Harvey came to South Australia in 1861, and initially worked in a timber yard in Flinders Street. He eventually acquired his own timber mill at Port Adelaide, later acquiring an interest in the Lion Timber Mills and directing the Globe Timber Mills. He built a number of houses for wealthy families in Unley Park, and Harvey Street in Unley Park was named after him. At the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee he consented to the change of the name of the street to Victoria Avenue. Although Harvey retained the ownership of the Hurtle Square terrace until 1886, he sold the Carrington Street terrace four years after its completion in 1882.
The buyer, in March 1882 was James Francis Cudmore, the wealthy pastoralist who purchased the property as an investment. Cudmore had arrived in South Australia in 1837 with his parents. James' father, Daniel M.P. Cudmore, started the family empire by the construction of pise huts, the establishment of breweries and later the acquisition of farming land in the Modbury area in 1847. This station was the first of a number that were acquired by the family located in western and central Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. In the 1850s, D.M.P. Cudmore began to transfer the management ofthe stations to his two sons.
James Francis Cudmore managed the station Paringa, near the Murray River. The pastoral empire continued to grow but it appears Cudmore over-extended himself financially in the mid 1880s. Some histories record that Cudmore was saved from financial ruin by entering into partnership with Elder, Barr Smith and Swan. Other views of the matter however, give another more sinister interpretation. Peter Howells claims:
Cudmore’s financial collapse typified that of scores of successful primary producers whose ambition made them easy prey to Robert Barr Smith’s cunning. Smith approached such people with the offer of capital to help them expand their enterprises. Then when bad seasons came, he could proceed to expropriate their assets.
Indeed in 1888, Cudmore was forced into the insolvency courts and many properties passed from his possession. It is thought that the terrace houses in Carrington Street were transferred from James to his sons, Milo and Daniel Henry Cudmore to protect the properties from creditors. In 1886, the two Cudmores became the owners of the houses and various members of the Cudmore family owned the terrace until 1911.
In 1976 the South Australian Housing Trust purchased the terrace. In 1973 the Trust devised a scheme where the authority purchased houses in need of repair relatively cheaply, repaired the buildings and offered them to low income families for rental.
The terrace houses on this site became part of the Trust’s scheme. The Trust was formed as a statutory authority in 1936 and was Australia’s first public housing authority, providing cheap housing for rental and/or purchase to those unable to afford to buy their own house.
The terrace was built at the start of a building boom in Adelaide and was completed approximately when the adjacent Earl of Aberdeen Hotel was rebuilt. The terrace consists of five attached two storey dwellings, and is built of bluestone with a rendered plinth and quoins. The terrace has rendered surrounds to windows and doors with floral keystones. Each house in the terrace is relatively small; one door and one window in width. The building has a hipped roof with simple rendered chimneys. The building features a roofed balcony from the first floor with French doors opening onto the balcony. The concave roof is painted with green and white stripes and supported by timber posts that are decorated with cast iron lacework. Some of this work does not appear to be original. At the rear the buildings have a one storey concrete block addition. They appear to be largely original although years of public housing may have been unkind internally. Both terraces, in Hurtle Square and Carrington Street and the Earl of Aberdeen Hotel contribute to and reinforce the character of Hurtle Square.