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Edward Millen - Baillie Hill History
Different Site Names Used
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DSC Autism Centre
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Edward Millen Home
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Edward Millen Hospital
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Edward Millen Hostel
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Edward Millen Repatriation Hospital
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Edward Millen Sanatorium
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Edward Millen Soldiers’ Home
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Hillview Centre
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Hillview Child and Adolescent Clinic
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Hillview Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic
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Hillview Clinic
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Hillview Hospital
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Hillview Terrace Hospital
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Mildred Creak Autism Services
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Mildred Creak Autistic Centre
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Mildred Creak Centre
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Mildred Creak Clinic
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Mildred Creak School
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Nurse Bailey’s Hospital
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Nurse Bailey’s Maternity Hospital
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Nurse Millen’s Private Hospital
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Repatriation Sanatorium
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Rotunda Hospital
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Rotunda Maternity Hospital
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Sanatorium Hospital
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Sir Edward Millen Home
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Sir Edward Millen Hostel
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W. E. Robinson Unit
The Victoria Park East Site
When the Swan River Colony was established in 1829, the Beeloo country of the Noongar people, including the land that would later form the Edward Millen site, lay within a vast area of undeveloped bushland known as Canning Location 2. By the mid-19th century, this land had passed into private ownership when it was sold to Henry Manning and remained largely intact within his family until the late 1800s.
Early Land Grants and Ownership
1842 – 13 December: Crown Grant No. 373, comprising 5,320 acres, is issued to Samuel Bickley, an insurance broker with Lloyd’s of London. The land description, taken directly from the surveyor’s field notes, describes a rough square parcel measuring about three miles each way. It’s believed Bickley qualified for the grant through services rendered to the Crown. His son Wallace, who later lived in the area, gave his name to Bickley Brook.
1855 – 22 January: Wallace Bickley transfers Canning Location No. 2 (5,320 acres), along with Avon Location Y No. 18 (640 acres), to Charles Alexander Manning on behalf of his father, Samuel, for £532.
– Charles Manning, the son of a wealthy London merchant, migrated to Western Australia with considerable means and would eventually become one of the colony’s largest landholders. In 1860, he built Davilak House for his son Lucius.
1869 – 01 February: Charles Alexander Manning dies, aged 62.
– 02 September: Lucius Manning marries Florence Augusta, the fourth daughter of Wallace Bickley.
1870 –15 January: An auction conducted by Lionel Samson & Son sees all 29 lots formerly owned by Charles Manning offered for sale, with Henry Manning of London (brother of Charles) emerging as the principal buyer.
– 25 January: Charles’ widow Matilda Manning appears in court on charges of vagrancy after being found sleeping outdoors without means of support. Contemporary accounts describe her living in caves and forcibly entering houses for shelter. She was reportedly estranged from her stepchildren and was admitted to an asylum.
1871 – 15 December: Henry Manning dies, aged 75.
1872 – 11 May: Lucius Alexander Manning resumes ownership of Canning Location 2 and begins issuing newspaper notices warning of prosecution against anyone found cutting timber or firewood on his land.
Subdivision and Urban Growth
1884 – 6 December: Lucius applies to be registered as proprietor in fee simple (full ownership) of Canning Location 2.
1885 – 5 January: A Certificate of Title (Volume XIV, Folio 94) is issued in the name of Lucius Alexander Manning of Fremantle.
– April: Lucius sells the land to an Adelaide-based syndicate.
– 6 November: The Adelaide syndicate sells the land to a Sydney syndicate.
– December: Ownership transfers to The Sydney and West Australian Freehold Land Company Limited. A new Certificate of Title (Volume XXIIII, Folio 373) is issued and the company immediately begins to subdivide the land for sale.
1888 – 9 July: A new Certificate of Title reflects the subdivided lots, with Albany Road appearing on survey plans for the first time.
1889: Canning Location 2 is formally divided into 19 alphabetically named sections.
1893: Lot C of Canning Location 2, approximately 19.2 hectares in modern measurements, is purchased by James Rae.
Victoria Park Takes Shape
1897: Victoria Park is proclaimed an official municipality. Population growth accelerates following the introduction of tram services by Perth Electric Tramways Ltd, linking the area to Perth via the Causeway and Albany Highway. Improved transport access drives further subdivision and residential development.
1903 – 6 November: Canning Location 2, Lot C, is transferred to James Rae’s widow, Alice Bouverie Rae.
