The trained nurse behind an early Timaru private hospital
Birth unknown–1956
Nurse
Private hospital founder
In 1912, Sister Susan McArthur opened a private hospital in a two-storeyed brick building on Chester Street, now Bidwill Street. It was more than a place to care for patients, it was a business, a medical facility and a considerable personal undertaking led by a trained nurse at a time when women had few opportunities to establish institutions of their own.
McArthur belonged to one of New Zealand’s earliest generations of state-registered nurses. The Nurses Registration Act 1901 was the first legislation of its kind in the world, helping to establish nursing as a recognised profession requiring formal training and examination. Susan gained her Dunedin Hospital certificate in 1902 and passed the State examination in 1903.
The official Nurses’ Register records that she worked at Timaru Hospital from 1902 to 1908 before becoming matron of Gisborne Hospital during 1908 and 1909. A Gisborne newspaper reported her departure from Timaru in November 1907 to take up her new appointment. She then gained a midwifery certificate from St Helens Hospital in Christchurch in 1909 and undertook private nursing before opening her own hospital in 1912.
Her St Helens training was significant. These government maternity hospitals had been established in response to concern about maternal and infant deaths and provided both maternity care and specialist training for midwives. Susan therefore brought together experience in general nursing, hospital leadership, maternity care and private nursing.
On 13 July 1912, she opened her hospital on land that had once been addressed as Henry Street, then Chester Street and later Bidwill Street. Although sometimes described as a house, it was a purpose-built, two-storeyed brick hospital. It included patient rooms and an operating theatre, while nurses lived on site so that care could be provided around the clock. The building had the welcoming scale and appearance of a large home, but it was planned for medical care.
McArthur’s hospital offered patients privacy, skilled nursing and an alternative to the public hospital. Her surgical, general nursing and midwifery experience enabled her to care for people through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
She was not the first person to provide private hospital care in Timaru. Whare Nana Private Hospital was already advertising in January 1912, and other trained nurses operated small hospitals and maternity homes. Susan’s importance lies not in an uncomplicated claim to being “first”, but in the scale and endurance of what she created. Her hospital became one of the foundations from which Bidwill’s continuing story developed.
For more than 20 years, Susan managed the hospital and carried the professional and financial responsibility that came with it. By the 1930s, Timaru’s smaller private hospitals could no longer meet increasing demand. Local doctors and businesspeople formed the Timaru Private Hospital Company, and Susan sold her property to the new company for £3,000, partly in cash and partly in shares. A larger Timaru Private Hospital opened on the site in 1936.
The organisation later became a charitable trust in 1977 and opened the present Bidwill Trust Hospital on Elizabeth Street in 2001. Bidwill traces its history of service to Susan’s hospital in 1912 and is recognised as the South Island’s longest continuously operating private hospital. Today it remains South Canterbury’s only private surgical hospital.
Susan McArthur’s story helps us see something easily overlooked in hospital histories. Buildings, doctors, investors and boards all mattered, but trained nurses also established services, managed institutions and took substantial professional and financial risks to meet the needs of their communities.
The hospital changed its buildings, ownership and name, but the line of care continued. More than a century later, patients are still being cared for through an institution that traces its beginning to the skill, independence and determination of Sister Susan McArthur.
Read the existing WuHoo story: Sister Susan McArthur: A History Hunt into an Early Timaru Private Hospital
Sources
New Zealand Gazette, Register of Nurses, 1920
Records Susan McArthur’s Dunedin Hospital certificate, State examination, work at Timaru Hospital, appointment as matron at Gisborne Hospital, St Helens midwifery certificate, private nursing and operation of a private hospital from 1912.
Gisborne Times, 25 November 1907
Records her departure from Timaru to take up a nursing appointment at Gisborne Hospital.
Timaru Herald, 13 July 1912
Reports the opening and design of Susan McArthur’s private hospital.
Timaru Herald, 20 January 1912
Shows that Whare Nana Private Hospital was already operating in Timaru, making “one of Timaru’s early private hospitals” more accurate than an unqualified claim that McArthur’s was the first.
Bidwill Hospital Timeline
Documents the development from Susan McArthur’s hospital through the Timaru Private Hospital Company, the formation of Bidwill Trust Hospital and the later expansion of its facilities.
Aoraki Heritage Collection: Bidwill Trust Hospital
Supports the 1912 institutional connection and identifies the original Chester Street hospital as part of Bidwill’s history.