They include the Abbey, Oybin, Rozelle (now demolished), Greba, Hockingdon, Highroyd, Kenilworth and Claremont (now demolished). Rosethorne is a fictional house based on Highroyd and Hockingdon. During the 1890s, one of the deepest depressions ever gripped Australia. During this time, many of the large blocks in Annandale were subdivided and the suburb became predominantly working-class. During the 1890s, eighty per cent of Sydney’s population was working-class. Most children finished school aged twelve, but some left as young as eight and went to work. Many children worked sixty hours per week for two or three pennies per hour (about two cents). This was approximately half the wage that women received and about one-quarter the wage of a working-class man. Workers lived in small, cramped housing. During the 1890s there was a housing shortage, which pushed up rents and resulted in overcrowding. Twenty per cent of babies died and twenty-five per cent of children died by the age of five, with up to one in three children dying in some poor suburbs.
