Showing posts with label Royal Hospital for Women. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Benevolent Asylum - Railway Square, Pitt St Side, Near Roadway To Station

THE BENEVOLENT ASYLUM
RAILWAY SQUARE, PITT STREET, NEAR VEHICLE ROADWAY TO STATION

Erected By Governor Macquarie In 1820 With Accommodation For 60 Aged & Infirm Persons. Demolished In 1901 To Make Way For Central Station.
On 27th July 1822 Governor Macquarie Listed 67 Public Buildings Undertaken For Sydney During His Administration From 1810 - 1821 including "An Asylum For 100 Infirm, Blind & Lame, Poor Persons.... Situated At The Southern Extremity Of The Town In An Airy Situation."
A Society Had Been Promoted In 1813, But Because Of Its Meagre Resources It Was Felt That A Move Should Be Made To Provide Indoor As Well As Outdoor Relief. A Meeting, The Governor Presiding Was Held On The 6th May 1818 At Which It Was Resolved
"That An Association Should Be Formed For The Relief Of The Poor, aged & Infirm & For Other Benevolent Purposes."

A Subscription List Was At Once Opened, And
"Macquarie Headed it With A Donation Of Twelve Guineas. Thirty Five Others Present Added Their Names, The Total Amount Promised Being £178.10.0

The New Society "Pledged To Work For The establishment Of An Asylum For The Poor & For The Infirm, In Which They Might Receive Not Only Food, Shelter & Personal Attention, But Also Medical Treatment , Religious Instruction & Consolation."

Honorary Medical Advisers To The Asylum Were Dr William Redfern, Who’d Been Transported To Sydney Cove In 1801 For Being in Overt Sympathy With Sailors Of The Royal Navy During The Mutiny Of The Nore In 1797, & Dr William Bland, Who’d Been Transported For His Part In A Duel That’d Been Fatal For His Adversary.
In 1819 Governor Macquarie Undertook To Erect On Crown Land...
"A Suitable, Plain Building, Near The New Turnpike House, For The Accommodation Of 50 To 60 Persons. It Was Erected On The Site Now Occupied By Central Station"

The caption printed under this picture reads: "The Benevolent Asylum, George Street South".

The caption printed under this picture reads: "An old photograph of the Benevolent Asylum". A handwritten note above it is only partly in shot and I can't read it with confidence.

The Benevolent Society Came About In 1813 & Is Still Going Strong Today. & Out Of All The Charities From My Own Personal Experience This Has Been The One & Only That’s Even Offered Assistance To My Family... & Ever Since, Every Year They Have Left A Hamper On Our Doorstep At Christmas, Which I Think Has Been The Best Gesture Out Of All of The Charities, Without Having To Get Involved In The Drama Of It All. They Know My Parents And I Are Struggling And I Have To Say It Was a Really Nice Gesture.
But This Is About The Benevolent Asylum For The Poor, Aged & Infirm, Which Was Pulled Down In 1901 When It Was Decided The Old Railway Terminus At Redfern Would Be Replaced By A New Station, Central Railway Station

The Old Benevolent Asylum – The Full Story

If you've ever walked down the Pitt Street side of Railway Square, past the cab rank and the ramp that takes the cars up to Central, you've walked over the spot where Sydney's oldest charity looked after the town's poorest people for eighty years. There's nothing left of it now. Here's what I've been able to piece together about the place, from the people who started it to the day the railway took the land.

How It All Began – A Society in 1813

The story starts on 8 May 1813, when the journalist Edward Smith Hall got a group together and formed the New South Wales Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence. The Dictionary of Sydney says it was set up to help the poor, the sick and people down on their luck, the ones the government of the day couldn't or wouldn't help. Not everyone was keen. The Reverend Samuel Marsden refused to back it because he didn't want to encourage what he called public begging.

Edward Smith Hall, the newspaperman who got the first society going in 1813, painted by Augustus Earle around 1822. Augustus Earle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hall's little society struggled along until June 1818, when it was replaced by the Benevolent Society of New South Wales, which came under the wing of the Colonial Auxiliary Bible Society. The new society gave out cash, food and clothing to people who needed a hand to get through. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was its patron, and Wikipedia notes that every Governor of NSW since has held the same job.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie, patron of the Benevolent Society. The portrait is attributed to John Opie. John Opie?, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Plain Building Near the Turnpike

Handing out food was one thing, but the society wanted a proper roof for people who had nowhere else to go. The University of Sydney's medical faculty history says that in 1820 "a suitable plain building near the Turnpike House" went up on part of the land that Central Station covers today. Its foundation stone survived the demolition and was kept at the Royal Hospital for Women. It reads: "This asylum for the poor, blind, aged and infirm was erected in 1820, L. Macquarie Esquire being Governor".

