Old Bathurst Hospital

About

The Old Bathurst Hospital is a heritage-listed hospital building at Howick Street, Bathurst, Bathurst Region, New South Wales, Australia. Formerly the main building of the Bathurst Hospital, it was conserved and restored when a new hospital was built on the same site in 2006–2008, and is now used as consulting suites and an education centre for the new hospital. The building was designed by William Boles and built from 1880 to 1886 by J Willet. It was also known as Bathurst District Hospital or Bathurst Base Hospital before the redevelopment. The property is owned by the NSW Department of Health. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

Governor Macquarie chose the site of the future town of Bathurst on 7 May 1815 during his tour over the Blue Mountains, on the road already completed by convict labour supervised by William Cox. Macquarie marked out the boundaries near the depot established by surveyor George Evans and reserved a site for a government house and domain. Reluctant to open the rich Bathurst Plains to a large settlement, Macquarie authorised few grants there initially, one of the first being 1000 acres to William Lawson, one of the three European explorers who crossed the mountains in 1813. The road-maker William Cox was another early grantee but later had to move his establishment to Kelso on the non-government side of the Macquarie River.

A modest release of land in February 1818 occurred when ten men were chosen to take up 50-acre farms and 2-acre town allotments across the river from the government buildings. When corruption by government supervisor Richard Lewis and acting Commandant William Cox caused their dismissal, they were replaced by Lieutenant William Lawson who became Commandant of the settlement in 1818.

According to local historian Bernard Greaves, medical services began in Bathurst on 1 April 1817 when acting assistant surgeon Harry Seymour was appointed to tend the district's few settlers and convicts at the government station. Himself a convict imprisoned there, Seymour was recorded as one of 23 convicts that acting commandant Cox recommended for emancipation. But Seymour submitted a petition for mitigation of his sentence from Richmond in December 1819 and again in 1822 so it appears he had not been freed at Bathurst and that he worked there for only a limited time.

Macquarie continued to restrict the Bathurst settlement and reserved all land on the south side of the Macquarie River for government buildings and stock, a situation that prevailed until 1826. In December 1819 Bathurst had a population of only 120 people in 30 houses, two-thirds being in the township of Kelso on the eastern side of the river and the remainder scattered on rural landholdings nearby. The official report in 1820 numbered Bathurst settlers at 114, including only 14 women and 15 children. The government buildings consisted of a brick house for the commandant, brick barracks for the military detachment and houses for the stock keeper, and log houses for the 50 convicts who worked the government farm. Never successful, the government farm was closed by Governor Darling in 1828. However Bathurst did not have any assistant surgeon in residence in 1820, as this position was one that principal surgeon James Bowman was eager to fill.

Tradition has it that the first hospital, a government establishment for convicts, was opened in a four-room weatherboard building at the corner of Howick and Bentinck Streets in 1824. Local historian Theo Barker believes that this date refers to the building rather than the establishment. He suggests that the hospital opened earlier and provides evidence that assistant surgeon James Paterson - who had been convicted of forgery - was in charge of the Bathurst Hospital in 1823 and Dr William Richardson succeeding him that year after his death in 1826. However, the Returns for the colony in 1825 de not mention the medical establishment at Bathurst even though they provide details of the hospitals at other New South Wales outposts.

Governor Darling, arriving in Sydney in 1825, promptly commenced a review of colonial administration and subsequently introduced vigorous reforms. These changes impacted the medical establishment from 1828. On advice from Viscount Goderich, Darling divided colonial expenditure into two parts: one to cover civil administration, funded by New South Wales; the other for the convict system, funded by Britain. When Darling applied the departmental hierarchical structure to the medical establishment in 1829, Bathurst was still relatively unimportant and was served by the lowest medical rating. Assistant surgeon George Busby had taken charge of the convict hospital in 1828.

By this time, J. McBrien and Robert Hoddle had surveyed the existing grants in the vicinity. Surveyor James Bym Richards began work on the south side of the river in 1826. But the town was apparently designed by Thomas Mitchell in 1830 and did not open until late 1833 after Richards had completed the layout of the streets with their two-road allotments. The first sales were held in 1831 before the survey was complete, surgeon George Busby being one of the early buyers.

In 1832 the new Governor, Major General Sir Richard Bourke, visited Bathurst in October. He instructed the Surveyor General Major Thomas L. Mitchell to make arrangements for "opening the town of Bathurst without delay" and he, in turn, instructed the Assistant Surveyor at Bathurst J.B. Richards to lay out the blocks and streets. This was done in September 1833. It is believed that Major Mitchell named the streets, with George Street being named after King George III.

