FFF 50 Friday Facts and Fotos Friday 7th July ‘23
Casualty / First Aid building
With such a huge workforce at the workshops, it was inevitable that accidents would happen. So the provision of a first aid room with full-time staff demonstrated a commitment by management to provide good facilities for their employees. These three B &W photos from the PROV files show the original weatherboard Casualty building. The date of its construction is unknown. However, this building was removed in 1942 to make way for the existing cream brick build on the same site. The large building behind is the dining room which we will cover in a future FFF.
The 1942 cream brick building is 12 x 16 metres and is of low architectural significance and differs from every other building in the H1000 area. Built during WW11 it was probably the quickest and easiest to construct at a time to provide a large first aid facility when the staff numbers are believed to have risen to around 7000. The PROV photos are undated, but a comparison of the shot from the clock tower with the colour one taken in June ’21 shows how much the areas has changed in 80 years.
The Hobsons Bay Mens Shed team currently working on the restoration of the clock tower building made a preliminary inspection of the first aid building last year and reported that there was significant work required to make it serviceable again. Nothing that can’t be fixed. It may never be used as a first aid facility again, but it would be a valuable asset as office space.
Regardless of its future use, it is an important piece of the past history of the workshops.
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