This weatherboard and brick cottage was built around 1889 by the Wallarah Coal-mining Company to house its mineworkers.
Joe and Annie Baker with their children were the first remembered tenants. Joe Baker supplemented his income by fishing. There were five boys: Bob, George, Albert, Joseph and Fred. There was only one daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth later married Mr Outram and lived in No 4 Clarke Street. Joseph only had one son Jock, and later lived in No 26 Clarke Street.
One of the sons went to Fort Street High School on a scholarship and became a teacher.
Another son Fred Baker married Jean Gillon, who lived next door. Fred was a gifted musician. He had a shoe store in Swansea.
The Segelow family were the next tenants.
Percy and Mary Darcy (parents of Brian) then lived in the house until Percy died when his son Brian was eight years old. In 1946 mother and son went to Wyong to live with Brian’s maternal grandmother returning later to the Bay when Mrs Darcy married Jock Baker.
The next occupants to live in this house were Dorrie and Tom ‘Toge’ Price with their three children. Alan, Gary and Christine. Tom had lived in the Bay all his life and when his father died he lived with relatives in the Bay and did not leave the town with his mother. Dorrie was a Shaw and had grown up in no 17 Lindsley Street.
In1964 the Coal Company ‘Coal & Allied’ subdivided some of their land. The Company determined that Mr Tom Price would purchase this house and land for 350 pounds. The land measures nearly 46 feet in the front and almost 44 feet at the rear. The length of the block is 165 feet. Mr and Mrs Price had the external brick rendered stucco and built a verandah on the back.
Following the death of her husband Dorrie continued to live in the house and has done so for more than 50 years.
The interior walls have been relined with gyprock and the house is in good condition.