Gullett, Lucy Edith (1876-1949)

Field of activity
Medical practitioner and Philanthropist; general practitioner; Physician
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-742067

Biographies

GULLETT, LUCY EDITH (1876-1949), medical practitioner and philanthropist, was born on 28 September 1876 at Hawthorn, Melbourne, third daughter of Henry Gullett, journalist, and his wife Lucy, née Willie. She was educated at Sydney Girls' High School and the University of Sydney (M.B., 1900; Ch.M., 1901). In 1901-02 she was first resident medical officer at the Women's Hospital, Crown Street, and in 1902-03 was resident surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Brisbane. In 1906 her father bought her a general practice at Bathurst, New South Wales, but in 1911 she returned home to Wahroonga to provide company for her unmarried sister Minnie. In 1922-33 the Gullett sisters lived in a waterfront house built for them at Kirribilli. Their last home was in Wyagdon Street, North Sydney.

View the full record at Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

A pioneer for women doctors and a tireless committee-woman, Lucy Gullett was inspired by the success of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital in Melbourne to found a hospital run by women for women. The Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children, as it became, opened in 1922. Gullett was also a one-time candidate (Independent) for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of North Sydney in 1932.

Lucy Edith Gullett was born in Melbourne, daughter of journalist Henry Gullett and his wife Lucy (née Willie). The family later moved to Sydney, where Lucy Gullett was educated at Sydney Girls’ High School and the University of Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1901 and became first resident medical officer at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital. From 1902 she was resident surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Brisbane. In 1906, Gullett’s father bought her a general practice in Bathurst, NSW, but five years later she returned home to live with her unmarried sister, Minnie.

Lucy Gullett seemed to collect eccentric characters. Her sister was ‘a Shakespeare 'buff', an enthusiastic member of the Lunacy Reform League of Australia, and a generous supporter of stray animals, drunks and ex-patients from lunatic asylums to whom she devoted most of her inheritance’, according to Ann Mitchell of the ADB. In 1922, Gullett set up the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children (Sydney) with Dr Harriet Biffin, who was known for visiting her patients in a dog-cart and had a ‘flair’ for Greek. Her mother, Mrs Henry Gullett, wrote the ‘fashionable intelligence’ of the Ladies’ Column in the Australasian under the pseudonym Humming Bee. The Gullett family were comfortably off, and Lucy and Minnie were able to persuade their sisters to contribute to a commission from Bertram Mackennal costing £10,000, installed in 1926. The six-figure group was a Shakespeare memorial proposed by Henry Gullett before his death in 1914.

Lucy Gullett was a member of Queen’s Club. She travelled to Europe during the first World War to serve in a French Red Cross military hospital in Lyons. She was honorary physician to the Renwick Hospital for Infants (1918-32). Later, from 1934-49, she was on the council of the Sydney District Nursing Association. In 1932 she stood unsuccessfully as women’s candidate for the Legislative Assembly seat of North Sydney, but was elected to the executive committee of the United Associations of Women in 1935, serving as vice-president in 1936-38 and 1943.

Gullett’s plans for what became the Rachel Forster were inspired by the success of Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, and she founded the New South Wales Association of Registered Medical Women in 1921 to get things started. Like so many hospitals, the Rachel Forster began as an outpatient dispensary. Gullett and Biffin ‘shouldered most of the early financial responsibility’, according to the hospital history. In 1941 Gullett announced her next project, and the Lucy Gullett Convalescent Home was opened in Bexley in November 1946. Described as ‘short and thickset like her father’, Lucy Gullet was ‘unfailingly kind-hearted’ and had ‘instant rapport with the working-class women who were her patients’. On her death in 1949, the majority of her £15,918 estate was left to her family.

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

Lucy Edith Gullett ran a private practice in North Sydney from 1912. She was a physician to the Renwick Hospital for Infants 1918-32 and founded the New South Wales Association of Registered Medical Women in 1921 and the Rachel Forster Hospital in 1925.

View the full record at Encyclopedia of Australian Science

Related people and organisations

Resources for Lucy Edith Gullett

Selected resources (9)

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Australian Women's Register

  1. In Her Gift: Activism and Altruism in Australian Women's Philanthropy, 1880-2005
    Lemon, Barbara
    [2008]
    Published: School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
  2. Rachel Forster Hospital: the first fifty years
    Cohen, Lysbeth
    [1972]
    Published: Rachel Forster Hospital
  3. Putting Skirts on the Sacred Benches: Women Candidates for the New South Wales Parliament
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2006]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/pssb/home.html
  4. In Her Gift: Women Philanthropists in Australian History
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2009]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/wiph/home.html
  5. Gullett, Lucy Edith (1876-1949)Australian Dictionary of Biography Online : Gullett, Lucy Edith (1876-1949)
    Mitchell, Ann M.
    [2006]
    Published: Australian National University
    Series: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090133b.htm
  6. National Library of Australia: Milestones in Australian Medicine: Dr. Lucy Edith Gullett (1971)
    Postcard, Sydney: Park, Davis.
    Record ID 2987587

Encyclopedia of Australian Science

  1. Gullett, Lucy Edith (1876-1949)Australian Dictionary of Biography Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle 9 139-140 : Gullett, Lucy Edith (1876-1949)
    Mitchell, Ann M.
    [1983]
    Published: Melbourne University Press
  2. Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales: Lucy Edith Gullett - Records (1900 - 1949)
    Information in the minutes of the New South Wales Association of Registered Medical Women from 1921; the minutes of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children 1922-49; the minutes of the United Association of Women.

