Guest Speaker Meeting

Speaker: Ashley Kingston
Topic: ‘The Coast Hospital Origin Story: the first nine photos from 1881’.

The response of the NSW Government to the smallpox epidemic in Sydney of 1881 resulted in the rapid construction of a complex of buildings on “Quarantine Grounds” at Little Bay. The NSW Government Printing Office sent photographer John Sharkey to document the complex as it neared completion. This presentation covers Sharkey’s footsteps on that day through the nine original photographs he took. In chronological order, it will show each of the original photos, then a stunningly restored colourised version, and finally a present-day photo from the same viewpoint. It is the origin story of what would become Prince Henry Hospital and the suburb of Little Bay.