The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
Two storey stone house built in about 1819 on land at the corner of Macquarie and King Streets, now the corner of Macquarie Street and Queens Square and the site of the Law Courts building. The site had been owned by former convict Thomas Clarkson, and the house may have been built by him before the land passed D'arcy Wentworth in about 1819. Possibly occupied by Wentworth for a short period before being leased, and subsequently purchased, by the government in 1820 to be used as the residence for the Surveyor General, John Oxley. King George IV's monogram G.R. was carved in stone over the entrance. The land was acquired by St James Anglican church in 1838 and was used as a parsonage until it fell into disrepair in the late 1880s and was demolished in 1889. The site was then leased by the church to raise funds for its maintenance and St James Chambers was built.
The Australian Museum was also briefly accommodated in a room in the parsonage for a period in the early 1840s.
