for lighting theatres. A post with a rotating arm extended over the middle of the operating table, close to seven feet from the floor. This arm car-ried a wire from a battery which powered a small masked electric light which was able to illumi-nate dark places during operating, such as the floor of the pelvis. A photograph from 1889 shows an electric battery and galvanometer sitting on a wooden stand near the base of the operating table, with masses of wires hanging .from the beams. continued...

By Dr Vanessa Witton, Re-search Assistant, RPA Museum Firesticks, candles, kero-sene or gas? By the 1880s in New South Wales, most city streets were lit with gas lamps and most people were cooking with it as well. RPA was lit by gas both internally and externally from its very beginnings in 1882. Its sandstone gateposts on each side of the carriage-way had gas lights mount-ed upon them, and from the ceiling of the portico hung a gas lamp which was lit by a “lamplighter” who carried matches and a ladder. Two Sugg’s sun-light gas burners with a tube lit the large wards, and an early photograph shows that each had six globes with an extra jet un-der a lower pendant glass shade. At dusk each day, nurses were expected to use a box of very inflamma-ble matches and a wax taper, stand

on a chair, and light these modern gas jets to create a flame. The night nurses would extinguish them as they carried a lit tallow candle in a square tin lan-tern with glass sides for their rounds. These were later replaced with paraf-fin lamps, and by 1890 kerosene lamps supplied by Gotthelf and Co. From the mid 1880s it appears that ‘Electricity’, possibly from a battery, was used in the Princes Block operating theatres when they first opened. At the time incandescent gas or electric light was considered best practice

Prince Alfred Hospital, ca 1890s, note the two gas lights on the gatepost, D

Block in the distance and the porter’s lodge on the right (cut off)

Electricity comes to RPA (1906-12)

RPA Heritage News A P R I L 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E I I I , I S S U E 1

P A G E 2

Physics Professor (Sir) Richard Threlfall had constructed this large delicate galvanic battery at the University. By 1889, Dr Robert Todd, (the first RPA anaesthe-tist) spoke about the effect of electricity upon the heart. He consid-ered that electricity had benefits in cases of shock during incomplete anaesthesia. He ex-plained that single induc-tion shocks to the heart muscles through elec-trodes could result in a rhythmic contraction of the heart as a whole. The new ‘Electricity’ was considered a novel-ty. In May 1890, the SMH said that suburban aldermen were taking to this novelty as a “child takes to a new toy.” In Sydney during the 1890s, some theatres, hotels, shops and news-paper offices ran their own private electricity systems through genera-tors, which enabled sup-ply to anyone who could afford it. Monied families had generators in their own homes, and “it was quite a party trick for the electric lights to be switched on

suddenly halfway through a dinner party.” It was said that the women were surprised to find that their com-plexions showed so much more than in can-dlelight that new make-up techniques were nec-essary. By 1903, a central elec-tricity station was creat-ed at Pyrmont Power Station which provided electric power and light to the buildings of the nearby University of Sydney and its colleges. Electricity was necessary to power the Engineer-ing and Physics laborato-ries, and the depart-ments of Mining and Geology. A year earlier, the University’s Anato-my and Physiology Pro-fessor, (Sir) Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart, who was also Chairman of the RPA Board, hoped that power from the general city scheme could be utilised to run the much-needed lifts at RPA. In a meeting of the House Committee held at the Hospital on 11 January 1903, it was noted that a tender for ₤7817 had been re-ceived from Siemens Bros and Co. Ltd for the installation of an electric lighting plant for the Hospital. It appears that the pow-ering of the new lifts was a matter of some necessity.

Mr Houghton of the University of Sydney’s Engineering Department reported to the RPA House Committee in February 1903, saying that the new lifts would be provided by the Syd-ney and Suburban Hy-draulic Company, and an electric lighting plant provided by the Siemens Company. His recom-mendations included the use of low-pressure di-rect acting lifts; that tanks be fixed on the new buildings; that the present coal fired boil-ers not be altered; and that the electric current be bought from the city Council. At this meeting it was also resolved that a tender be furnished from the Sydney and Suburban Hydraulic Company for a low-pressure direct acting lift for the Kitchen. Two weeks later, the Com-mittee was told of ten-der from the Company offering to erect two lifts at a cost of ₤695, and Mr Houghton’s rec-ommendation that it be adopted. By 6 March 1903, the House Committee re-solved that the issue of electric lighting be de-ferred, and that a sys-tem of low-pressure direct acting lifts be im-plemented in the entire Hospital, beginning with the two lifts tendered by the Sydney and Sub-urban Hydraulic Com-pany.

R P A H E R I T A G E N E W S

Theatre, 1889. No-

tice the battery pack

and wires coming

from it.

