St Margaret's Hospital - History

History

The hospital was founded by Gertrude Abbott (1836-1934), the foundress of an unofficial religious community, reportedly out of the experience of a poor, pregnant girl being brought to her in 1893 by a local policeman. The following year she opened the hospital, initially located on Elizabeth Street in Strawberry Hills, as the St Margaret's Maternity Home. It was founded "to provide shelter and care for unmarried girls of the comparatively respectable class".

From March to December 1894 Abbott admitted 9 married and 23 unmarried patients. In 1895 the hospital had 3 nurses trained as midwives, with 8 in training. In 1904, the hospital offered general gynecological services, and started an out-patients department, also with home visits by its staff. In 1910 the hospital moved to its final location on Bourke Street in Surry Hills, in a significant art deco building.

Despite its religious name, Barrett established the hospital as nonsectarian, and was never under the authority of the Catholic Church. With the assistance of the members of her small community, she administered the hospital until 1924. At the time of her death at the hospital in 1934, St Margaret's was the third largest maternity hospital in Sydney. It treated 760 mothers that year, without any maternal deaths. At her request, the hospital was then operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, to which Mrs. Abbott had briefly belonged.

From 1961 to 1988, the hospital was a teaching hospital in Obstetrics and Gynecology with the University of Sydney, from 1988 it changed its affiliation to the University of New South Wales.