Catherine Hamlin - Family and Education

Family and Education

Hamlin's family lived in the Sydney suburb of Ryde, at ‘The Hermitage’, built by John Blaxland in 1842. One of six children of Elinor and Theodore Nicholson, Catherine went to Frensham School in Mittagong, before going to the University of Sydney and graduating from its Medical School in 1946.

After internships at St Joseph’s Hospital Auburn, and St George Hospital Kogarah, she became a resident in obstetrics at Crown Street Women's Hospital. In 1950 she married Dr Reginald Hamlin, medical superintendent at Crown Street and in 1959 the couple accepted a contract with the Ethiopian Government to set up a midwifery school in Addis Ababa. Hamlin's son, Richard, lives in the UK with his wife Diana and their four children.