The Dictionary of Sydney gives the opening day as 12 October 1821, when Macquarie opened the Benevolent Asylum "for the aged, infirm, blind and destitute". It stood on the corner of Pitt and Devonshire Streets, a good way out of the town, right next to the toll gate that marked where Sydney ended. Its next-door neighbour on the other side was the Devonshire Street Cemetery.

A lot of people ask who designed it. Macquarie's convict architect Francis Greenway was busy all over Sydney at the time, but none of the sources I could read actually name him as the architect of the asylum, so I'm leaving that one as an open question.

The Benevolent Society's asylum painted by Frederick Garling in the 1840s. Frederick Garling, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Surveyor General's tracing from 30 November 1844 showing the asylum's block in the parish of St Lawrence. State Records NSW, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Mr and Mrs Dalton Run the Place

By the end of 1821 there were 48 men and nine women living in the asylum. The Dictionary of Sydney says they lived under rules set by the Master and Matron, Richard and Sarah Dalton, who ran it from 1820 to 1833. Richard had been a constable and deputy gaoler before he took the job. The government chipped in subsidies, but the asylum still relied on donations and subscriptions to keep going.

The doctors were a colourful pair. William Bland was the society's first medical officer from 1820 to 1830, according to the University of Sydney, and he stayed on as its unpaid surgeon until 1863. William Redfern also served, as I mentioned further up.

Dr William Bland, the asylum's first medical officer, in a daguerreotype taken before January 1845. It's thought to be the oldest surviving photograph taken in Australia. George Baron Goodman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dr William Redfern (1774–1833). Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ladies' Committee and the First Babies

One of the most important things to come out of the asylum started on 4 August 1820. That day a committee of ladies was formed under Elizabeth Macquarie, the Governor's wife. The University of Sydney calls it the first voluntary organisation in the colony. Its job was to look after poor married women during childbirth, so that, in the words of the time, "the deserving and virtuous poor, in that hour of trial may experience all the sympathy and relief which female tenderness and commiseration can administer".

The first birth under their care was in October 1820, and by June 1821 six mothers had been delivered. That small start is where the Royal Hospital for Women traces its beginnings, which is why the hospital still gives 1820 as its founding year.

Bursting at the Seams

The first part of the building held 50 to 60 people, and wings were added as the need grew. By 1840 the Dictionary of Sydney counts 1,058 people living there, with many more getting medical care and help from outside. Free immigrants pouring in after 1840 only added to the load.

The society had to spread out. In 1852 it was given the use of Liverpool Hospital for its men, and Ormond House at Paddington, which we now call Juniper Hall, was lent to it for a while. In 1859, 50 children were moved to the new Asylum for the Relief of Destitute Children at Randwick. Wikipedia says the Female Factory at Parramatta closed in 1849 and its former inmates became the society's responsibility too. By March 1862 the overcrowding was so bad that the government took back the Liverpool Asylum and moved the aged and infirm women to the Hyde Park Barracks.

Juniper Hall in Paddington in 1985. As Ormond House it was lent to the society when the asylum overflowed. Sardaka (talk) 11:30, 7 September 2011 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hyde Park Barracks, where the asylum's aged and infirm women were moved in 1862. Kanzcech, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dr Renwick and the Lying-in Hospital

From 1862 the asylum changed character. Under Dr Arthur Renwick, who served the society from 1862 to 1908, and Matron Elizabeth Elric, the Dictionary of Sydney says it worked as a lying-in hospital, a home for foundlings and a refuge for deserted mothers and destitute children. Matron Elric was born Elizabeth Blundell and was one of Florence Nightingale's trainees. She was matron for more than 24 years.

The University of Sydney records that in 1866, 129 mothers gave birth there, and the newly finished northern wing was named the "Lying-in Hospital of New South Wales". In 1877 it became a training school for midwives and nurses, the first formal course for pupil midwives in the state. From 1888 medical students from the University of Sydney did their obstetric training there. Wikipedia adds that by 1876 the hospital had the lowest death rates for mothers and babies of any hospital in Australia.

