On 5 July 2024, we mark the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women — a landmark occasion that revolutionised Australian women’s healthcare services. This pivotal moment would not have been possible without the lifetime commitment of the hospital’s founder, Constance Stone, the first woman to be registered as a doctor in Australia. However, her road to success involved an arduous journey, during which she was met with much opposition from the medical profession.
Portrait of Constance Stone (1852-1902), c. 1890. Courtesy of the Medical History Museum, University of Melbourne; MHM02914
Medical women? How absurd!
Constance Stone was not eligible to enrol into the University of Melbourne’s School of Medicine in 1884, for the sole reason that she was a woman. Other University courses, such as Arts, had been admitting women since 1880. However, longstanding views from professionals such as the Medical Board of Victoria, claimed that women wouldn’t be able to manage the confronting nature of a doctor’s work:
A woman who dissects, makes post-mortem examinations, tests urine and carries diseased specimens in her dress pocket; who can pass the male catheter and apply ligatures to haemorrhoids… is not a person in whom you would look for the tenderer domestic qualities.1
The Board concluded that:
Medical women will occasionally be imported like other curiosities, and the public will wonder at them just as it wonders at dancing dogs, fat boys and bearded ladies… 2
Determined to shift this narrow professional mindset, Constance was forced to seek educational opportunities elsewhere — realising that in order to pursue a career as a doctor, she first had to leave her home country.
Early influences
Constance was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on 4 December 1856 as Emma Constance Stone but didn’t go by her first name. She was the oldest of six children to parents, William and Betsy Stone, who emigrated from England to Tasmania in 1854. The Stones moved to Melbourne in 1872 and lived in Middle Park, close to St Kilda, where William established a pipe-organ building business. Betsy home-schooled her children, with William sparking Constance’s interest in the natural sciences. 3 After finishing her schooling, Constance taught classes for girls at her home.
In 1882, Constance met her future husband, David Egryn Jones, a minister at the Collins Street Independent Church. He wanted to help the sick and impoverished members of his congregation, so decided to become a doctor. Constance shared his dedication to social justice issues, 4 which led to her pursuing her own career in medicine.
Following her dream across the world
After realising she would not be permitted to study medicine in Australia, Constance travelled to the US in 1884 to study at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1887, she worked as a doctor at a women and children’s hospital in Staten Island, New York. She then went on to train as a surgeon at the University of Toronto. The resultant Canadian Commonwealth qualification would contribute to helping her register as a doctor in Australia.
Constance’s pursuit of wider clinical opportunities took her across the Atlantic to obtain a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries from the London School of Medicine for Women. Here, she worked at the New Hospital for Women, which was staffed entirely by medical women. This work restored Constance’s faith in an industry that acknowledged the value of women practitioners. She was now motivated to travel back home to open up the medical profession for Australian women.
‘The first Australian lady doctor’
‘Miss E Constance Stone, MB, CM, (The first qualified Australian lady doctor)’, The Bulletin, 1 March 1890, p 6
In 1889, Constance Stone returned to Australia, equipped with the six years of invaluable experience she had gained in the US, Canada and England. On 7 February 1890, she appeared before the Medical Board of Registration and became the first woman to be registered as a doctor in Australia. Table Talk magazine described Constance as:
‘Dr E.Constance Stone: The first Australian lady doctor’, Table Talk, 14 February 1890, p 4
Victorian medical women unite!
The University of Melbourne started admitting women in 1887 and one of the first women to graduate was Constance’s sister, Clara. She and Constance both volunteered at Dr John Singleton’s Free Medical Dispensary in Collingwood and Constance also set up her own practice on Collins Street. 5 In order to improve educational and employment opportunities for other medical women, Constance established the Victorian Medical Women’s Society (VMWS). Their first meeting took place on 22 March 1895 6 and the association is still running today.
