AGY-3053 | Royal Newcastle Hospital

Full description

The hospital seems originally to have been administered directly by the Commandant of the Newcastle Settlement. There was a Hospital Committee in existence at least as early as September 1849 (1), carrying out the administrative role prescribed in 11 Vic. No. 59 (1847), which was probably set up to answer the requirements of that Act, if it did not in fact pre-date it. 

Administration of the Hospital was in the hands of the Hospital Committee until 1915. In that year the Newcastle Hospital Act, 1915 (Act No. 27, 1915) constituted the Hospital a Body Corporate, exempted it from the provisions of the Public Hospitals Act, 1898, and established a Board of Directors, which ran the Hospital from 1915 to 1986, except for a short period under an Administrator, 1964-65. The Hospital was made subordinate to the Greater Newcastle Area Health Service in 1986 (which was absorbed into the Hunter Area Health Service in 1988), and was administered thereafter by a General Manager.

In the Act of 1847 the Hospital is described as 'maintained partly by private contributions and partly by aid from the public funds,' and this appears to have been the case for most of its history. It was, consequently, made subject to the authority of the Inspector of Public Charities, and thereafter to that of his successors in the Department of Charitable Institutions, by the terms of the Public Institutions Inspection Act, 1866. (The exercise of this authority over those hospitals outside the Sydney metropolitan area appears, however, to have lapsed by c.1911, by which year the Department was known as the Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities Department[ (2)). The Hospital was made subject to the authority of the Hospitals Commission (and its successors, the Health Commission and Health Department) by the Public Hospitals Act, 1929.

Royal Newcastle Hospital closed in mid April 2006. (3) The buildings of the Royal Newcastle Hospital were demolished in 2006 and the hospital's services were transferred to the John Hunter Hospital. (4)

Endnotes
(1) Letter of Rev. C. Wilton, Sept., 1849, in Norm Barney: ‘Colonial Hospital operated in harsh times,’ in Lewis, John, ed. Reminiscences of the Royal, Newcastle: The Royal Newcastle Hospital Heritage Committee, 1997.
(2) Report of the Inspector General of Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities of NSW, on the Metropolitan Hospitals for the year ended 31 December 1911, and on the State Hospitals and Asylums for the Infirm of NSW for the year ended 30 June 1911, in Parliamentary Papers 1912, Vol 1, p.855.
(3) Miranda Lawry, 'Moving the Royal: framing the memories' [conference paper], reference on Arrow Discovery Service website http://search.arrow.edu.au/main/results?subject=Newcastle (accessed 30 June 2009).
(4) John M Duggan and Peter I A Hendry, 'Royal Newcastle Hospital: the passing of an icon', Medical Journal of Australia, Vol.183 (November/December 2005), pp.642-645, available online at Medical Directory of Australia website http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/183_11_051205/dug10889_fm.html (accessed 30 Jun 2009).