Convict Dispensaries & Hospitals on the GNR

In the article by Trevor Patrick, mention was made of an assistant to the Assistant Surveyor who used the materials in the medical chest to treat convicts who had been injured in some way. At this early stage of the preparation of information about the medical treatment of convicts on the Great North Road construction, it is interesting to note a comment made by Dr Grace Karskens when she was being interviewed and filmed for a video by Claude and Bronwyn Aliotti, The Convict Trail. This comment is in By Force of Maul & Wedge, compiled by Bill Bottomley. Bronwyn had asked, "Were there many lives lost while they were building the Road?" Here is the reply:

It's not all that overt in the records, although there is some reference to Simpson wanting a doctor or some sort of First Aid provided because he said that the men "were liable to be hurt in the work that they do." You know, working with gunpowder and bullocks and heavy rocks in very steep locations would have been very dangerous.

In the Bottomley compilation, Ken Marheine was interviewed. He commented on the letter from the Colonial Secretary to Surveyor Lockyer on the transportation of injured convicts by boat in 1829 to Windsor Hospital. He went on to remark that the Assistant Surveyors had their first aid spot on each site and that they did look after their convict gangs.

"I'd like to quote from a letter written by Heneage Finch on September 25th 1830. It is to the Surveyor-General: I have the honour to inform you that the Overseer of the Bridge Party under my orders expects to have completed the work which he now has in hand, which is building a dispensary etc. for the medical attendant attached to these gangs, by the end of the next week, and that I have another week to employ thereupon. ... and even at Wollombi there's one place there where they had a hospital - it's still known as Hospital Hill. So they did look after them."

In the CTP Monograph "Four Essays about the Great North Road", Dr Karskens has one essay on The Convict Road Station Site at Wiseman's Ferry. Governors Darling and Bourke issued instructions about the design and guarding of the the prisoners at this stockade by military detachment. Bourke's instructions were increasingly detailed with reference to the placement of huts, guard houses, barracks and so on. Apart from the numerous buildings referred to in these instructions, there is mention of huts to be used as a hospital and as a dispensary for the medical attendant.

Ian Webb, in his book Blood Sweat and Irons pp21-25, outlines the detailed instructions which were transmitted to Surveyor General Mitchell from the Colonial Secretary and signed by the Governor R. Darling. In these instructions, one paragraph is interesting in the medical context:

An Assistant Surgeon will be employed with the detachment and will have the medical charge of the gangs working in the neighbourhood. A hut must be fitted up for the treatment of slight cases - Should any serious ones occur, the man must be sent to the hospital at Windsor.

Ian Webb notes that sick or seriously injured convicts from the gangs were transported to the hospital at Windsor. During 1829, this was done by using a hired boat manned by a member of the No. 25 Road Party. The re-hiring of this boat in October 1829 has already been mentioned. Minor injuries and complaints were handled by an assistant surgeon who worked in a hut specially built as a hospital and dispensary. He also visited the gangs stationed away from the stockades to administer medicines and treat the minor injuries.

Just who were these medical attendants? We have one mention of an attendant by Ian Webb. In May 1830, a member of the No. 25 Road Party, Jasper Walton (Countess of Harcourt), was listed as the assistant surgeon for the area [Ref: Road Gang Reports, 1827-1830, AONSW reel 590]. It will be most interesting to find out in more detail how such men, whether Road Gang or Ticket of Leave convicts or free-by-servitude men, had been or were trained in the medical treatment of their fellows.

By April 1832, with the road works in the Wisemans District nearly completed, Simpson reported:

That in all serious cases requiring convicts being sent to the nearest General Hospital for medical treatment, they should be conveyed in a covered cart, locked up and escorted by a file of the stockade guard aided by an Assistant Overseer armed with a cutlass. For slight cases requiring attendance at the local dispensary, they should be escorted handcuffed on a chain by a file of the guard and an Assistant Overseer, armed as before. [Ref: Simpson to Mitchell, Apr. 1832, Box 2/1579.2]

As Darling and Bourke instructed, these men, no matter how sick or injured, were to be prevented from escaping legal custody.