The photo comes

from an album which

belonged to Profes-

sor Anderson Stuart

P A G E 3 V O L U M E I I I , I S S U E 1

Mr Houghton was to super-vise the work, and request-ed that his fee be 7 percent of the total cost of installa-tion. It would be some time before electricity came to the entire hospital. The night of July 8 1904 was a momentous occasion for public electricity, as street lighting in the city of Sydney was turned on. Sydney Mu-nicipal Council did not ven-ture further than the city with its supply of electricity until 1906, when it lit the new wing of the Royal Hos-pital for Women in Padding-ton. Electric ventilation fans were fitted in the same year at Prince Alfred and a year later the RPA X-ray depart-ment in the Victoria Pavilion was renovated and connect-ed with the City Council electricity current. By New Years Eve 1910, electricity came to the streets of nearby Newtown, with lights beaming out from its homes and almost all of its shops. Compared with gaslight, it was de-scribed as “brilliant.” In this year RPA Medical Superin-tendent Dr Herbert Schlink requested that the Hospital transfer from gas to elec-tricity. Wards until this time were lit by gas, but as men-tioned in the RPAH Annual Report for 1911, it was quite inadequate for effec-tive individual bedside ex-amination and “…necessary that there be means of ex-amining each individual pa-tient by electric light, as in all modern hospitals in the Old World.” Schlink drew

up a memorandum to the Board of the Hospital, and within six months, the Uni-versity’s Professor Warren was helping the Committee with a plan of implementa-tion. Due to the lack of electrical power in neighbourhood, the city electrical engineer prepared plans for the City Council’s electric main to run along Missenden Road. In this way, electrical light-ing could be placed in the theatres and corridors. Electricity was slowly intro-duced into the Hospital , due to its very high cost. In 1912 it was placed in the Administration Block, spe-cial departments, corridors, the , and the new Victoria and Albert Operating Thea-tres. The operating table was lit with shaded electric light globes which hung brightly from the ceiling. In the Albert and Victoria Pavilions electric clocks were placed in the theatres and wards, so that time would be uniform and there would be no need to wind individual clocks. All clocks were controlled from the Administration Block. RPA also needed electricity to power its Finsen light (ultra-

violet light treatment via electric arc lamp), its Roentgen ray (X-ray) appa-ratus, and for heating. The cost of electric heating in the A and Vic Blocks was too costly, at £60/week, so steam radiators were used instead It would be many years be-fore the all the lifts of the hospital were of the mod-ern electric kind: in 1914 the old low-pressure hy-draulic type were finally retired. By the end of WWI, a combination of gas and electric lighting was still used within the wards and on external verandahs, as can be seen in photographs of the Hospital taken at that time. There was no longer naked gaslight, but instead incandescent burners in the buildings and grounds. In the wards, several different types of electric lighting were used. In the 1920s, the Alfred and Mary Rob-erts Ward still had gaslight, and nurses used hurricane lanterns at night well into the 1950s. However, they were told not to hold the lanterns too low, in case the reflections of the nurs-es’ legs could be seen by male patients!

X-Ray equipment,

ca 1913. Notice

the battery pack

on the right and

the electric meter

on the left.

Examples of Hurricane

lanterns on display in the

RPA Museum.

sheet. Smaller tables were scattered around the room for instruments and bowls.

The first theatres were housed in the Operations Block, later renamed the Princes Block. Theatres opened in the A and Vic Blocks in 1907 and the Anderson Stuart Theatres opened in 1928. There was one theatre in Psychiatry (1938), two (later three) in KGV (1941)and two in the Page Pavilion (1957). In 1962 the Blackburn Pavilion Operat-ing Theatres opened for Gen-eral Surgery but the Honorary Staff continued to use the An-derson Stuart.

1983 saw the first consolida-tion of theatres with the open-

In the course of our research about electricity at RPA, we went through many photos of theatres. One that really grabbed out attention is the photo on the right. The Sis-ter looks so lovely and se-rene posing in the theatre in her pristine outfit, right down to the silver buckle! Contrast this to the 1960s “passion killer” pictured left and on display in the RPA Museum: style vs function.

The first theatres at RPA opened in 1887, five years after the Hospital. Until this time, makeshift areas were used. The equipment usually consisted of a wooden table, covered with a blanket and

ing of the John Lowenthal (JL) Op-erating Theatres and in 2003, all theatres were finally brought to-gether in the rebuilt JL Theatres, of which there are 22! Orthopae-dic work continues to be done in the QEII building. This overview has been taken from a 26-page history writ-ten by Sister “William” Jones, theatre Sister, Supervisor and Nurse Administra-tor, 1962-88. Sister Jones served with the Vietnam RPA civilian surgical team in 1967 and volun-teered at the RPA Museum for many years.

Some notes about RPA Theatres

Phone: 9515 9201

Email: Kathryn.hillier@sswahs.nsw.gov.au

Web: http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/RPA/Museum/

The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Museum and Archive is freely open to

all staff and public on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays

from 10 am to 2 pm. Please let patients and visitors know.

We are located on Level 8 of

the King George V Building

in the former

gynaecological theatres.

Theatre Sister outfit, aka “the Passion Killer, ca 1960s

Theatre Sister,

ca 1900