Carrick Hill gives only nod to Morris & Co. but carries on Barr Smiths' Adelaide passion for bold artistic ventures
Carrick Hill's 1890s three-fold screen: Pomegranate, Vine, Apple Tree from Morris and Co, designed by John Henry Dearle and embroidered by Mary Isobel (Molly) Mitchell Barr Smith, Ursula Hayward's mother. Top right: Apple tree (with wreath, unfinished) designed by William Morris, embroidered by Mary Isobel (Molly) Barr Smith. Bottom right: Firesceen, Rose and Olive, designed by Mary (May) Morris, embroidered by Jean O'Halloran Giles.
Ursula Hayward was a third-generation Barr Smith who only brought a glimpse of the family’s Morris & Co. arts and crafts devotion to the Carrick Hill mansion she created with husband Edward (Bill) in the Adelaide’s southeast foothills during the 1930s.
But Ursula Hayward carried the Barr Smith influence boldly into other artistic areas. Ursula’s father was Tom Barr Smith, son of Robert and Joanna Barr Smith whose wealth enabled them to became one of the most important international clients of Morris & Co, founded by William Morris in 1875 with a medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for handcrafting and traditional textile arts.
Carrick Hill was built by the Haywards as a Tudor-style manor house with Australia’s finest collection of antique oak furniture in a mix of Elizabethan, Jacobean, Georgian, some Victorian and early 20th Century copies.
The influence of William Morris – and Joanna’s mother – only appears in the bedrooms. This includes an 1881 William Morris-designed three-fold screen of green silk damask called Oak. The organic designs on the screen borrow motifs frequently used by Morris & Company. Designs for two of the panels Pomegranate and Vine are attributed to John Henry Dearle, with Apple Tree believed to be a design by Morris himself around 1880.
Morris and his designers, which included his talented daughter Mary (May) Morris, frequently used their own designs for inspiration. Apple Tree is possibly adapted from, or inspired, the screen Apple Tree (with wreath), with an unfinished example in Carrick Hill’s collection.
Pomegranate, Vine and Apple Tree were embroidered by Mary Isobel (Molly) Barr Smith (née Mitchell), an accomplished needlewoman who passed the love of stitch to her daughter Ursula Hayward. Molly also embroidered the unfinished Apple Tree (with wreath).
Although Ursula and Bill Hayward cultivated a British way of life at Carrick Hill, they promoted a new generation of Australian artistic sensibility through their close including William Dobell (who introduced them to Patrick White), Russell Drysdale, Jacob Epstein as well as South Australian identities such as Hans Heysen and his daughter Nora Heysen, Ivor Hele, John Dowie and Jeffery Smart.
In 1953, Ursula Hayward was appointed a trustee of the Art Gallery of South Australia and Edward honoured for his service to the community. Their ultimate gift to the community was bequeathing Carrick Hill to the state of South Australia.