A further administrative change in 1836 arose from the British order that colonial revenue must defray any part of the cost of police and gaols not "immediately connected with the custody and supervision of (transported) convicts". The latter care would continue to be financed from the British military chest. As all colonial hospitals served non-convicts as well as the transportees for whom they were established, the Lords of the Treasury now demanded tighter controls of stores and finances to ensure their contribution was directed only to convicts. To further reduce expenditure, they specified that medical officers be appointed from the ranks of army surgeons on half-pay. Colonial funds paid these doctors the difference between half and full pay, together with allowances for lodging, forage, travelling expenses or other entitlements.

The newly appointed deputy inspector-general of convict and military hospitals in NSW, John Vaughan Thompson, was instructed to visit all facilities and, together with the Governor, revise the administration to comply with the military regulations. At this time Bathurst Hospital had a staff of two. In addition, a district surgeon Fergus Hawthorne was appointed to serve the Mandurama district outside Bathurst, visiting the convict iron gangs working in the roads and their military overseers.

The change to military control of the medical establishment signalled the end of the convict system in NSW. It was a reflection of the British movement to end slavery and similar abuses of privilege, together with colonial demands for the full entitlement due to British subjects. The move to end transportation was also hastened by official support of free immigration schemes. Recommended by the Molesworth House of Commons Committee of 1837–8, the decision was confirmed by Normanby's despatch to Governor Gipps on 11 May 1839 which instructed him to cease assigning convicts to private masters and prepare Norfolk Island to receive subsequent transportees from Britain.

The Treasury informed Governor Bourke that the British government would only pay hospital costs for convicts "suffering under the sentence of law". The colony was liable to pay for any other persons admitted into the hospitals. They also refused to accept the colonial interpretation of this regulation, which limited colonial costs to persons arriving free, pointing out that ex-convicts who had become free settlers had contributed their labour to the colony since their release and the colony should bear their costs too.

Transportation of convicts to NSW officially ended in 1840 and the gradual conversion of convict hospitals to community-operated charities commenced the following year. The process was actively encouraged by Governor Gipps who presided over the genesis of representative government as laid out in the Constitution Act of 1842, providing for local (district) councils. Gipps supported these to defray costs of central government, wanting local rates to support local infrastructure and services. However, the councils Gipps intended to raise revenue were not successful.

Bathurst was one of three convict hospitals that Gipps promptly transferred to local administrations in 1842, making them responsible for the "gratuitous treatment of sick and indigent persons". In so doing, Gipps referred again to what he believed was a "long established principle" that when a charge was transferred from Britain to the colony, the buildings would be transferred with it, as in the case of police stations and gaols. For its part, Britain was anxious to reduce all convict establishments in NSW as soon as possible and requested that the process be accelerated.

Gipps went further. He encouraged the granting of pound-for-pound subsidies to hospitals in Windsor, Bathurst and Goulburn after their transfer to local control in 1842 and the NSW Legislative Council extended the policy by granting subsidies on the same basis for the operating costs in 1843 and 1844. The other five convict hospitals were handed over to local district committees in 1848.

Only too aware that the convict building was inadequate, the Bathurst Hospital Committee commenced preparing for a new hospital in 1873 when they sought a new site. Applying to the NSW Parliament for 10 acres of town land through Francis Bathurst Suttor MLA, they were granted 6 acres of Crown land on 5 May 1876. The site, which was increased by a further 4 acres and 30 perches on 30 September 1882, ultimately covered the whole of Section 60, half of a reserved area on elevated ground at the northern end of the town, about 3/4 of a mile from the civic buildings. On opposite sides of Howick Street, both the old and new hospital sites are shown in the 1882 Town Plan.

The new hospital design was a result of a competition following the 1878 destruction by fire of the original 1824 convict hospital in Bentinck Street.

Meanwhile, a building committee formed in June 1876 had called for a hospital plan that could be constructed for a total cost of 6000 pounds. Sydney architect William Boles won the tender from 13 applications. His design was approved by Florence Nightingale and the Minister for Public WOrks authorised his plans on 11 November 1887 after the Colonial Architect had made some modifications. The cost had risen to 9000 pounds, rival applicant Thomas Rowe disputed the appropriateness of the winning design and had to be placated by a payment of 25 pounds as second prize. Boles died in March 1880, 8 months before completion of the project.

An architect named William Boles designed a number of churches in the 1870s including St. Joseph's Catholic ( Edgecliff, 1874), the Wesleyan church, Windsor (1876) and extensions to the Edmund Blacket -designed St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Albury (1876) and was apparently a former convict arriving in Sydney in the 1820s. It is unclear if this is the same person as the designer of Bathurst Hospital in 1876, though it is likely.