Timeline: History of the Prince of Wales Hospital

Date	Event
1852	The Society for Destitute Children formed, resolved to establish an institution “for the reception of abandoned and destitute children of both sexes under the age of eight years”. The Asylum for Destitute Children established in Paddington. The Hon. E. Deas Thomson M.LC referred to "the destitute and deserted children of all ages who crowd the streets and alleys of the city; and the pressing necessity for their reclamation from the state of wretchedness and vice in which they are now living." (A Coast Chronicle: The History of the Prince Henry Hospital, Clement R Boughton, 1981 p54)
1854	Simeon Pearce, first Mayor of Randwick and a member of the Society, secured a grant of 60 acres on Avoca Street. An £11,000 bequest from the estate of a murdered doctor allowed construction of the Asylum to begin.
1856	The Foundation stone was set in May. The building, to be constructed of Hawkesbury Sandstone, was designed to accommodate 400 children.
1858	On 21 March the Asylum for Destitute Children occupied for the first time.
By 1868	A new wing for 400 more children built. Daily average around 700 children living in the Asylum.
1870	Catherine Hayes Hospital opens after successful public appeal for funds. Plans apparently approved by Florence Nightingale.
1870s	Dairy farm maintained on site by boys. Schooling and apprenticeships provided for older boys.
1883	The “boarding out” system for accommodating wayward children introduced, reducing Asylum residents to 250 by 1886.
1890s	Numbers continue to decline.
1915	NSW Government converted the institution to a military hospital, renamed The Fourth Australian Repatriation Hospital.
1915 – 1953	The Fourth Australian Repatriation Hospital used variously as a military or repatriation hospital, until repat patients moved to the new Concord Repatriation Hospital in 1953.
1953	Facility renamed as The Prince of Wales Hospital, and is managed as an annex of Sydney Hospital.
1961	The Prince Henry and Prince of Wales Hospitals restructure under one board.
1964	Single Chief Executive, Sir H.H. "Jack" Dickinson, appointed to run The Prince Henry and The Prince of Wales Hospitals.
1976	The Prince of Wales Children’s Hospital established.
1993	The NSW Government announced a $160 million upgrade to Hospital services for Eastern Sydney. The redevelopment of the Randwick Campus began.
1994	Huts originally built as a part of the Repatriation Hospital were demolished (with the excpetion of Hut "U") to make way for new construction.
1995	In July the Heritage Council of NSW endorsed a plan to excavate the original site of the Destitute Children's Asylum and the cemetry. The original hyperbaric chamber located at Prince Henry Hospital was transferred to the Randwick Campus.
1996	In July, the Prince Henry Hospital Emergency Department relocated to the Randwick Campus. Gastroenterology wards followed in October.
1997	Royal Hospital for Women transfers to the Randwick Campus. The Campus Centre's 19 operating theatres (the largest suite of operating theatres in Australia) opened in October.
1998	Sydney Children’s Hospital redeveloped.

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