The Baby Health Care movement began in Victoria in June 1917 when Dr Isabella Younger Ross (1) opened a centre in Richmond, with Sister Muriel Peck (2) as the Sister in charge. Dr Younger Ross had studied medicine at Melbourne University and Glasgow University. She then worked at the Queen's Hospital for Children in London and this encouraged her interest in child welfare. This interest was reinforced by later study in Chicago. The child health experts emphasised the importance of teaching women hygiene, nutrition etc with the ultimate aim of lowering the child mortality rates.
Dr Younger Ross and Sister Peck were helped in her endeavours by supporters such as Ethel Hemphill and Mrs W. Ramsay (3). Other centres were soon established in the Bouverie Street Clinic in Carlton and City Free Kindergarten in the City and they then spread throughout Victoria. The Victorian Baby Health Centres Association was established in 1918.
I came across, purely by chance, the digitised reports of the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association from 1918 onwards on the Queen Elizabeth Centre website http://www.qec.org.au/professionals/corporate-documents
From the next report lists of the Centres appear along with their opening hours, and later the names of the Nursing Sisters in charge and the names of women on the local committees, so this gives us some indication as to when Centres were opened in each area.
The Shire of Berwick and Shire of Cranbourne were both relatively late in establishing Centres; later than many areas much further from Melbourne. The first mention of local towns I could find in the 1935-1936 Annual report (see here) when both Garfield and Bunyip are listed. Garfield was open Fridays 10.30am to 12 noon and 12.30pm to 1.30pm; Bunyip was open Fridays 2.00pm to 4.30pm. I presume that there must have been local agitation to have these Centres opened in what were by no means the biggest towns in the Shire.
Office bearers of the Bunyip and Garfield branches from the 1936-1937 annual report
In 1937-1938 Annual report the Lang Lang and Pakenham have Centres opened. The report has statistics for Pakenham (or Pakenham East as it was called) - 39 individual babies were treated, plus 13 children over 2 with a total visit of 300 babies and 48 children.
The number of babies attended to at various Centres, including Pakenham, from the 1937-1938 annual report.
It wasn't until the 1938-1939 Annual report that the Shire of Cranbourne presented a report - they had Centres at Lang Lang and Pearcedale. The statistics for Lang Lang were 29 individual babies were treated, plus 21 children over 2 with a total visit of 354 babies and 68 children.
The Tynong Centre was operating according to the 1942-1943 report.
In the 1944-1945 report the Shire of Berwick could present statistics for seven towns - Berwick, Beaconsfield Upper, Bunyip, Garfield, Nar Nar Goon, Pakenham East and Tynong - as Berwick, Beaconsfield Upper and Nar Nar Goon had not been listed before we can assume that these Centres were established during that time.
Gembrook and Officer in the Shire of Berwick had Centres established in the 1945-1946 year and the Shire of Cranbourne established a third Centre, in the town of Cranbourne. In that year the Centre in the town of Cranbourne saw 19 individual babies treated, plus 8 children over 2 with a total visit of 82 babies and 25 children.
Koo Wee Rup was established in 1946-1947, I don't have an exact date. It is interesting to look at the statistics for that year for Cranbourne and Koo Wee Rup - they both had about the same number of individual babies treated (40 for Cranbourne and 42 for Koo Wee Rup) and yet Cranbourne's total baby attendance was 586 and Koo Wee Rup's was 276 - so Cranbourne mothers had an average of 14 visits per baby compared to Koo Wee Rup's 6 per baby - it's hard to know why - were Cranbourne babies more sickly or did more of the mothers live in the town and not on farms and it was easier to attend or did the Infant Welfare Centre Sister encourage more visits?
(1) Dr Isabella Younger Ross (1887-1956), read her Australian Dictionary of Biography here.
(2) Sister Muriel Peck (1882-1947), read her obituary in The Herald of May 21, 1947, here and a tribute to her in the Gippsland Times of June 5, 1947, here. Sister Peck also visited many country towns on the Better Farming Train and gave valuable advice to many rural mothers. I have written about the Better Farming Train, here. I have also written about her in connection to the Lady Talbot Milk Institute, here. Here obituary form the 1946-1947 report is below.
A version of this post, which I wrote and researched, has appeared on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our Past.
