The land on which the house was built was part of John Small's original 1794 grant and was acquired (Cashman, (1982) says 'inherited') by James Devlin in 1828. Devlin was born in NSW in 1808, the son of Irish exile Arthur Devlin. Arthur had survived the Great Rebellion of 1798 in Ireland, and the Robert Emmet revolt of 1803. A great number of his comrades of 1798 were shipped to New South Wales as convicts, but Arthur managed to bargain for his terms of surrender and came to Sydney as an exile, and not as a convict, with a few of his relatives. Soon after arrival (1831) Arthur married colonial-born Priscilla Squire. She was the daughter of James Squire, patriarch of Kissing Point, land owner, brewer and man of business.