The annual reports of the Adelaide Workmen’s Homes Trustees of 1898 was stated: “All the advice tendered to us has gone in the direction of suburban cottages with a garden, and ... in the matter of the style of building we may be obliged to deviate from the Peabody [Trust] buildings, but an important question is, how far are Adelaide workmen in want of accommodation within the City? The objects of the two trusts are the same, namely the comfort and health of working men, giving them convenient nearness to their work, but we may be by the circumstances of our case compelled to seek for the same ends in different ways of building.”
There was a competition to assess architectural proposals and Charles W. Rutt’s was chosen. The trustees bought a site on Wakefield/Angas streets and proposed to build 32 cottages, each with bedrooms, living room, fair-sized cellar, pantry and bathroom. The cottages were “designed mainly with an eye to comfort, and the rooms are all of a good size, averaging about 14 foot x 12 foot and 11 foot high. The fronts which have been kept plain, will be constructed of Tapley’s Hill hardstone, with red brick dressings.”
Such amenities contrasted markedly with the cramped and primitive cottages built by other wealthy men for rental to much larger numbers of working-class residents.