The Queen Victoria Hospital for Women - a feminist landmark

The Queen Victoria Hospital is a tale of feminist activism, women's health - and a remarkable building.

For women, by women

In 1896 the doors to the first feminist hospital in Australia were opened in Melbourne's CBD. Run entirely by women, the first clinics were held in a borrowed church hall. Named the Victoria Hospital after the state of Victoria, it was established by eleven women doctors who had had their professional ambitions thwarted by recruitment practices in other hospitals. Their motto was Pro feminis a feminis - for women by women.

For the first three months, the clinic was open three mornings a week and saw an average of sixty women per morning. Many of the women could not pay for their medical help and the hospital relied on the voluntary services of doctors who also worked in private practice. Realising the ocean of need that lay before them, the hospital's founders set to work expanding and finding a permanent home for their work.

Above: Queen Victoria Nurse's Badge, c. 1940. Source: Monash Health Historical Collections

Crowd-funding, nineteenth-century style

The 1897 diamond julibee of Queen Victoria provided the opportunity. The Queen had requested that all jubilee fundraising be used to improve the wellbeing of women and children. The hospital leaders - renaming the hospital after the sovereign - drew on this and called for every woman in the state of Victoria to donate a single shilling to their cause. A vast network of donation collectors was set up across the state, resulting in the raising of over three thousand pounds.

With that money the Queen Victoria Hospital was able to purchase small premises in Mint Place and install an operating theatre and eight beds; the grand opening, attended by members of parliament and covered by journalists, took place less than three years after the first clinics in a church hall.

Expansion into an Edwardian design masterpiece

The Mint Place premises rapidly became too small for the growing hospital and was extended several times over the next fifty years. Finally in 1947 the Queen Victoria Hospital relocated to a building that had been built in 1912 as Melbourne's General Hospital. This remarkable building was a pavilion-style design with towers at each corner and held 300 beds. Above: The Age, July 6, 1899

Considered to be the cutting edge of institution design, the building was intended to be well-ventilated with plenty of open space. Somewhat neglected during the Second World War, the building was now redecorated and rehabilitated for its new occupants.

Above: Designs for the Melbourne General Hospital. Source: Queen Victoria Women's Centre

Feminist politics and practice

Throughout the first sixty years of its existence the Queen Victoria offered a women-only space for patients and clinicians alike. Some of Victoria's first women doctors and pharmacists found professional opportunities there, and the women patients were assured that their care would be provided by members of their own sex. By 1956, in order to maintain its accreditation as a training hospital with the University of Melbourne, the Queen Vic had to start accepting male trainee doctors. However, the hospital maintained its feminist presence, offering abortion services and being the site of the first government-funded Sexual Assault Support centre in Australia.

Preserving the building

In 1986 the consolidation of health services in Victoria and the construction of new hubs in suburban Melbourne subsumed the Queen Victoria Hospital. While the history of the hospital was intended to be commemorated in the retention of its name within a new service, ultimately the service became part of today's Monash Health. The site was sold to developers, who announced plans for the demolition of the heritage building.

A final feminist campaign, however, was mustered by the women of Victora to save what they considered to be their hospital. It was women, of course, who had paid for the hospital in 1897. The fight was partially successful in 1994 with the retention of one of the towers of the heritage building, to be earmarked and funded as a Women's Centre in perpetuity.

Reflecting on this feminist place

Thinking about the Queen Victoria inspires feelings of awe as we consider the odds that the founders and later administartros had to overcome to keep the hospital going.

However, like all histories, the long and proud history of the Queen Victoria Hospital contains dark stories as well as those of courage and generosity and ingenuity. The hospital also participated in the forced removal of babies from mothers who were deemed to be unfit to care for them. And the history of Aboriginal women and their experiences in this place has never been explored. These are future projects that are vital if we are to reconcile the histories of health care in Victoria with those of poverty and racism.

The Queen Vic today

The Queen Victoria Women's Centre remains housed in the heritage tower, with all of its columns and balconies, within Melbourne's CBD. Dwarfed by neighbouring high-rises it stands as a testament to the tenacity, the fight and the vision of the women who made it into a feminist health service decades ago. You can visit any time you like, with tours every winter during Open Melbourne.

Further reading:

Macrae, H. (2015) Dinner with the devil: women and Melbourne’s Queen Vic: their pride and shame, joy and sorrow, Surrey Hills, Helen Macrae.

Russell, E. (1997) Bricks or spirit: the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne, Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing.

Swinburne, G. H. (1951) The Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne: a history, the first fiftyyears, Melbourne, Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital.