Nurse Lloyd's Private Maternity Hospital (fmr)

Statement of Significance

Nurse Lloyd’s Private Maternity Hospital (fmr), 23 Coolgardie Street, Subiaco, is of cultural heritage significance: • For its historical value as a place that helps to illustrate the transition of private maternity services from an unregulated cottage industry to a government-managed profession under legislation that required any commercially operated lying-in home to be licenced (State Children’s Act, 1907) and midwives to be suitably trained and licenced (Health Act, 1911) • As one of the first two dedicated maternity hospitals opened in Subiaco (together with 129 Coghlan Road, which operated from 1909-1915). • For the historical value arising from its association with two women (Minnie Lloyd and Louise Elizabeth Reid) who established themselves in business as the owner/managers of private hospitals in an era when nursing was one of the relatively few ‘respectable’ professions commonly available to women. • For its historical and social value for the families of those who were born at 23 Coolgardie Street during its use as a private hospital in 1909-c.1936. • As an example of the adaptation of large premises in Subiaco as boarding houses from the 1930s. • As an example of the work of Edgar Henderson, Architect (relating to the original residence).

Physical Description

23 Coolgardie Street, Subiaco, was constructed as a residence in the Federation Queen Anne style (the central bay), but within a few years had been extended in a compatible style to the north (the main, purpose-built maternity ward) and the south (possibly part of the rest-house for country patients). Key elements include: • The complex façade, comprising three distinct wings, each designed with its own entrance off the front verandah. Central bay, comprising the original residence • Hipped, corrugated metal roof with a central louvered gablet. • Two tall brick chimneys, one on either side of the original building, both featuring corbelled caps and terracotta pots. These were originally face brick, but are now painted. • Tuck-pointed brickwork (now painted). • Rendered skirting. • Central entrance door featuring original stained glass sidelights and highlights and moulded timber architraves. • Two individual double hung windows to each of the front rooms flanking the entrance hall, each pair featuring plain segmental arches and a continuous rendered sill. • Deep front verandah with a scalloped masonry balustrade and paired timber posts (possibly extended and altered in the inter-war period) Northern wing (abutting 19 Coolgardie Street) • Gabled, corrugated metal roof with projecting battened eaves. • Prominent front gable featuring vertical timber battens, a rough-cast rendered face and rectangular louvered gable vent. • Tuck-pointed brickwork (now rendered to sill height and fully painted). • Projecting rectangular window bay, featuring three individual double hung windows and a continuous rendered sill. • Raked window awning set on carved timber brackets. Southern wing • Gabled, corrugated metal roof with projecting battened eaves. • Prominent front gable featuring vertical timber battens, a rough-cast rendered face, plain rendered eaves panel with decorative brackets, and decorative timber apex panel (with what is now a truncated finial). • Tuck-pointed brickwork (now rendered to sill height and fully painted). • Pair of individual double hung windows set over a continuous rendered sill. • Raked window awning set on carved timber brackets. The front garden features a lawn, paving and garden beds, with shrubs forming an informal hedge along the front boundary. The verge has been brick-paved for car-parking. The immediate area is dominated by contemporary houses, with battened gables creating a unified streetscape character.

