Saturday, 13 July 2024
The Great Hall, The University of Sydney
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley, Governor of New South Wales

Thank you, Naomi^[1] and Peter^[2]

Bujari Gamarruwa, Diyn Babana, Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands and waterways, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect to the Elders of all parts of our State from which you have travelled. 

Thank you, Yvonne, for your warm Welcome to Country.

[As you have heard], tonight is a celebration of 3 significant anniversaries, which, combined, embody a sesquicentenary of service to eye health in New South Wales. 

However, there is rarely an institutional anniversary that doesn’t have an earlier and invariably a convict genesis, and so it is with eye health in NSW, with the first cataract surgery performed in the colony by a private medical practitioner being by the former convict  William Bland, member of the Royal Society of Surgeons and naval officer transported to the NSW in 1814 having been - how shall I put it - the successful participant in a pistol duel, more legally described as murder on the high seas.^[3]  Pardoned by Governor Macquarie a year later, he commenced the first private medical practice in the colony.^[4]

Bland was not only adept with a pistol, he had a way with words.  He found himself in Parramatta Gaol in 1818 for libelling Governor Macquarie^[5] whom he described as ‘a complete prototype of modern villainy’ –with ‘a heart [that was] a vessel of pollution’. [Do doctors still talk like that?]

Despite that ‘little glitch’, things went exceedingly well until the late 1840’s.  In 1832, Bland was the first in the Colony to ligate the innominate artery to treat an aneurysm, his report of the procedure being only the 7^th in the world.^[6]  He improvised and invented many of his own instruments, ^[7] supported numerous charities^[8], was a vociferous advocate for  progressive and accessible education^[9] including Sydney College, which might be described as the precursor to the establishment of the University of Sydney.  He served three terms in the Legislative Council.^[10] 

However, unable to shake off his murderous convict past, he was overlooked for a position on the Senate of the newly established University.  Incensed, the now 60 year old Bland challenged his principal antagonist, Robert Lowe, to a pistol duel.^[11] With a deft sidestep Lowe sued Bland for incitement to violence. 

Bland is memorialised in the oldest known surviving photograph in Australia taken in 1845,^[12] and better known to this audience, the William Bland Centre at 229 Macquarie St stands opposite the Sydney Eye Hospital.  As an aside William Bland died bankrupt but that may have had something to do with his horseracing activities!

The first specialist ophthalmologist^[13] Thomas Cecil Morgan arrived in 1876.^[14] Dr Morgan was instrumental in establishing the first specialist ward in the colony at the Sydney Infirmary which was to become Sydney Hospital; then to have its own premises at Millers Point,^[15] including in a house in which William Bland had lived and then at Woolloomooloo in a building which is now a Youth Hostel, diagonally opposite Bland Street.^[16]

In opening that Building Governor Sir Walter Davidson couldn’t resist a reference to Dr Bland and his pistol toting prowess.^[17]  Having done the same thing tonight, maybe it’s a governor thing!

At the time of its Woolloomooloo opening in 1922, the Hospital boasted beds for 62 patients^[18].   By the 1960s, over 50,000 people were attending the hospital every year and around 1,100 operations performed in its single operating theatre.^[19]

It was another 30 years before the Sydney Eye Hospital moved to its purpose-built facility at Sydney Hospital.^[20] The ophthalmic ward begun by Thomas Morgan in the Sydney Infirmary nearly 120 years earlier had returned to Macquarie Street.

Today the Sydney Eye Hospital is a hub for cutting-edge treatment and research into eye disease and injury and the training centre for 80% of ophthalmologists in NSW.

Which brings me, finally, to that combined sesquicentenary. 

Sixty years ago, in 1964, the University of Sydney’s Department of Clinical Ophthalmology and Eye Health, still then based at the Woolloomooloo Hospital, was established.

Fifty years ago, in 1974, six Lions Districts within NSW and the ACT came together to form the Lions NSW-ACT Save Sight Foundation.

Forty Years ago, in 1984, the Lions Save Sight Foundation decided to provide seed funding for the establishment of the University of Sydney Save Sight Institute, officially opened by Governor, Sir James Rowland, in 1986.^[21]

To all three organisations, I offer the warmest of thanks for your dedication, world-class expertise and innovation, and vital support of eye health in our community.

Congratulations on your respective anniversaries; I am looking forward to many, many more.

[1] Dr Naomi Koh Belic, science communicator, Master of Ceremonies, who will be introducing the Governor.