Members of the Victorian Medical Women’s Society, 1898. Dr Constance Stone pictured centre of back row. Courtesy of the Medical History Museum, University of Melbourne; MHM02919
In 1893, Constance had married David Egryn Jones, who was then minister at St David’s Welsh Church on La Trobe Street. Using her husband’s church hall, Constance and the VMWS established a clinic known as the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children. This name was chosen to indicate that the service was available to women from all over the colony. Constance saw a particular need for women doctors who could treat women patients — many of whom would rather suffer in pain than be medically examined by a man. 7 After being open for only three months in 1896, the Victoria Hospital had already received more than 2000 patients, 8 many from regional Victoria. In a letter written by Egryn Jones, 9 he describes the popularity of his wife’s first clinic:
Egryn Jones, D, 1926, ‘Letter : to Miss Evans, 1926 Sep 16’, MS 11362
The Queen’s Shilling Fund
As the VMWS knew the church hall could only be a temporary clinic, it made plans to purchase its own hospital where inpatients could also be treated. Constance worked closely with key suffragettes Annette Bear-Crawford and Vida Goldstein to campaign for the cause. 10 A shilling fund appeal was launched on 19 February 1897 and encouraged every woman in Victoria to donate one shilling to establish a hospital for women, run by women and to honour Queen Victoria, who was celebrating her Diamond Jubilee.
‘Victorian Women’s Testimonial to the Queen’, Champion, 13 March 1897
A fundraising leaflet was distributed at the headquarters of the Queen’s Shilling Fund campaign in the popular Cole’s Book Arcade, which E W Cole generously offered as his contribution towards the hospital. Volunteers asked for a shilling donation from everyone who walked ‘the Block’, a daily fashionable promenade along Collins Street. 11
Cole’s Book Arcade, 1928. Photo by Darge Photographic Co; ID 1637182
The Queen Victoria Hospital: Pro Feminis a Feminis
The public contribution was overwhelming — 3162 pounds, 11 shillings and 9 pence 12 had been raised across Victoria. The Governess Institute was purchased in Mint Place and The Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children was officially opened on 5 July 1899.
‘Queen Victoria Hospital. The opening ceremony’, The Age, 6 July 1899, p 6
The hospital’s opening ceremony was a grand affair, with speeches given and tours conducted of the new facilities. There was even a band playing on the hospital balcony, which created a truly festive atmosphere. 13
Opening ceremony shown in ‘The Queen Victoria Hospital – a women’s hospital officered by women’, Weekly Times, 15 July 1899, p 10
The motto of the hospital was Pro Feminis a Feminis, which is Latin for ‘For Women by Women’.
The Queen Victoria Hospital Annual Report of 1899 proudly stated that its objective was:
to afford to women and children in poor and distressed circumstances, the opportunity of obtaining medical and surgical treatment by qualified women medical practitioners. 14
When the hospital opened, women and their children could finally receive medical care by women doctors, who could also provide pregnancy and childbirth health services. In fact, Constance was heavily pregnant at the hospital’s grand opening and her only child, a daughter named Bronwen, was born the following week. The hospital was renamed the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital after the Queen died in 1901. It relocated to Lonsdale Street in 1946 to occupy the former Melbourne Hospital and then became the largest hospital for women, run by women, in the British Commonwealth. 15
Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Melbourne, ca. 1943; H96.200/390
In 1977, the hospital merged with other health care institutions to become the Queen Victoria Medical Centre. The hospital eventually moved out to Clayton in 1987, becoming the Monash Medical Centre. Most of the original buildings on Lonsdale Street were demolished by 1992. All that remains of the once grand hospital is the small central building, which was preserved and opened in 1996 as the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, a much-needed community hub for women’s services.
Left: Detail of Queen Victoria Hospital (Old Melbourne), [ca 1945-ca 1954]. Photo from Victorian Railways Collection; H91.50/1517. Right: Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, 2024. Photo by author.
The Women’s Centre closed for renovations in 1998 and reopened in 2005, coinciding with the opening of the sprawling QV shopping complex — with the contribution of the hospital’s founder acknowledged in a commemorative laneway:
Constance Stone Lane, next to Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, QV shopping complex. Photo by author.
Constance’s legacy
Constance dedicated her life to improving the lives of women and children in Victoria. She worked with the United Council for Women’s Suffrage 16 and also raised the age of consent for girls and abolished prostitution of children. 17
Constance became seriously ill in late 1899 and on 29 December 1902, just three years after opening the hospital, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 46. Her daughter, Bronwen Jones, was only three years old but grew up to continue her mother’s work; graduating from Medicine at the University of Melbourne in 1923 and becoming an honorary staff member at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital. Her mother’s dream of ‘a hospital for women, run by women’ had become a reality and Dr Constance Stone’s lifetime commitment continues to help countless Victorian women lead safe, happy and healthy lives.
For Women. By Women. Motto proudly displayed on the facade of the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, 2024. Photo by author.
