Our History

In 1808 Captain Townson purchased the 1,950 acres of land (now known as Hurstville & Bexley). In 1811 he sold this land as he considered it untenable for sheep & wool production.

The land grant was sold to Simeon Lord, an emancipated convict & entrepreneur & the area became known as “Lords Forest”. The land was heavily forested & ships regularly entered Botany Bay to collect & transport timber from the area for sale. In 1843 a road was cut through the forest to the Illawarra and today is known as Forest Road.

From 1850 to 1880 the land was subdivided & in 1890 Alexander Loudon, an Alderman at Hurstville Council constructed a two storey Victorian mansion & named the property “Meryla”.

Edith Yeaman born in Victoria & Eleanor Mann born in Armidale, both ex-army nurses who served in the First World War, converted Meryla into a hospital & grounds in 1924 & established “Goshen Private Hospital”. In 1935 they sold the property to Agnes Martin another nurse who went on to lease the hospital to two nurses – Thelma & Evelyn Proctor-Brown.

In 1951 Agnes Martin placed the hospital on the market. Dr Ted Figtree & Dr Alf Thomas were concerned about the sale of the hospital for commercial purpose. $34,000 was raised by 350 shareholders, mostly members of the Hurstville Rotary Club & a number of local businessmen & Hurstville Co-operative Community Hospital was officially opened by the Governor of NSW Sir John Norcott

Over the next several decades new wings of the hospital were opened in 1964, 1972 & 1986. Modern additions & medical facilities were also developed in the 1990s & then again in 2007, when a group of eight surgeons purchased the hospital and commenced a $4million upgrade and modified the name to Hurstville Private Hospital.

In May 2012 Hurstville Private was acquired by Healthe Care, one of Australia’s largest private hospital operators and is one of 14 hospitals owned by the group. The new owner’s submitted plans for a Development Application with the State Government’s Department of Planning for a major $32.2 million development which would almost double the hospital’s size and capacity (click here for more information on the redevelopment project).

Each stage of the development has greatly enhanced the standard of the facility, and the Hospital is proud to remain fully accredited by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards. This is a professional and national recognition of our high standards of care and ongoing commitment to quality improvement