Resources about Lucy Edith Gullett (1)

  1. Dr. Lucy Edith Gullett
    [ Book : 1970 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 10.569)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 10.569)

No Comments for this person

 

Add a comment



Possibly related

Digitised newspapers and more

Searching...

Minimise

Diaries, letters, archives

Searching...

Minimise

Archived websites (1996 – now)

Searching...

Minimise

Pictures, photos, objects

Searching...

Minimise

Books

Searching...

Minimise

Music, sound and video

Searching...

Minimise

People and organisations

Searching...

Minimise

Journals, articles and data sets

Searching...

Minimise

Maps

Searching...

Minimise

Lists

Searching...

Minimise
  1. Lucy Walters
    Created by m00rish, 2 items.

    Possible matches for Lucy C Walters (1886-1915) who married Gordon Charles Frauenfelder

  2. Searching for Edith
    Created by waltervp, 1 item.

    Looking for any van Praag mentions in Sydney so we can track down Edith van Praag

  3. Western Mail Article finds Edith Kirkby's family
    Created by EmilyValda, 1 item.

    After 20 years we have finally found a missing sibling from our Howard Family Tree. The Howard family arrived in Melbourne in 1853, aboard Ship Mariner. Parents Richard and Sarah Howard (nee Wye.later...

People and organisations

No results

Minimise
  1. Website: Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre
    www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au
    Matching pages:
    View 210 matching archived pages
    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.08)

    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.08)

  2. Website: Australian Women's Archives Project
    www.womenaustralia.info
    Matching pages:
    View 18 matching archived pages
    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.074)

    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.074)

  3. Website: Putting skirts on the sacred benches : women candidates for the New South Wales Parliament
    www.womenaustralia.info
    Matching pages:
    View 6 matching archived pages
    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.07)

    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.07)

  1. OBITUARIES.(LOCAL/STATE)(Obituary)
    Sarasota Herald Tribune
    [ Article : 1997 ]
    View online (conditions apply)
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

  2. AMT welcomes new certificants: February 14, 2011, through May 15, 2011
    AMT Events
    [ Article : 2011 ]
    View online (conditions apply)
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

Music, sound and video

No results

Minimise

Maps

No results

Minimise

Pictures, photos, objects

No results

Minimise
  1. Strength of purpose : Australian women of achievement from Federation to the mid-20th century / Susanna De Vries
    De Vries, Susanna, 1935-
    [ Book : 1998 ]
    At 127 libraries
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.004)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.004)

  2. U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1969 January - June
    U.S. Copyright Office
    [ Book ]
    read online at Open Library/Internet Archive
    View online
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

  3. U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1963 July - December
    U.S. Copyright Office
    [ Book ]
    read online at Open Library/Internet Archive
    View online
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

  4. U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1965 July - December
    U.S. Copyright Office
    [ Book ]
    read online at Open Library/Internet Archive
    View online
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

  1. Papers of Patricia Clarke
    Clarke, Patricia, 1926-
    [ Unpublished : 1887-2005 ]
    At National Library
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.002)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.002)

  2. Papers of William Morris Hughes
    Hughes, W. M. (William Morris), 1862-1952
    [ Unpublished : 1865-1958 ]
    View online
    At National Library
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.001)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.001)

  3. Papers of Daisy Bates
    Bates, Daisy, 1859-1951
    [ Unpublished : 1833-1990 ]
    At National Library
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.001)

    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0.001)

  1. CORONER'S FINDING. DEATH OF MISS GULLETT. SYDNEY, September 14.
    The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933) Thursday 15 September 1932 p 11 Article
    ... while out walking in extremely In- clement weather. Lucy Edith Gullett, medical prac- titioner, ... f CORONER'S FINDING. I DEATH OF MISS GULLETT. SYDNEY, September 14. An "inquiry was held at Katoomoa into the death of Miss Anna Rose Gullett (aged 50), who died on or about September 10 in a gully ... 97 words
    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)

    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)

  2. DEATH OF MISS A. R. GULLETT CORONER'S FINDING. Sydney, Sept. 14.
    Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1916 - 1938) Tuesday 20 September 1932 p 19 Article
    ... exposure while out walking. in extremely inclement weather. Lucy Edith Gullett medical prac .tioneer, ... DEATH OF A. R. GULLETT CORONER'S FINDING. Sydney, Sept. 14. Mr. A. Judges, Coroner at Katoomba, held an inquiry to-day into the death "of Miss Anna Rose Gullett (50), who died on or about September ... 98 words
    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)

    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)

  3. SOME OF THE CANDIDATES WHO ARE CONTESTING SEATS AT THE APPROACHING STATE ELECTIONS.
    The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Monday 6 June 1932 p 10 Article Illustrated
    ... SOME OF THE CANDIDATES WHO ARE CONTESTING SEATS AT THE APPROACHING STATE ELECTIONS. ALDERMAN _ ?? A-DERMAN H. L. PRIMROSE, united Australia Party, North Sydney. DR. LUCY EDITH GaLLETT, Women's Candidate, North Sydney. MR. CECIL H. MURPHY, Federal Labour Party, North Sydney. MR. BENJAMIN HOWE, ... 69 words
    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)

    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.015)