Provided great enjoyment.
Handmade swing type rocking horse, mid-twentieth century. Photographed by Catharine Neilson in 2021 on the verandah of the Paediatrics Clinic at The Maitland Hospital.
(Maitland Hospital Collection 334)
There is a plaque on the front of the frame that reads: ‘Restoration by donation from Beresfield Ladies Bowling Club’.
Left: The rocking horse following restoration in 2005.
From the Beresfield Women’s Bowling Club Golden Jubilee 1955-2005 magazine. Scanned copy provided by June Evans.
June Evans, Secretary of the Beresfield Women’s Bowling Club, contacted former members of the club, Wendy Foster and Yvonne Hissey, to find out more about the fundraising for the restoration of the rocking horse. From their recollections and June’s search of the Club records, June explains:
The Beresfield Women's Bowling Club each year in January ran a "charity day" of bowls. All funds raised went to a charity. At the end of 2003, the Club received a letter from Maitland Hospital asking for donations to restore the "old rocking horse" in the children's ward. Following our Club receiving this request, it was decided to give the money raised at the 2004 Charity Day to restore the rocking horse.
A total of $875 was raised and donated to cover the restoration.
In 2005 the Ladies Club donated $1,300 to the Special Care Nursery to help buy mother and baby monitoring machines.
Details of the rocking horse, 2021.
(Catharine Neilson)
Keith Howard, paediatrician at The Maitland Hospital from 1979 to 2014, recalls:
This rocking horse, and another (see right), provided great enjoyment to countless children throughout the years when the children’s ward was on ‘G’ Ward. It could not be accommodated in the new ward after the move in 1996 but it was subsequently installed in the waiting area of the paediatric clinic …
Right: The other rocking horse.
(Photograph by Bruce Pritchard.)
The rocking horse, or at least a predecessor, can be seen in photographs of the children’s ward.
The horse in the 1936 photograph is most likely the one listed with a number of other donated items reported at a Maitland Hospital Board meeting in February 1933. The meeting noted that it was donated by the ‘Morpeth ladies committee per Mrs Klein’ (Maitland Mercury, 7 February 1933).
Edna Klein (nee Morgan) was instrumental in forming a Morpeth branch of the hospital auxiliary and, as with many of her contemporaries, actively supported a number of charitable organisations.
She was the wife of Dr Keith Klein who had a medical practice in Morpeth, served as a member and mayor of Morpeth Council, was one of the honorary doctors at the Maitland Hospital and was, for a time, on the Board of Directors of The Maitland Hospital.
Right: Doreen Price (nee Morgan), Edna Klein (nee Morgan ) and Keith Klein, about 1960-1962.
(Posted by Robyn Mitchell to Ancestry, May 2020.)
The two rocking horses were featured in the exhibition, A Conspicuous Object - The Maitland Hospital, at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery from 16 October 2021 to 3 February 2022. They were displayed next to Peter Poulet’s painting, Fragments of Memory, in the former front entrance to the Gallery.
One of the rocking horses next to Peter Poulet’s paintings in the former entrance and now front display window of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery as part of the exhibition. The view is from inside The Gallery looking on to High Street.
The rocking horse triggers memories
Greg Perraux
Maitland City Council employee Greg Perraux regularly works at the Art Gallery. He saw the rocking horses on display during the first week of the exhibition. They triggered his memory of a photograph he had of his Dad, James (Jim) Garnham Perraux (1927-2015), as a child on one of the rocking horses. Greg found the photograph.
At the time of the photograph, Greg’s Dad was about 10 years old. He had broken his arm and collarbone and had to return to the hospital to have it rebroken after it had set incorrectly. Greg thinks his Dad had fallen off a pony or had been mucking about on his father’s horse and cart.
Jenny Forster
On seeing the rocking horse at the Art Gallery, Jenny Forster wrote:
My Grandfather was a cabinet-maker in Wallsend. I remember seeing a rocking horse like this in his house as a child. His name was Robert John Owen of 13 Nelson Street Wallsend. I don’t know if the one he had/made ended up in Maitland Hospital or not. I got a shock of recognition when I saw it. He made me a dolls’ house from a pattern in the Womens Weekly. He also made me a desk, a high chair which converted into a rocker (and back to a high chair) and when my father built a pharmacy in Branxton in the 1960s, he did all the fittings and ‘display cases’ as they were called then.
Robert John Owen, Jack Owen, and Robert John Owen, about 1939.
(Jenny Forster collectionO
Jenny Forster’s grandfather, uncle and father.
Sharon Tindall
Sharon Tindall also shared her reactions to seeing the rocking horse at the Art Gallery:
I was born in Maitland Hospital in 1970 and had at least three visits to the children’s ward as a patient. As soon as I saw the rocking horse in the window I knew who it was. I am so happy he has a home! I always wondered where he retired. He gave me so much enjoyment while I was a patient. I rode him so hard I’m surprised I didn’t break him! I loved riding him so much, he made me feel better.
Originally posted: 9 Aug 2021
Updated: 22 Oct 2021, 15 Jan 2022, 5 Feb 2022