AGY-6793 | North Shore Cottage Hospital (1888-1889) / North Shore Hospital (1889-1902) / Royal North Shore Hospital (1902- )

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By the mid-1880s, there was a strong push for the establishment of a hospital on Sydney’s North Shore and, at a public meeting in St Leonards in October 1885, a committee was established to raise funds and plan for the construction of a cottage hospital. (1) By 1887, the committee had secured a site - donated by merchant David Berry - and sufficient funds from subscribers to commence the project and, on 18 June 1887, Sir Henry Parkes laid the foundation stone. (2)

The North Shore Cottage Hospital opened for the reception of patients on 18 June 1888. It had 14 beds and a nursing staff of five. (3)

On 23 August 1889, the Hospitals Acts 11 Vic No. 59 (1848) and 13 Vic No. 20 (1849) were applied by proclamation to the 'North Shore Hospital'. (4) In 1898, the Public Hospitals Act consolidated previous Acts relating to public hospitals, listing the hospital as 'North Shore' on its Second Schedule. (5)

Despite a number of additions to the facility, the demands of a rapidly growing North Shore population, which increased from 21,000 to 55,000 between 1888 and 1901, placed a serious strain on its operations. (6) With Government assistance, a site at Gore Hill was acquired and, on 13 June 1902, the foundation stone of the new North Shore Hospital was laid. (7) At this ceremony, the Governor Sir Harry Rawson undertook to request that the appellation 'Royal' be applied to the hospital. (8) On 11 September 1902, the hospital received the Royal charter and on 10 June the following year the new 48-bed Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) was officially opened. (9)

The Royal North Shore Hospital of Sydney Act 1910 (Act No.20, 1910) amended the Public Hospitals Act of 1898, and created an administrative framework for the governance of the hospital. The Act also defined the land boundaries of the hospital grounds within the municipality of Willoughby. (10) in 1929, the hospital was listed as a Third Schedule, 'Separate Institution', under the Public Hospitals Act. (11) Third Schedule Hospitals included those incorporated under special Acts of parliament. (12)

In its first Annual Report following its establishment by the Public Hospitals Act 1929, the Hospitals Commission of NSW, in developing a scheme of classification to 'fit the conditions prevailing in the State', classified The Royal North Shore as a Grade A metropolitan Acute hospital in the 'General' category. Grade A General hospitals were those with a daily average of over 150 occupied beds providing a full range of medical, surgical and special services, with a training school for nurses and a recognised school of clinical instruction. (13)

For the year ending 30 June 1930, the Hospitals Commission reported that RNSH had a bed capacity of 248 and that it had treated 3865 in-patients, had 43,807 out-patient attendances and that 432 babies had been born. (14)

As early as March 1928 the hospital had been formally recognised as a training school for general and midwifery nurses by the Nurses Registration Board (15) established under the Nurses' Registration Act 1924. (16) In July 1968 it was also recognised as a training school for nursing aides. (17)

In 1931, supported by a donation from Eva Kolling in memory of her husband, the Charles Kolling Research Laboratory, housing the Institute of Medical Research, was opened. (18)

Under the Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act 1937 (Act No.43, 1937), the Royal North Shore Hospital of Sydney Act 1910 was repealed and, in February 1938, the hospital transferred from the Third to the Second Schedule of the Public Hospitals Act 1929. (19)

In November 1946, RNSH accepted an invitation from Sydney University to be recognised as a clinical school for the instruction of medical undergraduates. The school was officially inaugurated on 15 March 1948. (20) In 1993, Sydney University established the Northern Clinical School, headquartered at RNSH, which linked the hospital academically with a number of public and private hospitals in Sydney's northern region. (21)

The Hospital was subject to constant expansion. Significant developments included the completion in November 1964 of a new building housing outpatients, casualty and administration. Planned as the first stage of a major re-building program, the new block provided an expanded capacity of 574 beds. (22) Stage 2 of the program, a multi-storey acute ward block, was commenced in late 1971 and officially opened in March 1977, though occupancy of the new 'Main Block' had commenced as early as July 1974. (23) The total bed capacity of the hospital was now 834. (24)

In 2008, the new Kolling Building was opened. In addition to providing new premises for the Kolling Institute of Medical Research, the building also housed the headquarters of the Northern Clinical School. (25) This building was an early component of a major redevelopment program affecting the whole campus. Further developments were a new Acute Services Building, which opened in December 2012 (26), and the new Clinical Services Building completed in October 2014. (27) The redeveloped hospital had 626 beds. (28)

Endnotes
1. G. Sherington and R. Vanderfield, The Royal North Shore Hospital 1888-1988 - A Century of Caring. 1988 Horwitz Grahame, Cammeray, p.3.
2. 'St. Leonards Cottage Hospital' in the Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 1887, p.5 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13661222 (accessed 18 April 2016).
3. I. R. Vanderfield, 'The Royal North Shore Hospital' in Young J, Sefton A and Webb N, Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine. 1984 Sydney University Press, Sydney, p.449.
4. NSW Government Gazette No.431, 23 August 1889, p.5745.
5. Public Hospitals Act 1898 (Act No.16, 1898), Section 3(a), Second Schedule.
6. 'New North Shore Hospital' in the Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 21 June 1902, p.1570 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/163814884 (accessed 20 April 2016).
7. Loc. cit.
8. 'Sir Harry Lawson - Function at North Sydney' in the Evening News, 14 June 1902, p.6 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/114124821 (accessed 20 April 2016).
9. Vanderfield, op. cit., p.450; Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1903, p.5 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/14537381 (accessed 20 April 2016).
10. Royal North Shore Hospital of Sydney Act 1910 (Act No. 20, 1910).
11. Public Hospitals Act 1929 (Act No.8, 1929), ss.3, 4, Third Schedule.
12. Report of the Hospitals Commission of New South Wales for the year ended 30 June 1964, p.12 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1965, p.199.
13. Annual Report of the Hospitals Commission for the year ended 30 June 1930, pp.6-8 in Parliamentary Papers 1930-31-32 vol.1, p.629.
14. Annual Reports of the Hospitals Commission of New South Wales for the years ended 30th June 1932 and 30th June 1933, p.23 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1934-35 vol.1, p.545.
15. List of Hospitals Recognised as Training Schools by the Nurses' Registration Board of New South Wales, 15 March 1928. NSW Government Gazette No.40, 23 March 1928, p.1369.
16. Nurses' Registration Act 1924 (Act No.37, 1924), s.3.
17. NSW Government Gazette No.86, 19 July 1968, p.2892.
18. Sherington and Vanderfield, op. cit., p, p.41.
19. Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act (Act No.43, 1937); NSW Government Gazette No.16, 4 February 1938, p.539.
20. Vanderfield, op. cit., p.452.
21. Northern Clinical School 15 year report, 2008, p.1 http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/northern/news-events/newsletter/NCS_15yr_report.pdf (accessed 20 April 2016).
22. Report of the Hospitals Commission of New South Wales for the year ended 30 June 1965, p.6 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1965-66 vol.3, p.29.
23. Sherington and Vanderfield, op. cit., pp.127-131.
24. Ibid, p.v.
25. Northern Clinical School 15 year report, op. cit., pp.27, 34.
26. NSW Health Annual Report 2012-13, p.152.
27. NSW Health Annual Report 2014-15, p.113.
28. Northern Clinical School, About Us - Royal North Shore Hospital http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/northern/about/hospitals/rnsh.php (accessed 22 April 2016).