Community bonds

Angel statue with donation box, St Vincent's Hospital Toowoomba. On permanent display at the Sisters of Charity Heritage Centre, Potts Point. Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia.

The ‘China Room’, once a storage area for crockery and later used for the hospital archives. Image taken by Allison O’Sullivan, courtesy of St Vincent’s Hospital Toowoomba.

Furniture label which reads Rosenstengel’s – The Furniture People, Toowoomba and Dalby. Image taken by Allison O’Sullivan, courtesy of St Vincent’s Hospital Toowoomba.

Temporary centenary exhibition in entrance 1 foyer. Image taken by Allison O’Sullivan, courtesy of St Vincent’s Hospital Toowoomba.

Original donation receipt book. Image taken by Allison O’Sullivan, courtesy of St Vincent’s Hospital Toowoomba.

Researching at St Vincents Hospital Toowoomba Archives

Engagement, Learning and Programs Developer, Dr Allison O’Sullivan

I recently had the pleasure of being hosted at St Vincent’s Private Hospital Toowoomba by the Hospital Archivist Jane Smith and Mission Executive Dr Mark Copland.

I was given a wonderful tour of the work that Jane has been doing to create exhibitions for the hospital. Jane’s first task was to create a history wall for the foyer of the new emergency entrance and ward completed in 2019. Jane has also been hard at work on exhibitions for the upcoming Centenary celebrations beginning later in the year. This whole task has required the examination, remediation, and re-cataloguing of St Vincent’s small but important archival holdings.

When Jane commenced as the Archivist, the collection was stored in an area known as the ‘China Room’, named due to its prior use as a storage area for chinaware and crockery. While an interesting room and itself an important part of the hospital’s history, it was unsuitable as a repository for delicate archival materials, so Jane has been moving records and important objects including uniforms and furniture to other, more updated environments where everything could be cleaned and better maintained.

One of Jane’s interesting finds has been an original item of furniture created for the opening of the hospital in 1922. We were very excited to be able to decipher the label which read Rosenstengel’s – The Furniture People, Toowoomba and Dalby on the underside of the piece. Rosenstengel’s was the local furniture company contracted to supply all the wooden furnishings for the hospital. This appointment caused quite a fuss among the local furniture makers and sections of the community, fuelled in part by the sectarianism prevalent at the time. The full story will be revealed in Jane’s exhibition in October.

My own task in the archives was to search for the origins of a beautiful donation box which comes from the hospital in Toowoomba but is now housed in the permanent exhibition space at our Heritage Centre. I had a wonderful time exploring the many relevant holdings there, including the original donation receipt book and several of the annals kept by the Sisters during their time here. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any information apart from what our own Archives already know: the box appears in an image of the hospital foyer in the first annual report, so like it’s old home it is approaching 100 years of age itself.

My second task was to locate interesting materials to display in our own upcoming exhibition: a temporary satellite display in the Centre foyer, celebrating the centenary of the hospital. I’ve found some wonderful documents and imagery regarding the history of nursing at the hospital, and the strong community bonds forged by the Sisters through their dedication to their Mission which engendered strong community support from the hospital’s inception, and which continues to this day. I can’t wait to share these wonderful images and stories with you all later in the year.