110 years of service for women by women

In 1896, a group of firebrands banded together to establish the Queen Victoria Hospital , the first of its kind in Australia, and at the time, one of only three in the world. Its legacy remains at the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre (QVWC), which is celebrating 110 years of the tradition of providing services for women by women.

Built by its founders to provide medical services for women, the ‘Queen Vic’ forged a space in the medical world for women. In the days when the only acceptable occupation for a lady was as a governess or teacher, the founding female doctors faced a considerable battle.

Ridiculed by the editor of the Australian Medical Journal who described any professional woman as ‘…beings whom men do not love and with whom women can hardly sympathise…’, he branded medical women as ‘curiosities’ along with

‘…dancing dogs, fat boys and bearded ladies.’

In the economically depressed 1890s, poverty augmented sickness, as understaffed, overcrowded hospitals treated women’s modesty with scant regard. Many women forewent medical assistance rather than endure the humiliation of existing services.

The need for a female medical service was great, but impossible. Barred from studying at the only Faculty of Medicine at Melbourne University there were no female doctors!

Eliciting support for the cause, in 1895 journalist, Henry Hyde Champion, wrote of the need for ‘…women however poor or miserable to be treated exclusively by their own sex, without being subjected to such outrages on decency and modesty as are at present considered necessary for the poor.’

In 1884, Constance Stone, (who would become Australian’s first female doctor) traveled to Philadelphia to study medicine at the Women’s Medical College. Returning with two degrees, she held a meeting at her home on September 5th 1896 of medical women and one social worker (Annette Bear-Crawford) and proposed what would become the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital.

When created in 1896, the ‘Queen Vic’ was one of only three hospitals in the world to have been founded, managed and staffed by women.

Starting out in the hall of St David’s Welsh Church, the Queen Vic moved twice, first to Mint Place and then to Lonsdale Street, where it was  one of the most progressive medical facilities in the world. It remained on this site until 1986. (In 1987 its services were absorbed into the Monash Medical Centre.)

Spanning a history of incredible service for women by women, all that physically remains of the ‘Queen Vic’ on Lonsdale Street is the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre. However, the spirit which bore the ‘Queen Vic’ lives on at the QVWC.

Today, the State Government supported QVWC houses a range of services from counseling, legal and

career advice, crisis and health support as well as its online infohub (which provides a central store of information for women). 

In October 2006 the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre celebrates 110 years since Constance Stone’s vision of providing services for women by women.

On October 12th there will be an open day showcasing the QVWC work and services, while from October 9th to 13th a photographic exhibition of 110 years of the ‘Queen Vic’ will be on display.

The QVWC is currently calling on all who were born, gave birth, worked or had a close association with the ‘Queen Vic’ to contact them at office@qvwc.org.au with their stories and to become a part of the QVWC Alumni in continuing recognition of the incredible importance of this institution.

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FACTS

Founding Female Doctors

Dr Constance Stone
Dr Lilian Helen Alexander
Dr Mary Elizabeth Amy Castilla
Dr Aelfreda Hilda Gamble
Dr Janet Stocks Greig
Dr Janet Lindsay Greig
Dr Bertha Main (Lady Leitch)
Dr Hannah Mary Helen Sexton
Dr Grace Clara Stone
Dr Emily Mary Page Stone
Dr Gertrude Halley
and Annette Bear-Crawford (social worker)

Key Dates

1884    Constance Stone travels overseas to study medicine.

1887     Lillian Alexander and Helen Sexton fight to get women students in to the Faculty of Medicine, as the first women to study medicine at Melbourne University.

1889     Constance Stone becomes the first Australian woman registered as a medical practitioner.

1891     Clara Stone and Margaret Whyte become the first female graduates of Melbourne University Medical Faculty. Aelfreda Hilda Gamble and Janet Lindsay Greig are among the top six Medical Honours graduates. As females, they’re refused medical positions at the Melbourne Hospital. They fight and win, becoming the first women resident medical officers in a general public hospital.

1896    Dr Constance Stone gathers 10 female doctors and one social worker to propose the first women’s hospital for women, by women.

    Dispensary service starts at St David’s Hall with the support of Constance’s husband Egryn Jones (2,000 women attend in the first 3 months).

1897    ‘The Shilling Fund’ launches encouraging donations of one shilling to the ‘Queen Vic’.

1899    Victorian women contribute 63,250 shillings, to pay for a building in Little Lonsdale Street. On July 5th, Lady Brassey turns the key in the door at Lonsdale Street for the first time, declaring the hospital open.

1899     Dr Hannah Mary Sexton makes history as the first Australian female surgeon.

1902    Dr Constance Stone dies of Tuberculosis.

1910     Dr Mary Page Stone is killed when her bicycle collides with a horse drawn carriage. At her funeral the pall bearers are all women.

1914     Dr Hannah Mary Sexton offers her medical services to the Australian Army. Told there is ‘no opening’ for her, she takes a field hospital to France and is appointed a Major in the French Army.

1919    Dr Clara Stone resigns after 22 years at the ‘Queen Vic’, going into private practice in Alma Road. She carries a pistol for safety on her medical rounds.

1946    Premier John Cain (senior) hands the first Melbourne Hospital to the women of the ‘Queen Vic’. The ‘Queen Vic’ moves to the site on Lonsdale Street.

Physical sites of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital

•    1896-1899 St David’s Hall at St David’s Welsh Church Hall, La Trobe Street.
Then named the Victoria Hospital (after the State) the name was later changed to the Queen Victoria Hospital to coincide with Queen Victoria’s jubilee. After her death it was changed again to the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital.
•    1899 -1946 Mint Place
•    1946 -1986 Lonsdale Street

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Download the 110th Anniversary Media Release (PDF) 84.07 kB.

For more information, images or to arrange interviews please contact:
Tamara DiMattina
PR to QVWC
tdimattina@internode.on.net or 0410 645 474