Queen Victoria Women's Centre, Victoria, Australia, Festivale Pictorial Guidebook

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Queen Victoria Women's Centre

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Queen Victoria Women's Centre. Photograph: (c) Ali Kayn 2014

The Queen Victoria Women's Centre occupies the only surviving building on what was a block-sized hospital complex.

It is managed by a trust under the Queen Victoria Women's Centre Trust Act 1994.

In the late nineteenth century, women doctors had difficulty finding places to practice and women patients were not always treated well by the male establishment. In 1896 the Queen Victoria Hospital moved from William Street, Melbourne to the new premises paid for by the women of Victoria contributing to Dr Constance Stone's 'Shilling Fund'. Originally called the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, it became the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital upon the monarch's death. The Queen Victoria Hospital was one of three hospitals in the world founded, managed and staffed by women.

In 1946 the hospital moved to the premises vacated by the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Queen Victoria Hospital c. 1930-1950 courtesy State Library Victoria; 700x455

Queen Victoria Hospital [ca. 1930 - ca. 1950] photographer not known. Courtesy of State Library Victoria, (www.slv.vic.gov.au)

In 1989 the renamed Queen Victoria Medical Centre, by then a teaching hospital treating males and females moved to Clayton, and the premises were sold. The centre tower of the hospital was refurbished and handed over to the women of Victoria, becoming the Queen Victoria Women's Centre.

Items of Interest: Heritage-listed Edwardian Baroque tower. The Shilling Wall (2005) is a tribute inscribed with the names of over 500 women, celebrating their roles as mothers, grandmothers, caregivers, sisters, friends, colleagues and community contributors.