History

A house had been built on Lots 8 and 9 on Deposited Plan 974 (23 Coolgardie Street) by 1902, at which time the property was occupied by members of the Fullard family. After they moved away from Perth in c.1904 the house was rented out until the beginning of June 1908, when ownership was transferred to Ruby Lloyd (at which time the houses at 19 and 23 Coolgardie Street were both occupied by various members of the extended Lloyd family). However, only two weeks later the house at 23 Coolgardie Street was destroyed by fire. In July 1908 tenders were called for the erection of a new house at lot 8-9, 23 Coolgardie Street, Subiaco, by the architect, Edgar Jerome Henderson: TENDERS are invited for the ERECTION of a Brick Villa Residence, Subiaco for Miss Lloyd. A deposit of £5 per cent must accompany tender. No tender will necessarily be accepted. EDGAR J. HENDERSON. Eagle Chambers, Hay-street. On 28 September 1908, ownership of 23 Coolgardie Street was transferred to Ruby’s mother, Mary Anne Lloyd (known as Minnie Lloyd) and, at the same time, a mortgage of £500 was taken out against the property. Research has confirmed that Minnie and her husband, William Lloyd, were very active as builder-developers in Subiaco in the period 1902-1906. However, it appears that they over-extended themselves financially as, in December 1906, “32 new, well-built, and finished Villas and Houses, situate the best localities of the popular suburb of Subiaco” (valued at a total of £20,765), were offered for sale under the Bankruptcy Act, as means of clearing Minnie Lloyds debts. The Lloyd’s home at 25 Hay Street, Subiaco, was offered for sale by the mortgagees in September 1907, and a further sale was advertised by the Bank of Australia in February 1908, to recover debts against another two mortgages totalling £1,400 and £7,289. The purchase of the Coolgardie Street property suggests that Minnie Lloyd had finally cleared her debts, and was ready to establish a new business venture - a lying-in (maternity) hospital, which is known to have been in operation by the beginning of June 1909: SEXTON.—Of July 1. At Nurse Lloyd's, Hawaii, Coolgardie street, Subiaco, the wife of R. J. Sexton, of Texas Downs Station, Nor'-West a son. Both well. Minnie Lloyd officially applied to establish a registered lying in hospital at 23 Coolgardie street in October of that year: NOTICE Is hereby given that I, MINNIE LLOYD, Coolgardie-avenue, Subiaco, Nurse, Intend to APPLY to the Subiaco Local Board of Health for REGISTRATION as a LYING-IN HOME of those premises situated at 23 Coolgardie-avenue, …. Dated this 20th day October, 1909. Numerous advertisements were subsequently placed in The West Australian, such as the following: NURSE LLOYD (CERTIFICATED) gives superior accommodation and services during lying-in, £2 2s. weekly. £1 per week while waiting, Recommended by leading doctors. 23 Coolgardie-st., off Heytesbury-rd., Subiaco. The use of the premises for this purpose reflects a landmark change in the period 1907-1911, which saw the transition of private maternity services from an unregulated cottage industry to a government-managed profession under legislation that required any commercially operated lying-in home to be licenced (State Children’s Act, 1907) and midwives to be suitably trained and licenced (Health Act, 1911). Nurse Lloyd’s “Hawaii” was one of the first two dedicated maternity homes opened in Subiaco, together with Nurse Mortlock’s “Hawkesbury”, which opened at 129 Coghlan Street in about November 1909 (with other local lying-in facilities of c.1910-1916 typically offering a room in a private family residence). The business was obviously successful, with rapid enlargement of the original residence as a purpose designed hospital, and by 1915 it was described as having 16 rooms available, and being licenced to take 12 patients at once – which at that time was a relatively large maternity hospital. The most detailed description found was printed in November 1917: A press representative recently paid a visit of inspection to Nurse Lloyd’s fine hospital, situated at Coolgardie-street (off Heytesbury-road). Subiaco. The institution is composed of four distinct buildings, separated by sets of tastefully laid-out lawns and gardens. The first building is the hospital, containing a large 40 x 20 ward and a number of private wards. The second is a comfortable rest-house for country patients and their children. Then comes the dining hall, with which is connected the fourth department - the kitchens. "We are able to take 20 patients, independent of the rest-house, which is fitted out for seven," said Nurse Lloyd, in response to a query "In the hospital itself the large ward holds many patients with absolute comfort, though private rooms may be had if required." The staffing of the place was also described: "I am assisted by a thoroughly competent and specially trained