The Land
The Nepean Hotel was located on land owned by James Sandle Ford (1811 -1890). The land was originally part of Ford’s 2,560 acre Crown Lease, but after he received a ‘Preemptive Right’ to Crown Land, he was able to purchase 160acres when lands were made available for sale in the 1860s.
So in March 1860 Ford was able to make the first purchase of Crown Land in the Parish of Nepean, County of Mornington.
Original licence granted on 5 August 1870, to James Ford (Junior).
At this time the hotel was in a very small building. The original owner was James Sandle Ford.
In 1872 Ford employed 22 year old John Farnsworth (1850 -1883) from Adelaide, (who had previously built the Sorrento Hotel), to build the very large Nepean Hotel well known for many years. The building was much more expensive than Ford had anticipated, and he was forced to borrow a large amount of money.1
In January 1873 John Farnsworth married Annie Elizabeth Ford (1849 -1933), the second daughter of James S Ford. In December of that year he applied for the Licence of the hotel.
John Farnsworth proved to be quite the entrepreneur, with grand sporting events staged at Portsea.
By 1880, with outside building work proving more scarce, John Farnsworth returned to Adelaide to seek better options. This was not to occur, and in September 1881 Farnsworth was declared insolvent.2 To make matters worse, in November 1883, he died in Adelaide. He was only 33 years old.
John Farnsworth’s insolvency and death caused some difficulties for the Ford family given the Hotel and surrounding lands were in his name.
The hotel was demolished in August 1971 At that time it was owned by Mrs. Weir & her sons, Don & Reg.
Nepean Historical Society 