The terrace detective: ill treated

Will the heritage vandalism never end? No sooner had the fight to save the Village Inn resulted in a temporary victory for heritage, then the Terrace Detective gets wind of another scheme to rip more heritage out of the suburb.

I was planning to cover Elizabeth St in this edition — and the fascinating history of one of Paddington’s biggest landlords — but that will have to wait until the new year. Now is when you, dear readers, can ask out loud: “Pray tell Terrace Detective, what new abomination has been planned for our fair suburb?”

Well, it’s a chimney, but not just any chimney. It is the most recognisable chimney in Paddington, that of the old Royal Hospital for Women. If you haven’t noticed, it is the giant stack with RHW letters running vertically on it, located just behind the imaginatively named Royal Hospital for Women Park and near the RHW Park bus stop on Glenmore Rd.

I don’t need to do a special site visit in this case as I was stickybeaking around the chimney earlier this year when attending the open house of the redeveloped building’s penthouse, which, with its $20m sale price, set a suburb record when it sold in June.

Sadly, it appears the building’s cost-conscious strata committee has applied to demolish the top 7.9m of the chimney. I’m not exactly sure where that takes it down to but I’ve read online that the entire R would be lost and some of the H.

I’m not going to dwell on the intricacies of the development application and how the consultants appear to have been directed to focus on a demolition option ('Our instructions require us to establish how much of the extant chimney can be retained without the installation of new steel framing, so as to minimise costs'). I will make an objection to Woollahra Council.

This column will instead look at the history of the women's hospital in Paddington. First stop is a little Googling to get my historical bearings. The hospital dates from the early 1900s and was operated by the Benevolent Society (initially, the NSW Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence), apparently the first charitable organisation dedicated to doing universal good in Australia when founded in 1813.

With that I hit the Sands Directory from around the turn of the century. Interestingly, the little pedestrian alley known as Begg Ln was considered a street around this time. Looking between Brown and Begg streets on Glenmore Rd in the 1890s, there were about nine terraces in all. One interesting hit is a Mrs K. Dean at 'Flinton' (117 Glenmore Rd). Given Flinton is now a street name in the redeveloped hospital precinct, we will keep an eye on this one.

As well as Dean we have T.J. Waller JP at 'Poynton', on the corner with Brown St; James Therry, a survey draughtsman next to Dean; and Percy Meggy, journalist, on the corner with Begg St. All of these gentlemen were notable enough to make the papers around that time.

Waller was part of the bench that heard a 1899 criminal case that scandalised The Truth newspaper. The story involved a prostitute, Matilda Gertrude Mackenzie (aka Molly Riley, aka the Sixpenny Donah), who accused a married man of carnally knowing her without consent. The charges had to be explained to Alfred Greenwood in whose defence rested the fact that he may have owed Gertie two bob.

Therry led a far more respectable life, being the great nephew of the famous Catholic priest, Father John Therry — one of the first to minister in Australia.

Meggy had been editor of the Bathurst Times and was later the editor of the Moree Examiner. He died at 82 in 1935 and while survived by his wife, a son and three daughters, he had two sons killed in World War I.

1950s view of the stack. Picture: City of Sydney Archives

Dean stays at Flinton until 1901. She is still there in 1902 but the street has been re-numbered (long-time readers were waiting for that one) and she is at 99 Glenmore Rd — but it is now called the Maternity Hospital and it’s the first appearance of the Benevolent Society at 101 Glenmore Rd.

With that it’s off to the Trove website. I am guessing Dean was the widower of William Dean who passed away in 1866 in only his 49th year. William is described as an old-time auctioneer who had obviously done pretty well given The Daily Telegraph reported in June 1901 that the Dean estate had been acquired by the Benevolent Society. 'Dean’s Paddock', measuring 5 acres, 2 roods and 14 perches, was bought for £14,000.

The Benevolent Society began development of a new state-of-the art 'lying-in' hospital. Begg St disappears from the Sands Directory in 1904 and in 1905 we have two milestones. The hospital receives a royal warrant and Her Excellency Lady Northcote opens the new building. The Royal Hospital for Women makes its Sands Directory appearance in 1906.

Given the acreage to play with, the site gets many more buildings, including Herford House (the nurses’ quarters), as well as Macquarie House (the isolation wing built in 1942 with 'sun balconies for health'). I finally get a hit on the chimney in the same year. The Daily Mirror of October 1942 prints a large photo of a workman (sadly anonymous) precariously placing the letters RHW on the chimney stack. In 1947 there is a photo of Alan MacKechnie painting the top 3.7m of the 49m chimney.

In 1997, the Carr Labor government closed the hospital, consolidating it with the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick, despite the former Liberal government in 1992 having taken over operations from the Benevolent Society and spending $60 million refurbishing it. It was redeveloped into housing.

We’ve uncovered the history behind the chimney and the old terraces behind the hospital, but this wouldn’t be a Terrace Detective column without a few random historical tidbits.

A 2002 article in the Royal Australian Navy News puts out a call to find sailors who may have been sperm donors in the 1970s. It appears the pioneering fertility work of the Royal Hospital for Women relied heavily on navy seamen (note to editor — my apologies, I couldn’t help this pun).

This wasn’t the only time the hospital appeared in the Navy News. The Royal Hospital for Women announced a baby boom in Sydney a mere nine months after the navy hosted 20,000 sailors from around the world to march through Sydney to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Captain Cook’s landing. Fertile ground, indeed.

It seems only fitting that Mikala Dwyer’s Egg Swing (or, as many locals probably know it, the pink swing) now stands on the site of the old terraces that became the hospital. The sculpture references the idea of motherhood and fertility but makes no mention of the sailors.

We finish with an anecdote about one of Paddington’s famous residents — Ita Buttrose of Women’s Weekly fame. In 1980, Buttrose reported attending the Benevolent Society’s 1980 anniversary fair at the Royal Hospital for Women and, after inspecting the stalls and rides, took home some chocolate crackles and a jam roll for afternoon tea.

Another case closed. Time for my own afternoon tea. Merry Christmas readers and I look forward to detecting more terraces in 2024.