[SYDNEY] The Lady Mayoress of Sydney (Mrs W. H. Lambert) requests the pleasure of Mrs A. Weston’s Company at A Gift Afternoon in her Rooms at the Town Hall on Thursday the 2nd June …

from 3.30 pm to 5 pm. Gifts of linen or money will be thankfully received for the assistance of the St. Joseph’s Hospital, Auburn. Sydney, NSW : Mrs. W. H. Lambert, Lady Mayoress, [1921]. Invitation card, 105 x 130 mm, printed recto only, with name of invitee in manuscript; mild toning; verso blank.

‘The story of St Joseph’s Hospital and services to the people of western Sydney began with the Sisters of Charity, who in 1838 head to Parramatta Female Factory to minister to female convicts. The Sisters purchased a residence on where they remained until the closure of the Female Factory in 1848.

It is in this residence that St Joseph’s Hospital began its history in 1886, as a 20 bed unit specialising exclusively in the treatment of pulmonary conditions, claiming to be the only hospital in Australia devoted to the treatment of consumption.

In 1889 the hospital built a new wing, increasing the bed base to 50, but by 1892 and owing to growing community need, the Sister’s found themselves turning patients away due to lack of beds.

As a result, the Sisters engineered the sale of the Parramatta site to the Sisters of Mercy for £1,700, in favour of a new property in Auburn, knowns as Duncraggan Hall – a very large estate with 13 acres of land.

When the Parramatta site closed, patients at St Joseph’s were transferred to St Vincent’s until the new Auburn site was ready, and St Joseph’s Sanatorium and Hospice at Auburn was officially opened on September 7, 1892 by the then Governor of NSW, in what was reportedly a grand affair.

But the Sister’s needed to start from scratch, and instead of the 50 beds that made up St Joseph’s Parramatta, they had just 10 at Auburn. Still, St Joseph’s quickly affirmed itself as a loved place to the locals, who provided support by sending meat, fruit and the odd sherry. At the time it was home to the only Catholic Chapel in the area, and locals were invited for Mass. Every Sunday afternoon a concert would take place in front of the hospital, either by the Police band or the Salvation Army and the Sisters and their services were held in very high esteem by the community.

As the population grew, it wasn’t long before the Sisters were unable to keep up with demand, and now functioning as a general hospital, various fundraising activities commenced to facilitate the build of a new wing to accommodate at least 25 more patient beds – but the new hospital building wouldn’t open until 1903, a decade following. When it did, the locals came to refer to it as ‘Hospital Two’.

By 1924 bed capacity had increased to 76, and in that same year the hospital reported more than 7,000 attendances, including casualty, inpatients and outpatients. The first X-Ray plant was acquired in 1926, to save patients from having to travel to Darlinghurst. The new X-Ray department saw 2,000 patients in the first 12 months and serviced other district hospitals as well as GPs. By 1937 a new three storey building had been erected, housing new laundry, pathology and night nurses’ quarters.’ (https://www.svhs.org.au/newsroom/news/st-joseph-s-hospital-auburn-a-brief-history)