Robert McAllister
Adelaide Martens was born in London in 1845, the daughter of a sugar baker. There is little known of her early years, but when she was 17 she decided to emigrate to the antipodes. She obtained work as a stewardess and sailed to Australia, then on to New Zealand. While working as a stewardess on coastal boats between Invercargill and Christchurch she met Henry Hicks, a cook and steward on the same ship. His mother was English, and his father a freed Afro-American slave. Adelaide and Henry were married in Invercargill and moved to Dunedin, to live in Leith Street.
Henry continued his work on coastal boats and Adelaide obtained domestic work. In 1884 they moved to Mosgiel where Henry worked as a woodsman in the Big Bush. They had nine children, and when the youngest was still a toddler, Henry was kicked by his horse. He died from internal hemorrhage, leaving Adelaide with a large family and no certain work. At the time of Henry’s death they were living in a small house on the edge of the bush near the Silver Stream, and when this stream flooded she put the smaller children on the kitchen table to protect them from drowning. This experience encouraged her to shift into Mosgiel and higher ground.
When she found little in the way of domestic work in Mosgiel, she thought of her experience nursing passengers on the coastal boats and helping other women in childbirth. So she decided to open a nursing home. She bought a small dwelling in Mosgiel (which was added to as her work increased) and, aided by her two older daughters, began taking in patients. She was described as diminutive, energetic and very competent. She read books and studied what she could find on illness and treatment, and became very skilled. When the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act was passed in 1908 she applied for registration and became the first in the district to run a registered institution. This required regular auditing of standards of care, and proper recording of activities such as births.
She was once called to a serious accident in the Wingatui rail tunnel where there were deaths and serious injuries, and impressed all with her professionalism. She worked as a volunteer during the 1918 flu epidemic, and received a letter of thanks for this from the Otago Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. She offered voluntary counselling and support for female employees of the Mosgiel woollen mill. She also visited patients in their homes to nurse and treat them. She was an active supporter of the suffragette movement.
In 1922 she returned to England to visit brothers. A big farewell was held by the Mosgiel community, with a generous gift of money for her journey. While in England her visit was described in the London papers and she received an invitation to Buckingham Palace to meet Queen Mary. (She had met the Duchess of Cornwall and York in Dunedin in 1901.)
On the voyage home her ship and another collided. Severe damage was done to her ship, with a large hole torn in the side. In the evening when Adelaide left her cabin to find the stateroom, she was disorientated in the dark and very nearly stepped through the gaping hole. A near miss!
In 1927, Adelaide handed over the care of her nursing home to her daughter Edith. Adelaide Hicks died in 1930 at the age of 85.
Her daughter Edith continued to run the nursing home and retired in the 1940s.
Robert McAllister is a retired GP. He first learned of Adelaide Hicks through personal conversations with Edith Hicks (Adelaide Hick’s daughter) in the 1960s. Adelaide Hick’s Register of Births, and her diary with jottings of some nursing information she had gathered, are held in the archives of the Otago Medical School.
Other sources:
- Karen Duder. ‘Hicks, Adelaide‘, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1993, updated November, 2013. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
- Papers Past
Also by Robert McAllister on Corpus: Stewart Peters: unqualified practitioner of medicine, dentristy and pharmacy
I’m pleased to see this. I’d had the very very bare bones of her story and this puts considerable meat on the bones of her story. Thank you-this is a joy to discover
This is a wonderful story. Thank you.
I am direct descendant of Nurse Adelaide Hicks. Some factual errors but very nice to see this online.
Sorry to be so late in replying. I have just noted your comment. I would like to correct any errors in the story, and would be very grateful for any further information. I knew Edith Hicks (and Jim) 50 to 70 years ago. Edith gave my father case books of her mother, and I passed them on to the medical school as a valuable addition to their records.
Also I was fascinated by the life of Sir Stanton Hicks, and I think he had a son who was a prominent physician in the USA. If you had any further details of their lives, I would be most grateful.
Sincerely, Robert McAllister (a retired GP in Mosgiel)
Thats fine Dr McAllister. I’m just delighted to learn that you have been involved in this story.
I did not realise that the Medical School had Edith’s records but I still do have some of Adelaide’s papers some of which Dr Ali Clarke put to good use in her 2012 history of childbirth in New Zealand, https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2538662/alison-clarke-childbirth-in-19th-century-nz
Te Ara also published some images from our records a few years ago which you may already know about….
https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/38863/outside-the-maternity-home
Do you have a private email address Robert and where are you currently living please?
Kind regards
Ralph Lawrence
Pleased to read your comprehensive summary of my great grandmother’s life Robert.
Growing up with her daughter Annie I recall many hours with the women of the family around the kitchen table shelling peas and beans and cooking while Annie spoke at length of her mother and some of her often unusual experiences. A herstory of many local families around the kitchen table.
It was also my privilege to have benefited from Ediths advice as a mother of newborns, and to have stayed overnight so many times with Edith in Factory Road and to have run messages for her after school.
Adelaide was an Inspiring woman who raised fabulous daughters and left strong role models for the women of the family
I have Adelaides photograph album, an interesting snapshot of the Martens, and many cherished Hicks photos .
Thank you Robert for your work.
I
Hello Helen it is very good to have the communication with you and learn some more about Adelaide and Edith. Such a lot to learn about life from them. I will be in touch.
Regards, Robert McAllister
Thank you so much for this wonderful story. This is the most that I have heard of Henry’s parents ( my Great Grandparents), I have been searching for years. I would love to contact you directly if possible?
Hello Robert
I came upon this story while searching for the childhood address of Sir Stanton Hicks in Ravensbourne, that I have not found yet.
I wonder, was the Adelaide Hicks nursing home down the end of Inglis Street? Our family lived at number 5 and some of my siblings were born down there. Our family GP was doctor McAllister, just round the corner in Gordon Road. I always admired his fabulous Alvis sports cars!
I’m pretty sure I have the address of the house and have visited it several times in recent years.