A gold key.

In 2001 Maitland High School Foundation acquired three local heritage items at auction. One of these was a key crafted to mark the opening of the 1905 Maitland Hospital Building. The newspaper report explains that the key came from an auction of items belonging to Joseph Carruthers who, as Premier, opened the building in February 1905.

Plaque commemorating Carruthers opening of the building in 1905.

(Maitland Hospital Collection Item 32)

Photograph of what is most likely Carruthers and others at the opening ceremony for the 1905 building.

(Maitland Hospital Collection 165.170)

Commemorative key, 1905.

(Maitland Hospital Collection 359)

The key, in its velvet lined box, is now in the Maitland Hospital Collection. It is etched on the back with the words ‘Maitland Hospital 23-3-05’. The front has a shield perhaps intended for a further inscription.

The Maitland Mercury (22 March 1905) report of the opening ceremony notes that Carruthers was given ‘a gold key’ to commemorate the occasion, and that the key was presented to him by the granddaughter of Edward Denny Day who had laid the foundation stone for the original hospital. The event took place on ‘a platform outside the men’s ward’.

The lid of the case has the jeweller’s label – ‘J.H. Hart, Watchmaker and Silversmith, West Maitland’.

The jeweller, John Hart, established his business in 1877 and, in 1885 built the still extant Hart’s Buildings in High Street. He operated his jewellery business there until his death in 1928.

Maitland Mercury, 9 February 2001

Photo: Barbara Rodham, Quality Manager, The Maitland Hospital, and Ray Morris, Secretary, Maitland High School Foundation Board of Trustees.

(Press clipping from Maitland and District Historical Society Pamphlet Files)