 In the 1790s the house was used as a boarding school for young gentlemen run by a Mr William Sewell.From the 1860s until the 1940s the house was the home of the Revd.and Mrs. Thomas Smith and their large family of maiden daughters, one of whom, Miss Emily Harriet Smith, became one of the first women to sit on the city council in 1920 and one of the first female Justice of the Peace.