[2] Professor Peter McCluskey, Director, Save Sight Institute, The University of Sydney,

[3] John Cobley, ‘William Bland (1789-1868)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography online, available here. The duel arose whilst Dr Bland was serving as ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy ship Hesper, after an argument with the purser, Robert Case. On the convoluted circumstances of the duel, see: P. D. Thompson, Dr Bland in New South Wales, Master of Arts Thesis, ANU, 1967, pp.9-12, available here

[4] Dr Bland served as convict-in-charge of the Castle Hill lunatic asylum for 15 months before being pardoned: Thompson, op. cit., pp.14-15.

[5] An anonymous handwritten manuscript containing a scathing and belittling diatribe (or ‘pipes’ in the parlance of the day) on Macquarie’s governorship and character was found in the mud of Parramatta Road. An inquiry was launched, and a match between the manuscript’s penmanship and Dr Bland’s led him to being convicted: Thompson, op. cit., pp.30-31

[6] Milton J Lewis, ‘Medicine in Colonial Australia 1788-1900’, Medical Journal of Australia online, 7 July 2014, available here. In 1855, Dr Bland also published a description of his invention the Atmotic Ship – a balloon filled with propelled by screw propellors, two driven by steam, two by “their impulsive effects against atmospheric pressure”. A model of the device was shown at the Crystal Palace International Exposition in 1854: Cobley, op. cit.

[7] For instance, the needle he used to perform the ligature of the innominate artery, a sketch of which was included in his account published in the Lancet, and the forceps he designed to remove an enlarged tonsil in 1832: Thompson, op. cit., pp.47, 48.

[8] For instance, the Benevolent Society and the Sydney Dispensary: Cobley, op. cit.

[9] Dr Bland was instrumental in the foundation of several fee-free educational institutions including the Sydney Free Public Grammar School, later, as Sydney College, to be purchased by the University of Sydney; the Female Servants School; and the Mechanics School of Arts: Thompson, op. cit., pp. 5, 55-56, 74-80; Cobley, op. cit.

[10] Dr Bland was elected to the Legislative Council in 1843-1848 and 1849-1850, and, after responsible government, for which he was keen agitator, appointed in 1858-1861: Cobley, op. cit.

[11] George Blaike, ‘Pistols at Dawn’, The Newcastle Sun, 11 June 1954, p.11, available here

[12] ‘Catalogue notes for Dr William Bland c1845’, State Library of NSW online catalogue, available: here

[13] During a period of convalescence after being invalided out of the British Army, he devoted himself to the study of ophthalmology and was appointed resident surgeon at the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital, and, following this, but only briefly, surgeon at the Royal Eye Hospital Manchester, before he emigrated to Australia, seeking milder climes after a bout of tuberculosis: ‘Obituary’, Newcastle Morning Herald, 22 December 1885, p.5, available here

[14] Dr Morgan had previously been in NSW in the years 1858-1860, as surgeon of the newly opened Gundagai Hospital, but returned to England to serve in the British Army Medical Unit, including stints in Bangalore and Madras: ‘Obituary’, Newcastle Morning Herald, 22 December 1885, p.5, available here.

[15] He was assisted in this by the Welsh-born surgeon Thomas Evans: J Frederick Watson, The History of the Sydney Hospital from 1811 to 1911, 1911, p.131, available here

[16] City of Sydney History of Sydney Streets website, available here

[17] Sir Walter Davidson said: “operations for cataract were skilfully performed by a Sydney surgeon. Unhappily, however,” he continued, “[…]  it sometimes happened that operations were delayed while the surgeon and those who were ill-natured enough to disagree with him settled the controversy of the moment with pistols for two and coffee for one.”

[18] 36 male and 26 female: ibid.

[19] The wards were overcrowded, many of the rooms served dual purposes and, although possessed of the finest equipment, there was too little of it and too little space to store what there was. For a comprehensive description of the crammed circumstances in the hospital, see: Kirsten Ward, ‘Eyes are Healed in a Tired Old Building: Sydney’s Most Crowded Hospital’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 22 April 1964, p.4, available here

[20] ‘Our History’, Sydney and Sydney Eye Hospital website, available here.

[21] Given the lack of space at Woolloomooloo, the Institute was housed, until 1997, in the former teaching unit of the Crown Street Women’s Hospital, before moving to the Sydney Eye Hospital campus: ‘Lions Save Sight Institute’, Lions Save Sight Foundation website, available here