 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Hospital, John Hay's half-brother, Alick Hay, referred to' a time when Mr James Wilson was
the only doctor in the district and in this building, a time when he used to draw teeth and
248
set limbs when no other help was available, and perform surgical operations of an extraordinary
character1.
Pulman Street before 1880 had been little more than a minor village track leading to Pulman's
Farm, then owned by the Berry estate. Thereabouts, and by the Great South Road (now the
Princes Highway), stood a council house, a constable's cottage, a butcher's shop, a bakery,
stables, James Wilson's store, a curate's cottage, a one-room schoolhouse, and a wooden
Catholic chapel that seated 40 people. The other religious groups met in the one-room
schoolhouse. Most of these places were sold or demolished when the grid-pattern town was
created by David Berry on the western bank of Broughton Mill Creek. A new timber Catholic
church with an iron roof was built in Albert Street in 1884, and this was also used as a school
by the Sisters of St Joseph, who came to the town in 1891. They lived in a six-room cottage
nearby, with a separate apartment for the visiting priest. Perhaps their presence had something
to do with Mary's move from Nowra or Lismore to the new township.
By this time (by 1895), James Wilson's old store in Pulman Street - he built a new one in Queen
Street - had been turned into the Cottage Hospital, with six beds for men, three for women, a
surgery, a dining-room, accommodation for the matron, and bathrooms featuring a novelty -
taps with both hot and cold water.
The question is - did Mary Honeycombe work at the Cottage Hospital before the new hospital
was built?
She probably came south to Nowra in 1904 to live with her 71-year-old mother and unmarried
sister, Norah, or possibly with one or more younger bachelor brothers. Presumably, if Mary
was well enough to travel to Nowra, she was also well enough to work. And at some point she
moved to Berry where, as we know, there was a small Catholic community. Perhaps the Sisters
of St Joseph helped her to obtain work as a domestic at the Cottage Hospital. If so, she could
have been there anytime between 1904 and 1909, when the new hospital was officially opened.
It is not inconceivable that Mary convalesced for a time at the little Cottage Hospital in Pulman
Street, and that this led to her working there when her health improved.
The opening ceremony of the new hospital was performed on 18 September 1909 by no less
than the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon Charles Gregory. Among the onlookers, one
imagines, was our Mary, a small, inconspicuous figure in black, her face lined and gaunt, and her
features as impassive and as blank as her eyes.
The David Berry Hospital was, and is, situated in 30 wooded acres on a ridge east of
Broughton Creek, near the site of the old tannery and on what is now Beach Road. It cost
£57,900 to build and equip. The first medical officer was Dr Lewers and the first matron Mrs
Perkins. There were 30 beds in separate male and female wards, and an operating theatre. The
matron's flat was above the north-facing entrance, a Victorian horseshoe-shaped arch. There
was accommodation for nurses, and a staff cottage, in which Mary Honeycombe
249
must have lived. And here it was that the one-time Irish beauty, the 'Belle of the Ball', ended her
days - as a hospital drudge.
 |