The 1882 built front foyer of RPA, known as the Administration Block, displays six marble and bronze busts of people significant to the early development of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

 

Donated by staff and members of the public between 1894 and 1961, busts include Sir Alfred Roberts (ca. 1892, Marble), Sir Thomas Anderson Stuart (1904, Carrara Marble), Dr Frederick Norton Manning (1904, Carrara Marble), Sir Edward Knox (ca. 1904, Bronze), Florence Nightingale (1910, Bronze) and Sir Herbert Schlink (1961, Bronze).

It has also been decided to place stained glass windows in the main waiting hall, which, with the busts, will then form a noble entrance to the Hospital.

RPA Annual Report, 1905

Florence Nightingale OM RRC DStJ (1829-1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and founder of modern nursing. Shortly after returning from the Crimean War in 1860 Florence established the Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital, London. Sir Alfred Roberts requested advice from Florence prior to construction of Prince Alfred Hospital. Many of her design ideas including the long Nightingale Wards, and various infection control measures were adopted. Sir Alfred wrote to Florence in London requesting she gift a copy of a ‘bust of her to be the leading ornament of their new Nurses Home’, currently under construction. The bust arrived and was placed in the alcove inside the main doors. Sadly, it was stolen from the Nurses’ Home in the early 1940s. This is a replica of that bust.