QVWC Building Detail

Queen Victoria Women’s Centre (QVWC) has a strong feminist history and is a tribute to the cooperation and determination of women from the past and present. It’s housed in the former Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, which marked a number of  ‘firsts’ for women’s rights and women’s healthcare. The hospital was founded by Australia’s first registered female doctor, Constance Stone, and was the first in Victoria to be run ‘for women, by women’.

Following the closure of the 'Queen Vic' Memorial Hospital in 1989, women banded together to preserve the building that was a legacy of women’s rights and a reminder of this significant part of women’s history. Extensive community campaigns raged for years until the government returned the building to the women of Victoria.

In 1994 the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre (QVWC) was established by a parliamentary Act, which created a QVWC Trust to govern the Centre and gave provision of management and ownership of the QVWC land.

Click on the following links to read more about the Centre’s rich and inspiring history:

• Find out how Constance Stone and the other pioneering women founded the hospital in 1896.

• Read a brief  history of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital. 

• Find out about the history of the Shilling Fund – a fund that every woman in Victoria was asked to contribute one shilling.

• Learn how the community campaigned to preserve the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital site.

• Women’s Stories relay women’s personal experiences with the 'Queen Vic' Memorial Hospital. Do you have a story to contribute?