Friend of the sick.
Memorial stone to Thomas Evans.
(Maitland Hospital Collection 31)
Made from Carrara marble, this memorial stone is embedded in the wall of the corridor between the two oldest buildings in the Maitland Hospital. It was put in place in October 1903 at the same time as the foundation stone was laid for the new ward building that opened two years later.
Looking down the stairs that join the 1849 and 1905 buildings: the memorial stone can be seen on the wall at the bottom of the stairs, July 2019.
Thomas Evans (1812-1892) was a founding member of the Maitland Benevolent Asylum and subsequently of the Maitland Hospital. He served on the hospital board. He was also an active Mason, a supporter of the School of Arts, was elected a number of times to the local council, and served as a Justice of the Peace.
Born in 1812 in Parramatta, he spent most of his adult life in Maitland where he had a farm along the Louth Park Road. He was clearly prominent in community affairs and earned himself the nickname of ‘honest Tom’. He was regarded as fair-minded and community-spirited. When, for example, he left the locality in 1858 to spend a decade at Doughboy Hollow outside Murrurundi, he was presented with a laudatory testimonial as well as a gold watch and an inscribed silver plate. His work as a member of the local Masonic Lodge was recognised through a portrait of him in full regalia: the portrait still hangs in the Masonic Lodge Room. Similarly, his services to Maitland Hospital were recognised through the memorial stone placed in his name (the dates on the stone mark the period of his active involvement with the hospital) and through a portrait that was hung in the hospital boardroom.
Portrait of Thomas Evans by Morris Moss, 1883.
(Maitland Lodge of Unity)
‘… the picture is three feet by two feet four inches, and … is finished in oils and water colours’. It was ‘executed to the order of the brethren of the mystic tie’.
(Maitland Mercury, 13 Oct 1883)
Photographic portraits of Thomas Evans, later 19th century.
(Maitland and District Historical Society 2014.3044)
Maitland Mercury, 17 November 1892.
The original portrait made for the Maitland Hospital has disappeared. A copy is included in a framed collection of copies of portraits that, in 2021, hangs in the Education Unit’s corridor. The originals of the other portraits have also disappeared.
Framed copies of the portraits that once hung on the walls of the Maitland Hospital.
(Maitland Hospital Collection 53)