Sir Arthur Renwick around 1900. He shaped the asylum's work with mothers and children for more than forty years. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1878 the committee was replaced by a Board of Directors, which caused a stir because it shut out the clergy. The society kept campaigning for deserted mothers, children and the elderly. Wikipedia credits it with offering free legal help to poor women chasing maintenance from 1879, and with pushing for the Old Age Pension, which the NSW Government brought in in 1901.

The Asylum in Photographs

The Benevolent Asylum photographed by Charles Percy Pickering of the Government Printing Office in 1872. Pickering, Charles Percy (New South Wales. Government Printing Office), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Benevolent Asylum at Pitt and Devonshire Streets before 1901

The asylum on the corner of Pitt and Devonshire Streets, Railway Square, some time before 1901. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A horse-drawn ambulance outside the Civil Ambulance and Transport Brigade headquarters on the corner of George and Pitt Streets, opposite the asylum, around 1900. State Library of New South Wales collection, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Neighbours – The Devonshire Street Cemetery

The asylum shared its block with the town's main burial ground. The State Library of NSW says the Devonshire Street Cemetery was consecrated in 1820 and closed in 1867, although family vaults kept taking burials after that. By the 1890s it was overgrown, people dumped rubbish over the walls, and it wasn't a place you'd walk through at night.

The Old Cemetery, Devonshire Street, painted by Julian Ashton in 1894. Julian Ashton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Norman Selfe's 1894 drawing of the Sand Hills burying grounds, done for his scheme for the area. Norman Selfe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Devonshire Street Cemetery in 1902, as the graves were being cleared. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Another view of the old cemetery, merged from two damaged images held by the Dixson Library. Wayne Hill, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

1901 – The Railway Takes the Land

The old railway terminus at Redfern couldn't cope, and the plan was to bring the line north across Devonshire Street. In January 1901 the government announced it would clear the cemetery, and the State Library says more than 30,000 bodies had to be moved. The whole block of about 11 acres went with it, including the Benevolent Asylum, the Christ Church parsonage, the police barracks, the morgue, the Convent of the Good Samaritan and the tram depot.

The University of Sydney's history describes the asylum and the Lying-in Hospital as "an historic block of buildings so long a landmark", which the society had used for over eighty years. The Dictionary of Sydney says the Pitt Street site was resumed for the new Central Railway in 1901, and the society got compensation for it.

The Public Works Committee's 1900 plan to extend the railway terminus onto the cemetery land. State Records NSW, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Central railway station under construction, 1903

Central Station's lower levels under construction on 3 April 1903, on the ground where the asylum and cemetery had been. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Central Station Rises

Central Station opened to the public in August 1906, according to the State Library. The north and west wings were extended between 1915 and 1918, and the clock tower was finished in 1921. The ramp that runs up from Pitt Street to the station sits roughly where the asylum's front gate was.

The approach road to the new Central Station, by 1906. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Central Station seen from George Street, 1906

Looking over Central Station from George Street, by 1906. Photographic Collection from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Central Station around 1906, before the clock tower was added. Flickr user Governor Macquarie, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The viaducts carrying the line into the new station, around 1906. Flickr user Governor Macquarie, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Railway Square around 1910, a few years after the asylum had gone. Lindsay Bridge, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Railway Square around 1915. State Government Photographer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Central's clock tower at dusk. It was finished in 1921. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where Everyone Went – Paddington and Thomas Street

With the compensation money the society bought Flinton in Paddington, an estate first set up by Roger Therry, for a new lying-in hospital. The Benevolent Society was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1902. On 3 May 1905 Lady Northcote, wife of the Governor-General, opened the Royal Hospital for Women, designed by George Sydney Jones. Its first resident medical officer was Dr Constance D'Arcy.

The Paddington hospital went on to set up Australia's first baby health centre in 1906, and on 24 August 1912 Dr J. C. Windeyer started an antenatal clinic there, the first in the British Empire according to Wikipedia. The society ran the hospital until 1 July 1992, when the NSW Government took over. In 1997 the hospital moved to Randwick, next to the Prince of Wales Hospital, and the Paddington grounds became the Royal Hospital for Women Park, which opened on 9 April 2005.

