Memory Lane – Lift West Wall
Milk health of Australian children
Turrbal Country
In December 1956, the Menzies-Fadden coalition Commonwealth government passed The State Grants (Milk Commonwealth government passed The State Grants (Milk health of Australian children. Queensland entered the scheme) in February 1953, the last of the Australian states. Milk was supplied under contract to all Queensland state schools, child care centres and kindergartens for all children under 13 years. It had to be pasteurized, bottled and capped and had to comply with the Health Act 1937 and regulations.
The quantity – as one-third of a pint of milk per student. The milk was to be kept in a cool place (often difficult in Queensland summers) and consumed at morning recess. Milk factories across Queensland had contracts to distribute the milk. At a time when many families in Australia were struggling financially, the scheme gave many children an important source of nutrition. The free milk scheme ended in 1973.
Brisbane General Hospital and Women’s Hospital
Yugara and Turrbal Country
Twelve babies born in Brisbane who will only celebrate a birthday every four years. (Description taken from Courier Mail, 2 March 1940) Twelve leap year babies— nine boys and three girls— were born at the Brisbane Women’s Hospital yesterday. They will have a birthday anniversary only once every four years. This no doubt will suit the parents, but not the children.”
Brisbane General Hospital and Women’s Hospital, Nurse’s lecture room – 1946
Yugara and Turrbal Country
The first hospital in Brisbane, the Moreton Bay General Hospital, was established in 1849 near the site of the present Supreme Court in the CBD. In 1867, a new hospital was built at Herston and patients were moved to the Brisbane Hospital. The first nurses graduated from the hospital in 1888. Since that time, the hospital has provided training for thousands of nurses and midwives.
Dates of interest:
- 1888 – First nurses graduated from the hospital
- 1892 – First midwives commenced training
- 1938 – Nursing staff sign on for the first shift at the Royal Women’s Hospital
- 1938 – First baby born at Royal Women’s Hospital
- 1970s – Enrolled nurse training commenced at RBH and men were first accepted for nursing training in 1971
- 1980s – University led training for nursing commenced in 1989
Primary school children in a maths class – circa 1970
Turrbal Country
This is a typical Queensland classroom with furniture of the era. Students are having a maths lesson using cuisenaire rods. The clatter of these coloured wooden pieces was an essential feature of busy morning work in the lower primary grades in the 1960s and 70s. They provided a hands-on way to explore maths and learn concepts such as the four basic arithmetical operations, working with fractions and finding divisors. By the 1980s cuisenaire rods were going out of favour.