"I think we were a fairly ordinary family maybe in an extraordinary house."

Benjamin Jones, Oral History Interview, 31 January 1997.

Rippon Lea was a cherished family home to two families who collectively spent nearly 100 years living on the estate.

The Sargood family who owned a clothing and drapery firm in Melbourne, made their fortune selling softgoods during the Gold Rush. During the 1870s Frederick Sargood was elected to the Legislative Council, and later became Victoria’s first Minister for Defence.

The Sargood children had a privileged childhood riding ponies, tending their dovecote and growing vegetables.

"What games we used to have – chasing each other up and down the long passage, from the front door, to … the dining room, and round the table, at which Father would be sitting writing, looking at us over his glasses, with a twinkle in his eyes – no objection to any happy noise, so long as we did “not shake the table”."

Memoirs of Clara Webster, p.3.

Sargood was knighted in 1890 and when he died in 1903, Lady Sargood sold the property to the Premier of Victoria, Sir Thomas Bent.

Rippon Lea’s next owner, Benjamin Nathan moved into Rippon Lea with his family in 1910. His daughter, Mrs Louisa Jones inherited the property in 1935.

Louisa and her family loved entertaining and Rippon Lea, after its redecoration in 1938, became the scene of lavish balls, parties, family weddings, and musical performances.

During the 1960s and early 1970s Louisa, with her children’s support, fought a compulsory acquisition order to give four acres of Rippon Lea’s pleasure grounds to the adjoining Australian Broadcasting Commission. The fight was won and upon her death in 1972, Rippon Lea passed to the care of the National Trust.