A collection of unique photographs is now in the local history collection at Yarra Plenty Regional Library. The Alice Elizabeth Broadhurst collection includes over 1,300 photos from 12 photo albums broadly spanning 1895-1926 but mainly covering the period 1918-1926; depicting the 16th Australian General Hospital, Mont Park (Macleod West, now part of LaTrobe University and the Springthorpe Community), the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Women’s Hospital and two trips to the United Kingdom and Europe undertaken in 1923 and 1926.
The albums were compiled and owned by Alice Elizabeth Broadhurst (1896-1981), initially while working as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse with the Australian Red Cross at the Mont Park Military Hospital and subsequently as a nurse at the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s hospitals alongside many pioneering doctors of their fields. Many photos depict her time at Mont Park, including nursing staff, patients, buildings, group gatherings, a visit by General Birdwood and the end of service of Mont Park as a military hospital in 1920 when the departure of the last military patients from Macleod Railway Station. The albums also include photos of Alice’s childhood home in Western Australia, her father's home, ‘Heatherleigh’ at Tunstall, her time as a nurse at the Royal Women’s and Royal Melbourne hospitals as well as a record of an almost year long trip undertaken by her father and step mother to the United Kingdom, Europe and New Zealand in 1923. Another album covers a further almost year long trip undertaken by Alice herself to the United Kingdom and Europe in 1926 where she also visited some of the significant battlefields of the First World War.
The collection was donated to Yarra Plenty Regional Library in two stages: the first two albums initially in March 2016 and the remaining albums in July 2019.
To learn more about the collection including descriptions of some of the highlights read the Broadhurst Collection Guide
Dive into the collection by visiting Yarra Plenty Regional Library local history
To visit more of our historical photographs search here
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Liz Pidgeon, Local and Family History Librarian, YPRL
This blog post was first published on the YPRL website on 9 June, 2020
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