Sydney Hospital, historically known as the Rum Hospital, is a major hospital in Sydney, Australia, located on Macquarie Street in the Sydney central business district. It is the oldest hospital in Australia, dating back to 1788, and has been at its current location since 1811. It first received the name Sydney Hospital in 1881. Currently the hospital comprises 113 inpatient beds. There are about 400 staff members. Specialist services attract patients from all over New South Wales. It specialises in ophthalmology and hand surgery and is a referral hospital for patients requiring these services. It also houses a rudimentary 6-bed Emergency Department. Sydney Hospital became a teaching hospital of the University of Sydney in 1909. Sydney Hospital is associated with Sydney Medical School of the University of Sydney through the Discipline of Clinical Ophthalmology and Eye Health and Save Sight Institute. It is also the location of a number of research institutes associated with the University, including the Heart Research Institute, the Centenary Institute for Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology, the Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology and the General Endocrinology Group.
Early history
1788 and the Tent Hospital Many of the 736 convicts who survived the voyage of the First Fleet from Portsmouth, England arrived suffering from dysentery, smallpox, scurvy, and typhoid. Soon after landing Governor Phillip and Surgeon-General John White established a tent hospital along what is now George Street in The Rocks to care for the worst cases. Subsequent convict boatloads had even higher rates of death and disease. A portable hospital which was prefabricated in England from wood and copper arrived in Sydney with the Second Fleet in 1790. Present-day Nurses Walk in The Rocks cuts across where the site of the early hospital once was. John White was Surgeon-General at Sydney Cove between 1788 and 1794.
Governor Macquarie's Rum Hospital
Upon his arrival in the Colony of New South Wales at the beginning of 1810, Governor Macquarie discovered that the Sydney Cove's hospital was an affair of tents and temporary buildings. Macquarie set aside land on the western edge of the Government Domain for a new hospital and created a new road – Macquarie Street – to provide access to it. Plans were drawn up but the British Government refused to provide funds to build the hospital. Consequently, Macquarie entered into a contract with a consortium of businessmen–Garnham Blaxcell, Alexander Riley and, later, D'Arcy Wentworth–to erect the new hospital. They were to receive convict labour and supplies and a monopoly on rum imports from which they expected to recoup the cost of the building and gain considerable profits. The contract allowed them to import 45,000 (later increased to 60,000) gallons of rum to sell to colonists and was signed on 6 November 1810. In the event, the hospital did not turn out to be very profitable for the contractors. Convict patients were transferred to Governor Macquarie's new hospital in 1816. It is unclear who prepared the design for the three Old Colonial Georgian buildings comprising the Sydney Hospital complex, but there were apparently many involved with its construction. There is speculation that both Governor Macquarie and John O'Hearen contributed to the design. John O’Hearen is probably the stronger contender for being the building's designer, for he not only defended the methods of its construction against critics but also signed himself as 'Architect' in related correspondence.
Shoddy construction As the hospital was nearing completion in 1815, the now famous convict architect Francis Greenway was asked to report on the quality of the work. He condemned it, claiming that it "must soon fall into ruin". Short-cuts had been taken with the construction and there were weak joints in the structural beams, rotting stonework, feeble foundations, and dry rot in the timbers. Macquarie ordered the contractors to remedy these defects but by 1820 the southern wing was deemed particularly unsafe, with reports that some of it had collapsed and had to be rebuilt. Around this time, Greenway was commissioned to undertake repairs to both the wings of the hospital, including alterations to the roof of the southern wing and the rearrangement of its internal spaces. More substantial repairs were carried out on the southern wing in 1826. Many defects present from the original construction remained hidden away until the extensive restoration of the 1980s.
Alternative uses The scale of the hospital was greater than that which could be sustained by Sydney at that time. The new hospital had a large central building, which was the main hospital, and two smaller wings which were quarters for the surgeons. From the start, portions of the buildings were allocated for non-medical purposes. During construction there was ongoing debate about the hospital's future possible use.
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