One of the most treasured departments in the RCH is home to hospital memorabilia that’s over 140 years old!

The Archives Department is basically the ‘corporate memory’ of the hospital and aims to identify, store, manage and preserve historic paper-based records, audio-visual material, museum items and memorabilia of the RCH.

As the smallest department in the hospital, Archives has one part-time staff member, Bronwyn.

What is the role of an archivist?

“I largely help staff, the public, and sometimes the government access historical information. I also advise hospital departments on records management and storage issues.”

What are you working on at the moment?

“One project I’m working on is cataloguing an RCH movie film collection which dates back to the late 1940s. This includes clinical footage documenting diseases which are rarely seen today. The most historic of these films will be prioritised for later digital conversion.”

What is the oldest archive?

“Leather-bound meeting books that include minutes from the very first Board meeting when the hospital opened on September 9, 1870. The Patient Admission Registers, in similar but larger format, date from 1907.”

Tell us about the photos in archives.

“Our Archives photo collection is one of the biggest collections of any Victorian government organisation! There are more than 15,000 images in the collection, dating from the first known clinical photo of a patient here in 1871.”

What do you love most about working in Archives?

“The opportunity to glimpse what hospital life was like for both patients and staff, more than say 100 years ago, can really spark the imagination.”

Do archives show how much things have changed?

“There is an evolving story around visiting rights  of parents, initially only allowed to visit if their child was dying. One of the most touching items held in the Archives is a ‘visiting permission’ card posted to the parents of one such child in 1890. Policy on visitors slowly began to change after 1948, but the rules were still strict.”

What has been the most surprising item to show up at your door?

“In all the time I’ve been at the RCH, it never ceases to amaze me that I still never know who or what is going to turn up at my door or in the post on any given day. Recently I received three large tennis and squash trophy cups won in the 1960’s by doctors and nurses. They were recently found in a former bluestone mill being converted in Port Arlington.”

The RCH’s archival collection recently won an award at the 2016 Sir Rupert Hamer Awards; a testament to Bronwyn’s tireless work and dedication.