Prior to the establishment of hospitals in the Hay Area, many women birthed alone on the outlying stations.

In fact, between 1859 and 1867, twenty-one births were recorded as having no midwife present. Stations included “Illiliwah”, “Burrabogie”, “Gelam”, “Nimmie”, “Toganmain”, “Yunbarren”, “Eli Elwah”, “Benduck”, “Boonara”, “Mungadal” and “Cuba”. One mother died giving birth to twins in 1862. After that time midwives were recorded in the birth records.

The second midwife on the Hay list with the most births is Lucille Drucilla Myers (nee Simpson), who had attended 38 births by the middle of the 1870s. She died aged 50 years at “Groongal” Station on June 19, 1879. Mary Anne Pendergast attended 15 women and Mary Perkinson 11. The Riverine Grazier of 29 June 1881 carried and advertisement for a Mrs Binney of Lachlan Street a ladies ‘monthly nurse’.

When Mrs Elizabeth Lonergan of Carrathool died in July 1956 the paper described her as a ‘midwife of days gone by, to locals”. There is also a record of a Mrs Cole who worked as a midwife in the Lang Street area. She is remembered for a near fatal mistake in which a baby boy nearly bled to death because she had not tied the cord properly.

Mrs George Thompson who lived at Mossgiel Government Tank for many years was the district’s bush nurse. As well as doing general nursing and attending to deaths, she is known to have assisted many babies into the world.

A Chinese man Ah-Pack grew vegetables at Mossgiel Tank though his wife lived in Hay to rear and school their twenty-two children. The last of this family were twins and Mrs Ah-Pack died at their births. The babies survived and the older girls of the family took over rearing all of the children.

In Hay in the pre-registration days there was maternity hospital conducted by ‘Granny’ Oxley. Featured in the architecture were the gauzed doors of rooms which allowed for a breeze without insects in the patient’s rooms and labour ward. Granny Oxley also attended home births. Between 1910 and 1928 there were a number of private hospitals (in Hay). A four-bed hospital for medical surgical and lying-in patients was located in Orson Street. The licensees were Johanna Fawcette in 1910, followed by Lucy Janet Shelley from 1913 until 1916. ‘Dean Cottage’ in Murray Street provided personal care for one lying-in woman under licensee Margaret Morrison from 1910 until 1921. Margaret died on December 19, 1921.

There was a two-bed hospital for maternity cases in Church Street with Elizabeth Hargrave in charge from 1910 to 1924, followed by Catherine Slattery in 1924. ‘Gel-Rowie’ private hospital in Hatty Street under licensee Mary Love Stewart provided care for three confining women between 1911 and 1917. Rose Boyle was licensee from 1911 to 1922 and Elizabeth Harris was residential manager of a private hospital in Orson Street for two lying-in patients.

The Red Cross Society had a maternity home in Church Street, registered initially for nine patients then increased to ten beds. It was conducted first by Amy Varcoe (1921 – 1922). Alice Glandfield was then the licensee. Rose Sweeny was listed as residential manager and it was noted she completed three years training at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney and six months at the Women’s Hospital. The home remained in operation until 1927. The hospital was discontinued but the building remained.

Mary Lou Gardam writes: “I actually live in the former nursing home in Lachlan Street, Hay. It was the Red Cross Nursing Home from about 1929 to 1947, then became the maternity unit of the hospital until the current building was built in about 1936. So most births in Hay between 1930 and 1963 took place in what is now our kitchen! There is some physical evidence of the former use in worn door jams and cast-iron newborn cots which remained but little else. The back part of the house which included nurse’s quarters, burnt down about 1980.”

‘Langside private hospital in Lang Street, South Hay accommodated three lying-in patients and was conducted by Alice Alberta Baird from 1922.

In Booligal Elizabeth Giddins (nee Le Lievre) delivered 24 babies. Her own infant daughter died on 18 March 1877 and the cause was recorded as ‘thrush and suppuration of the Naris’ (nasal infection). She was considered to be the only ‘real doctor’ at Booligal attending “many a mother near and far, when they gave birth to their children.”

(ED: Elizabeth Giddins was one of nine children and only daughter of Pierre Le Lievre and wife Elizabeth Marie, who immigrated to the Deniliquin area from Jersey in the Channel Islands between England and France. Elizabeth Giddins married Robert Samuel Giddins in 1848 in Booligal. Her father Pierre died at 47 and is buried in Deniliquin, however her mother lived until age 73. She and Elizabeth’s brothers are buried in various parts of Victoria. Elizabeth and Robert had two living children Walter and Jane, born at Hay. Elizabeth passed away in 1927 aged 75 and is buried in Dorrigo. Robert is buried in Booligal, but also has a headstone beside Elizbeth in Dorrigo cemetery. Walter’s son Warrick is the father of Hay residents Rodney Giddins and Amanda Curtis, nee Giddins.)

During 1894 Letitia Bassett who was employed by Mrs Massie, licensee of the Adelaide Camp “a few miles down from Booligal” gave birth. Her baby was either born dead or died soon after birth. Mrs Giddins was sent for, and she took the tiny body back to her home where Dr Watt saw it. An inquest was held the following month at which Mrs Bassett was acquitted of responsibility for the infant’s death. In the course of providing her evidence Mrs Giddins said she was the only nurse in Booligal, and she had nursed people for the past 20 years. During the early years of settlement before the hospital was erected, practically all maternity cases were treated at home by a midwife.

The first white child born in the Balranald district is believed to be Clara, the daughter of Thomas Darcy of Boyong. She was born about 1846. William Russell, son of John Russell, who was the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Balranald in 1862, was the first white boy born in the settlement. In Balranald, as well as Matron Murphy’s ‘Bougainvillea’, Marie Dalton conducted a private lying-in hospital (one bed) in Ballindalla Street from 1911 to 1915. ‘Sunnyside’ private hospital for two maternity cases was located in River Street from 1911 to 1926. Margaret Dunn was the licensee.

Francis J Cameron was licensee at ‘Elton House’ in Church Street Balranald from 1916 to 1917. ‘Elton House’ was licensed for three beds. Euston bush nurse and midwife Muriel Goldsbro, born in 1895, would try to bring the pregnant women into Balranald Hospital for delivery. She worked in the area in the early part of the twentieth century. Muriel was remembered as “one tough, colourful lady.”

Matron Sweeney, the Digger's Queen

Matron Sweeny - Image: Hay Historical Society

Matron Rose Sweeney went on to become a nursing and midwifery legend in Hay, delivering more 2700 babies before retiring. In her obituary Matron Sweeney was praised “Many times Matron Sweeney would sit beside an expectant mother through days of labour, and rest by her side at night, in order to be at hand when her help was needed.” Fiercely patriotic, Matron served in France just behind the front line, not long after completing her training at St Vincent’s Hospital. She arrived in Hay on Armistice Day in 1921 to take charge of the maternity hospital established initially at Hay Gaol, before it moved to the building on the corner of Lachlan and Cadell Streets. The hospital ran on charity and donations, staffed with a skeleton crew of dedicated nurses. “Matron Sweeney was one of those rare people who love to work hard, and to play hard. Apart from her nursing, which was her life, no one loved to get out among her friends better than Matron Sweeney and no one more loved a party — but she was always ready on the instant to return to duty.” Image: Hay Historic Society

Excerpt from ‘Riverina Midwives from the Mountains to the Plains’ by Mavis Gaff-Smith