With World War Two raging on overseas and the recent bombing of Darwin by the Japanese forces, Morris Hospital was called up to play its part in the Australian war effort.
This article explores how Morris Hospital (later becoming part of Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre) was commandeered by the Australian Defence Department and used as a Military General Hospital for Australian recovering returned service personnel.
101, 109 or 121 Australian General Hospital?
There may be some confusion as Morris Hospital was used by three different units, the 101, the 109 and the 121 Australian General Hospitals (AGH). However, the 121 AGH remained at Northfield until the end of the war and is therefore the unit most commonly associated with Morris Hospital. For this reason, the 121 AGH will be the primary focus throughout the rest of this article.
Why was Morris Hospital used by the Defence Department?
The recent bombing of Darwin highlighted that the threat of war and invasion was closer than ever before. In preparation, under the Commonwealth Governments Emergency Powers, Morris Hospital was commandeered by the Defence Department.
The 101 and 109 Australian General Hospital were formed at Woodside Barracks in November 1941 and December 1941 respectfully. Less than a year later, in July 1942, the 101 AGH was moved to Morris Hospital at Northfield. From there, the 101 AGH relocated to Katherine in the Northern Territory to relieve the 121 AGH, which swapped and moved to Morris Hospital in August 1943. The 121 AGH remained at Morris Hospital until the end of the war and stayed onsite until October 1946.
The 101 AGH, due to the declining number of admissions and troops stationed in the NT, the hospital was taken over (by the 74th Camp Hospital), and would go on the spend the remainder of the war at what was then known as Herne Bay (now Riverwood), New South Wales.
The 109 AGH, also known as the 2/9 AGH was also formed at the Woodside Barracks in 1940 and would go to serve in the Middle East. The unit retuned, with the 2nd AIF, to Australia in March 1942. Morris Hospital was used as a rest stop for the unit until they would receive future orders. Later that same year in August, the male personnel were order to go to Papua New Guinea to establish the first General Hospital. With the female nursing sisters remining, some may have been temporary attached to military hospitals around Adelaide such as Morris Hospital until it was deemed safe for them to join the rest of the unit in PNG.
Morris Hospital before the Army arrived
Morris Hospital was opened 1931 to replace the Consumptive and Cancer Home at the Adelaide Hospital (later the Royal Adelaide Hospital), which at the time was overcrowded and the building was not suited to care for patients.
During the 1800s, patients with infectious disease and consumptive illness were cared for at home. However, due to an increase in patient admissions, a bigger facility at the hospital was sought after to house such patients.
In 1902, the Consumptive and Cancer Home took over the building used as the first Adelaide Hospital in 1841. Once a larger complex for the Hospital was built in 1856, the original building served as an overflow for patients at the Adelaide Lunatic Asylum before it became a Consumptive and Cancer Home. With the opening of the Parkside Lunatic Asylum, this left the Adelaide asylum vacant and conveniently located by the Adelaide Hospital. In 1906, once all patients were transfers from Adelaide to Parkside Lunatic Asylum, the old asylum became the Infectious Diseases Block of the Adelaide Hospital. It was commonly known as ISO, short for isolation, by nursing staff.
Further demand was put on these wards due to the 1922 polio epidemic. It became clear that these buildings were not intended to care for such patients and purpose-built facilities had to be established. As a result, the South Australian Parliament passed the Metropolitan Infectious Diseases Act, which included the need for a purpose-built Infectious Diseases and Consumptive Hospitals.
The land on which Morris Hospital, and the Metropolitan Infectious Disease Hospital (now Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre) were built on was purchased by the state government in 1917. It was sold by Leopold Conrad, a wealth owner of a chain of butchers shops, who used the land, referred to as Conrad’s Farm, to graze his stock. The Northfield location was selected due to its large size and accessible yet distant distance from Adelaide which were all needed given the type of patient which would be housed at the hospital.
The Morris Hospital was opened on 11 November 1931. It was a hot and dry day with no official celebrations to mark the occasion (only a moment of silence to mark Armistice Day), and just two convoys from the Adelaide Hospital, one transporting nursing staff and their luggage, and the other being the first patients to fill the hospital.