1911 – 22 September: Alice Bouverie Rae sells the land to Elizabeth Baillie for £650.
1952 – December 11: A portion of the land is transferred to the City of Perth upon payment of a fee to enable the widening of surrounding roads, requiring all boundary fences to be re-erected.
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Elizabeth Howden Baillie
Elizabeth Baillie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1863, the daughter of Peter Campbell and Mary Howden. She trained as a nurse in Melbourne at Sefton Private Hospital before marrying marine engineer John Baillie in Edinburgh in January 1889. The couple immigrated to Australia in 1891, when Elizabeth was 28 years old.
Over the following years, Elizabeth lived and worked across several Australian states, spending time in New South Wales and Queensland before permanently settling in Western Australia, where she lived for more than three decades. She was formally registered as a nurse in Western Australia in the early 1900s, marking the start of her midwifery career in the outer suburb of Victoria Park.
Elizabeth established the Rotunda Maternity Hospital on Albany Road in Victoria Park, advertising it as high-quality private accommodation for women. She purchased the land in 1911 and financed the construction through two mortgages, with the hospital appearing in official directories from 1912 onward. During the influenza pandemic in 1917, the government temporarily took over the Rotunda as an annex of Perth Public Hospital and Elizabeth’s mortgages were discharged soon after.
In the early 1920s, Elizabeth opened a new facility, the Britannia Hospital, at 13 Gresham Street in Victoria Park rather than returning to her original property. Often referred to as “Nurse Baillie’s Hospital” or “Nurse Baillie’s Nursing Home,” it continued to cater for women seeking private maternity care at moderate fees. The hospital operated throughout the 1920s and was sold in 1928, marking the end of Elizabeth’s active midwifery institutions.
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An AI depiction of Elizabeth Baillie attending a mother and her newborn
Elizabeth’s personal life was complicated, with her husband John Baillie frequently away, working throughout Australia and overseas as a marine engineer. In 1926, he initiated legal proceedings against her concerning land connected to her purpose-built maternity hospital, claiming that compensation paid to Elizabeth following the government’s compulsory acquisition of the land had been retained by her, even though he had originally paid for the property. Elizabeth did not appear in court and the case proceeded in her absence.
Despite this, records show that Elizabeth accumulated significant landholdings, particularly in the Canning area, with multiple property titles transferred into her name during the 1930s. She lived at various addresses in Victoria Park over the years, finally settling at 64 King George Street.
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An AI depiction of Elizabeth Baillie at home with her two parrots
Elizabeth Baillie died alone at her King George Street home in October 1939, aged 76. Police were called after a family member raised concerns and it was believed she’d been deceased for up to two weeks. Her two parrots were also found dead, likely from a lack of food and water. An unattended pot had been left on the stove over a hot stove plate. The cause was recorded as chronic phthisis (an old medical term for advanced tuberculosis, involving prolonged illness and physical wasting) and haemorrhage. She was buried at Karrakatta Presbyterian Cemetery.
Elizabeth died without leaving a will. Her estate, valued at £4,313, was administered in 1940. Although she and her husband had adopted two girls, only one, Norah Attanasoff (born Nancy Norah Johnston Baillie) was legally recognised under later adoption laws and therefore entitled to inherit. Norah went on to become a midwife herself and lived at Elizabeth’s former home. The other adopted daughter, Dora Beesley, was excluded due to the legal limitations of adoption laws at the time.
Elizabeth’s sister, Christina Campbell, moved to Western Australia in 1917 and lived locally until her death in 1953.
Despite Elizabeth Baillie’s significant role in Western Australia’s early private maternity care and her lasting impact on Victoria Park’s midwifery history, including the naming of Baillie Avenue in her honour, no known photograph of her has ever been located. Her life is instead reconstructed through records, advertisements, land titles and newspaper notices, leaving her face unknown but her legacy firmly embedded in the area’s history.
John Baillie
John Baillie was born in 1859 in Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire, Scotland. He married Elizabeth in Scotland when he was 30, before the couple later migrated to Australia. By the mid-1930s, John was living in New South Wales, where he worked as a marine engineer and resided at 19 Elizabeth Street in Paddington.
The marriage eventually broke down and in December 1927 the Supreme Court of New South Wales formally annulled the union. Court records indicate that the decision followed a period of intermittent separation, during which Elizabeth was said to have lived apart from her husband for several years, even after the couple settled in Western Australia in the early 1900s, at a time when there was an expectation that she would follow John as his work continued to take him around the country.