The Royal Hospital for Women at Paddington nearing completion, photographed by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Royal Hospital for Women at Christmas 1936, by Sam Hood. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Matron, nurses and babies at the Royal Hospital for Women, 1936

The matron, sisters, nurses and babies at Christmas 1936. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A ward at the Paddington hospital, Boxing Day 1936. Sam Hood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The old hospital site from Glenmore Road in 2014, with new housing, reused hospital buildings and the heritage chimney. Iantomferry, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The rest of the asylum's work moved to the two-storey Thomas Street Asylum in Ultimo, which opened in November 1904. It took over handing out relief and taking in orphans, and it was the only place in the state that took in destitute nursing mothers. Wards for homeless women and children were opened there in 1911 and named the Renwick Hospital for Infants. Thomas Street closed in December 1957, and its front was later built into the Golden Gate Hotel.

Timeline

8 May 1813 – Edward Smith Hall forms the NSW Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence.
June 1818 – The Benevolent Society of New South Wales takes its place, with Governor Macquarie as patron.
1820 – The asylum's foundation stone is dated this year. Devonshire Street Cemetery is consecrated next door.
4 August 1820 – Elizabeth Macquarie's Ladies' Committee is formed to help poor mothers in childbirth.
October 1820 – The first birth under the committee's care.
12 October 1821 – Macquarie opens the Benevolent Asylum on the corner of Pitt and Devonshire Streets.
1820–1833 – Richard and Sarah Dalton serve as Master and Matron.
1840 – 1,058 people are living in the asylum.
1852 – Liverpool Hospital is given over for the society's men.
1859 – 50 children move to the Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children.
March 1862 – Aged women are moved to the Hyde Park Barracks. Dr Arthur Renwick begins his long service.
1866 – The new northern wing is named the Lying-in Hospital of New South Wales.
1877 – It becomes a training school for midwives and nurses.
1878 – A Board of Directors replaces the committee.
1888 – University of Sydney medical students start obstetric training there.
January 1901 – The government announces the clearing of the block for Central Station. The asylum is resumed and demolished.
1901 – The society buys Flinton at Paddington.
1902 – The Benevolent Society is incorporated by Act of Parliament.
November 1904 – Thomas Street Asylum opens in Ultimo.
3 May 1905 – Lady Northcote opens the Royal Hospital for Women at Paddington.
August 1906 – Central Station opens to the public.
1921 – Central's clock tower is completed.
December 1957 – Thomas Street closes.
1 July 1992 – The society hands the Royal Hospital for Women to the NSW Government.
1997 – The hospital moves to Randwick.
9 April 2005 – The Royal Hospital for Women Park opens at Paddington.

Where the Sources Disagree

1820 or 1821? The foundation stone, quoted by the University of Sydney, says the asylum was "erected in 1820", and that's the year given above. The Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia give the opening as 1821, with the Dictionary naming 12 October 1821. Both can be right: built in 1820, opened in 1821.
When the second society was formed. My notes above have a meeting on 6 May 1818. Wikipedia and the Dictionary of Sydney both say the Benevolent Society of NSW was formed in June 1818.
When it was pulled down. You'll sometimes see later dates for the demolition, but the Dictionary of Sydney, the State Library and the University of Sydney all put the resumption and clearing in 1901.
Who lived there. The foundation stone and the Dictionary of Sydney describe it as being for the poor, aged, infirm and blind. Wikipedia's list of the people it sheltered also includes "the mentally ill".
The Paddington land. The Dictionary of Sydney says Flinton was a four-acre (1.6 hectare) estate set up by Roger Therry. The University of Sydney says the property was seven acres and calls it "the home of a man called Dean".
When it became "Royal". Wikipedia says King Edward VII granted royal patronage in 1904. The University of Sydney dates the grant to 4 August 1904 but files it under 1905, the year the new building opened.
Who designed the asylum. I couldn't find any source that names an architect, so I can't say whether it was Francis Greenway.

My Earlier Posts

Sources

Terri McCormack, "Benevolent Society and Asylum", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008 – https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/benevolent_society_and_asylum
"Royal Hospital for Women, Paddington", University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine Online Museum and Archive – https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine/museum/mwmuseum/index.php/Royal_Hospital_for_Women,_Paddington
Elise Edmonds, "Dead Central", State Library of NSW – https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/dead-central
"Benevolent Society", Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_Society
"Royal Hospital for Women", Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Hospital_for_Women
Image details from each file's Wikimedia Commons page, linked from every picture.

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