At the time of Morris Hospitals opening, it was known as the Advanced Consumptive Home and Cancer Block. The hospital was renamed in November 1936 in honour of the state’s first Inspector General of Hospitals, Dr Bedlington H Morris.
The 121 AGH at Morris Hospital
It was announced in local papers on Friday, 27 March 1942 that Morris Hospital had been officially taken over by the Army. The announcement was made by District Commandant, Brig Bundick, who said that going forward the hospital will be used for military patients but during an emergency, such as an air raid, civilians will be admitted. News of the takeover was described as a “wonderful acquisition to the military hospital organisation in South Australia”.
In order to make room for the new tenants, inpatients were transferred to the nearby Metropolitan Infectious Diseases Hospital. These patients, most of whom were suffering from tuberculosis (TB) were housed in four wards in Block D.
The pre-existing buildings on site were not enough to house the sudden influx of admitted service personnel. To combat this, tents were erected behind the main hospital buildings. A later upgrade of the tents were Nissan huts, but these were either very hot in summer or very cold in winter.
Staff Shortages
Although the positive fanfare would not last for long, as there was also a battle against staff shortages being fought on Morris soil. A contributing factor to staff shortages at Morris Hospital was the lack of facilities for nursing staff. A newly built accommodation block which could sleep 22 nurses was occupied by military hospital staff. This required nurses to walk in the dark, across a paddock, threating their safety, in order to reach the next available accommodation.
Another reason for limited staff and cited as the main cause by Deputy Director-General of Manpower, Mr Seaman, was marriage. Up until 1966, the marriage bar, saw married women terminated from their place of employment, with little to no opportunity to work on a causal or part time basis. Strenuous efforts were made to recruit more staff by encouraging applications for kitchen, ward and nurse work. This ultimately had little success as the number of beds available for TB patients at Morris Hospital had decreased, making it the only hospital in the state to decrease bed numbers.
Other hospitals taken over by the government
It isn’t just Morris Hospital which has a history of being commandeered by the government for use by the military. Other hospitals in the state do too.
Beginning in World War 1, before it was opened as Mareeba Babies Home in Woodville, the home was leased to the Red Cross to be used as a convalescent home for sick and injured soldiers. However, under the request of military authorities, no medical attention was to be given to civilian patients there. The Matron, Mrs Trotman, was the sole leader of the hospital at the time. This arrangement did not last long, spanning from August to December 1916.
The Royal Adelaide Hospital was no different, as the No.7 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) took up residence in one of the hospitals wings. Once the occupied wing was handed back for civilian use in April 1946, skin cases were transferred to the 121 at Morris Hospital, and a TB outbreak saw an increased number of orderlies transferred to Morris Hospital as well.
Morris Hospital after the Army retreat
Morris Hospital was taken over and used by the Australian Defence Department as a recovery hospital for return service personnel for four and a half years, being formally given back to the state government on 21 October 1946. It would be a further 476 days, on 20 January 1948, that the hospital would once again admit civilian patients. This included the transfer of 63 TB patients from Northfield Infectious Diseases Hospital and cancer patients from the Royal Adelaide Hospitals Magill Wards.
Prior to the full handback of the hospital, a tender was sent out in May of 1947 for the dismantling eighteen huts on the Morris Hospital grounds. These huts would then be re-erected with additions, at what would become the states premier ex-servicemen rehabilitation facility, the Repatriation Hospital in Daw Park.
Upon return of Morris Hospital and its grounds, many changes had occurred during the army tenure. These changes were:
- Perimeter of the hospital grounds extended;
- New roads laid down;
- Improvements made to hospital wards. Including fresh coat of paint on the walls and floors repolished;
- Obsolete medical equipment disposed and replaced with newer versions;
- New buildings erected, however they were neglected and deemed unsuitable for civilian use by the time of handover.
Like many other institutions both in the state and nationally, Morris Hospital was enlisted to be part of the war effort. It played an important role in aiding the recovery of service personnel but remains a forgotten part of Northfields and Hampstead Rehabilitation Centres history.
Written by Anna Grigoriev, CALHN Health Museum
