In these monthly articles, occasional mention has been of made of Dr Victor Ratten who had a medical practice in Sheffield between Jan 1908 and April 1916. He brought a new style of medical practice to this sleepy little country town, that jolted this rural community into the twentieth century. Energetic and confident, Victor Ratten (29) arrived clean shaven without whiskers or moustache, driving one of the first motorcars to come to the Kentish. He established a massive practice, opened his own private hospital, became health officer for the Kentish Municipal Council, joined the local Lighthorse Brigade as their doctor and became a JP.  People were amazed at the speed in which he could reach the sick and injured, his sociable ‘persona’ and his sporting prowess. When WWI broke out, he immediately sailed with the first contingent of soldiers to the Middle East where for several months he served as surgeon to wounded and dying soldiers, before returning to his practice in Sheffield. In 1917 he purchased a medical practice in Hobart and the following year chosen to be Surgeon-General of the Royal Hobart Hospital, where his flimsy US medical credentials were ruthlessly challenged by jealous British educated doctors. Dubbed ‘Tasmania’s most controversial and flamboyant medic’, Ratten’s reputation surpassed all other Tasmanian doctors, with one possible exception. For a doctor who so impacted our island state, we need to look in more detail at his time in Sheffield and following his intriguing Tasmanian story to the end

Early life 

Born 1878 in Kew, Victoria, Victor Ratten was the oldest child of George & Eliza Ratten. Victor was educated in two private schools run by his father in Vic and NSW. Later his father became an ordained Anglican minister. As a youth, Victor was a talented sportsman, winning several cycling championships. Qualifying as a dentist in Sydney in 1899, he commenced a dental practice in country NSW, but in 1903 moved to Brisbane.  Subsequently he went to the USA, where in March 1907, he obtained a diploma of medicine from Harvey Medical College, Chicago. This college was short-lived and later in Hobart, the validity of Ratten’s medical qualifications came under intense scrutiny by a special parliamentary inquiry. . 

When Victor returned to Brisbane with his medical diploma, the ambitious and charismatic young doctor began dating Miss Blanche Greaves, daughter of a Brisbane Irish-Catholic publican. Convent educated, with plenty of natural vivacity, Blanche loved music, singing and theatre; her talented voice having won her a part in a musical comedy The Skirt Dancer. 

Victor Ratten came on to Tasmania to visit his father, now rector of St Paul’s Church, Stanley. In Hobart Ratten presented his recent certificate to the Medical Board in Hobart and was registered as a doctor on 22 May 1907. He then looked for a place to practice and bought the practice of Dr Ed Chisholm in Sheffield whose was leaving. Returning to Brisbane, Victor Ratten married Blanche Greaves in Oct 1907 and following their honeymoon, settled in Sheffield, where in due course their two sons were born – John in 1909 and William 1911. 

Sheffield

Victor & Blanche took over house/surgery of Dr Chisholm on the corner of Main & Henry St next to the present Chinese restaurant. Dr Ratten then rented a house off Main St, (where the Visitor Centre now stands) to open his own hospital in Sheffield.Dr Ratten hired local nurse Flora Buck (36) as Matron. Thirteen years earlier Flora had married, but after her husband deserted her, she went to Launceston and trained as nurse/midwife. After running Dr Ratten’s hospital for four years, Matron Flora Buck discovers she is pregnant and leaves for Launceston to await her baby’s arrival. This baby was born in Oct 1912 on Flora’s 40th birthday and registered Florence Buck.

Meanwhile in 1909 Dr Ratten purchased the block diagonally opposite across Main St and built an elaborate eleven-room house facing Main St, with his adjoining surgery facing Henry St. It also had an underground cool cellar. Separate from the residence was Ratten’s big entertainment room with large fireplace and two billiard tables for special social evenings. To complete the complex, a concrete swimming pool was built on the Henry St side of the house. When Tasmanian branch of the British Medical Association (BMA) was formed in 1911, Dr Ratten applied for membership but was refused on account of his American qualifications.

In 1911 Ratten had Sheffield builder James Sellars construct a much larger private hospital next door to his house. His specially designed nine-room hospital he called St Helen’s Hospital became operational in Oct 1912 when Sister Jean Davidson ex-Matron of Geelong General Hospital took charge. Ratten loved his surgery and about a supposed ‘epidemic of appendicitis, it was said: there wasn’t a rabbit in Sheffield left with an appendix.   

Not only did Dr Ratten have one of the first cars owned by Kentish residents, he changed it  every two years. His second car was purposely fitted to allow a stretcher to slide in the back of the vehicle.  In Jan 1912 his 3rd car was an imported Lorainne Deitrich from France and his 4th motor vehicle a 33hp Fiat from Italy – one of most expensive cars imported into Australia to date.  Registered in Jan 1914, the same month Dr Ratten was fined for excessive speeding along Marine Terrace, Burnie. 

But it was as a local sportsman Ratten further distinguished himself. The Sheffield Cricket Club soon made him their opening batsman and the following year Patron of the club. When all the local football teams were reorganized in 1909 into a new Wilmot Football Association, Dr Ratten was appointed president and immediately provided the perpetual Victor Ratten Shield awarded each year to the Premiership team. He owned racehorses,  chaired meetings of the local Tennis Club, was vice President of the local fishing club, enjoyed pigeon-shooting and billiards.  

