93–97 Macquarie Street, Sydney

93–97 Macquarie Street, Sydney or formerly the Health Department building is a heritage-listed former government office, health clinic and hospital admissions depot and now hotel at 93–97 Macquarie Street, in the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Walter Liberty Vernon and NSW Government Architect and built from 1896 to 1898. It is currently part of the Sir Stamford Hotel, which formerly was a Ritz Carlton Hotel. In its history it has also been used as the Venereal Disease Clinic, STD Clinic, Hospital Admissions Depot and Former Health Board Offices. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 9 October 2013.

Prior to 1897, the Health Department was housed in a large private residence on Macquarie Street, initially sharing the premises with a branch office of the Department of Public Instruction, and later with the Parliamentary Draftsman. By 1889, the department's operations had expanded significantly, occupying the entire building. In 1893, the attic spaces were converted to accommodate a pathological and bacteriological laboratory. By 1895, it was clear that these premises were inadequate; both too small and inappropriate: not "accommodation of the kind requisite to a Health Department conducted and equipped on modern lines". Towards the end of 1895, the government gave instructions for the erection of a new building on the present site. The land had been allocated to the use of the department years earlier, and occupied by a temporary building which served the Government analyst for a laboratory. This coincided with the establishment of the Department of Public Health and the passing of the Public Health Act in 1896 which gave greater responsibility to government in the area of public health. With this responsibility came greater staff and facility needs.

The new building was erected under the supervision of Government Architect W. L. Vernon, and occupied from 1 October 1897. It was not completed until 1898. The final cost of the building was approximately £7,528. Vernon described the appearance of the building in his annual report for 1898 as "of a somewhat different type to Government offices of the city generally, being a Gothic structure of combined brick and stone work." He said that the building had "been specially designed to meet the important and increasing requirements of this branch of the Government Service." The building was a three-storey structure of red brick with freestone dressings and a basement which utilised the slope of the hill on the western side. A large public office occupied the ground floor together with the board room, the centre for notification of infectious diseases and offices for the head of department and his clerical assistants. The Analytical Branch took most of the second floor where there was also an office for the veterinary staff, while the third floor was entirely taken up by the microbiological and pathological laboratories. Equipped with electric motors, these were completed on 24 August 1898. Part of the basement was devoted to "rough work" and a crematory furnace. The remainder was used by the Public Vaccination Station and the Hospital Admission Depot which had direct access to the yard where ambulances waited to ferry patients to the allotted hospitals. Lit by gas, the new offices also enjoyed "telephonic communication". The building served several important roles during the first decades of the twentieth century. From 3 July 1913 free smallpox vaccinations were made available on a daily basis at the Hospital Admission Depot as well as at other city and suburban town halls as a measure to control the smallpox epidemic in Sydney. During World War I, Robert Paton, the f

Hospital data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).