Heritage Committee.
—Jackson, Davina. 2004. Conversation with Stuart Murray, October.
—Saunders, David and Catherine Burke. 1976. Ancher, Mortlock, Murray, Woolley: Sydney Architects 1946-1976. Sydney: Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney. In the collection of Julie Cracknell.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2015