staff of four nurses. Then we have two laundresses, two expert kitchen hands, a gardener, and an orderly. The professional attendance is most complete, there being several medical men available, if necessary, and, if patients so desire, they can arrange to have their own doctor. We are provided with a special telephone service, which allows of speedy and uninterrupted communication in cases of urgency." During that time members of the Lloyd family also lived on the premises, and in 1918 Minnie Lloyd purchased the adjoining house to the north, Lot 7 on Deposited Plan 974 (19 Coolgardie Street) – which she appears to have occupied as a residence. For about a year after Minnie Lloyd died in July 1924 (aged 63 years), 19-23 Coolgardie Street continued to be occupied by two of her sons, Clifton and Lyle. It was then sold to Mary Louisa Collins, a nurse who had settled in the goldfields in the late 1890s, where as a: …… triple-certificated nurse, her services proved most valuable to the district, particularly during the typhoid epidemic. Expectant mothers were also grateful for her care. Mary’s daughter, Louise, had also trained as a nurse and this enabled her to support both herself and her young daughter following the breakdown of her marriage to Ivor Reid. Newspaper notices confirm that management of the private hospital at 23 Coolgardie Street had been taken over by Nurse Reid in as early as April 1925, after which the place was variously referred to ‘Nurse Reid’s Private Hospital’ or ‘Narrabeen Hospital’. By overlaying a copy of the 1926 MWSS & DD Sewerage Plan on a 2015 aerial photograph (scaling to match lot boundaries along the street), it can be seen that the place had achieved its current footprint by that time, and that only minor variations have been made, primarily to decking and verandahs at the rear, and to the width of the front verandah. Louise Elizabeth Reid took over ownership of both 19 and 23 Coolgardie Street in August 1928, and she continued to be known professionally as ‘Nurse Reid’ after her marriage to Arthur Colin Victor Kildahl (a motor mechanic) in c.1930. During this time newspaper notices suggest that, while 23 Coolgardie Street was primarily a maternity hospital, it also took in general patients. 19 Coolgardie Street was used as the Kildahl family home. The Post Office Directory listed as Narrabeen Hospital (Nurse L E Reid, principal) until 1937, but by the end of that period the Kildahl family had moved to Kings Park Road, West Perth, where they established a guesthouse and reception centre, ‘Tintern Lodge’. Louise retained ownership of 19-23 Coolgardie Street until her death in 1951 and, after 1937, 23 Coolgardie Street appears to have been divided into flats. In April 1953, 19 and 23 Coolgardie street were transferred to Alice Dean of 47 Havelock Street, West Perth, Widow. In October of that year 23 Coolgardie Street was again placed on the market: AA-HOMES WITH INCOMES. 18 ROOMED BRICK PREMISES. NO.23 COOLGARDIE-ST., SUBIACO. Includes 2 bathrooms, 3 toilets, banqueting hall 40 x 19. IDEAL APARTMENTS, CLUB PREMISES, HOSPITAL. FREEHOLD FOR £6,800 OR REASONABLE OFFER. The sale went though relatively quickly and ownership was transferred to Giuseppe Paolo Luicio Castro of 23 Coolgardie Street, Subiaco, Retired farmer, on 18 November 1953. In 1963 an application was submitted to the City of Subiaco for the operation of the place as a Lodging House, and various lodging house keepers were noted in the City of Subiaco files over subsequent years. From c.1983-2006 the premises were owned by Dorothy and Morris Chaine, who operated 23 Coolgardie Street as ‘Shannon House’, a long-stay lodging house for intellectually handicapped people, with a resident manager. At the end of this period, the intellectually handicapped residents were relocated to other facilities and the property was sold, after which it became a medium-long stay lodging house open to the general public. In 2015, 23 Coolgardie Street is still being marketed as a long-term guest-house, under the name ‘Shannon House’. This offers twin and double rooms as well as 5 bed dormitories.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity - Moderate: The place continues to be occupied as a boarding house, which has been a long-term use since its closure as a hospital in c.1936. Authenticity - Moderate-High: The original external detailing of the building is largely intact and/or sympathetically restored/extended, and the place has been well maintained. Rarity/ Representativeness - 23 Coolgardie Street, Subiaco, is a rare example of a large private maternity home of the early twentieth century which, while originally designed as a house, was soon adapted as a hospital and extended with a purpose built maternity ward, dining room, hospital kitchen and other associated facilities.

Uses

Creation Date

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