Shortly after his arrival in Sheffield, Ratten joined the Aus Light Horse Regiment.  By 1912 he became medical officer for the whole 26th Light Horse Regiment with the rank of Army Captain.  Being a medical reservist, when WW1 broke out in Aug 1914, within six days Dr Ratten  closed his hospital, arranged for as substitute doctor to take over his practice  and reported  duty with the Aus Army Medical Corps. As he left town, the Sheffield Band paraded in front of his residence playing patriotic songs. Dr Ratten departed for Egypt aboard the troop carrier Geelong Oct 1914. Assigned to a huge field hospital in northern coastline of Egypt, he spent endless hours of surgery on  injured and dying soldiers. Five months later (Mar 1915) Dr Ratten arrived back in Melbourne aboard the hospital ship Kyarra in charge of the boat load of wounded soldiers being invalided home.  Twice at sea  the doctor had the ship had to stop while he undertook appendicectomies on soldiers. Once the sick were off loaded, Ratten boarded the Loonganna  for a quick visit to Tasmania while waiting for Army orders to return to Egypt. For whatever reason, these orders never came so Ratten resumed his medical practice in Sheffield for the another year.   

In April 1916 Dr Ratten announced he had sold his medical practice to Dr David Hamilton and was moving to Hobart. He closed St Helens hospital and sold the bedsteads and mattresses to the Devon Hospital. His specially built hospital was sold to Herb Tredennick who practiced dentistry there for nearly 40 years. His high-class furniture and household goods were auctioned off by Harry Day. To accommodate his two billiard tables, Dr Ratten purchased Padman’s Hall opposite the Methodist church and open a public billiard saloon run by Jimmy Clarke. At their farewell dinner held in Maddox Caledonian Hotel, Hon E F Blythe presented him with a hall-clock made of polished cedar wood, engraved ‘V.R.R. from his Sheffield friends 18/4/16’ and a plush case of seven smoking pipes, each engraved with a day of the week.

Hobart & Royal Hobart Hospital

In Hobart Dr Ratten purchased the private surgical practice of Dr J E Wolfhagen in Davey St who had his own private hospital. The following year 1917, the Tasmanian Government needing to fill the vacancy of surgeon-superintendent of the Royal Hobart Hospital appointed Dr Ratten to the position. He became an immediate success, undertaking complex operations, such as successfully removing a piece of shell from a backbone of a returned soldier that the Launceston surgeons wouldn’t touch it.

But Ratten’s appointment brought him into conflict with the same medical establishment in Tasmania that had denied him membership back in 1911. It brought to a head the nearly decade-long dispute between the local branch of British Medical Association (BMA) and the Tasmanian Government over the role of the hospital surgeon-superintendent doing free surgery in the hospital. They had lobbied hard to have the position of hospital surgeon-superintendent abolished so that they could practise surgery in the hospital and charge their wealthy clients. The Government flatly refused their request, and the Premier Lee filled the vacancy by passing over the BMA doctors and appointing newcomer Dr Victor Ratten. This raised the ire of the BMA doctors who had all gained their decrees from long-standing creditable universities, and they now began to question Ratten’s flimsy diploma gained it seemed in a matter of months from an unknown American college that no longer existed. Their merciless attacks forced the Government into a Royal Commission to prove whether Ratten’s American credentials were genuine.  After the longest delayed in 1918 the Royal Commission found there had been a Harvey Medical College in Chicago, Ratten had been a student there and his certificate was genuine. 

Dr Ratten served as surgeon-superintendent of the Royal Hobart Hospital from 1917 to 1936.  His reputation was based largely on his exceptional surgical ability. Ratten halved the time taken to perform appendectomies, pioneered stomach surgery in Tasmania with gastrectomies and in 1925-26 performed a craniotomy. None of his critics could match his performance. Old Sheffield patients like Mrs Wm Braid &  Ed Best travelled to Hobart so he could do their operations. Ratten was loved by the public and government, but hated by many of the medical profession until a truce was declared in 1932. In 1925 Ratten was awarded with MBE and in 1932 OBE.

When Ratten’s long association with the Royal Hobart Hospital concluded in June 1936, he resumed private surgery in his old private hospital in Davey St, until his death in 1962.  He became a very wealthy man. He owned his own hospital, several business premises, mining shares, stable of race horses, which won the Hobart & Launceston Cups several times. He

bought an exclusive island down the Derwent estuary which he accessed via his own motor launch. Because of his philandering ways, in midlife Victor and Blanche separated, but the popular Dr Ratten with his 1952 Rolls Royce and fast river launch, had no shortage of lady friends. Dr Ratten dominated the racing fraternity in the south. He was chairman of the Hobart Turf Club, committee member of the Tasmanian Racing Club from 1947-1961. Even when he became ill, he still attended these meetings in his dressing gown, constantly smoking cigars. Dr Ratten died in Hobart on 30 Dec1962, aged 84. As a mark of respect the doctor’s cortege passed by the Royal Hobart Hospital on its way to the Cornelian Bay Cemetery where he was cremated. His elder son, Wing Commander John Richard Ratten (1908-1945) of the RAAF won the Distinguished Flying Cross and died on active service in World War II 

Flora Buck and her Baby Florence

So what happened to the 40year old matron of Dr Ratten’s first hospital in Sheffield and her baby Florence?  Nurse Flora Buck remained in Launceston for 5 years, where she married Thomas Riley, a road contractor.  Soon after Dr Victor Ratten moved to Hobart,  Thomas Riley with wife Flora and 5-year Florence (now all named Riley) returned to Sheffield, where Flora opened Nurse Riley’s baby hospital (1917-1935) at 167 Main St Sheffield’, the birthplace of hundreds of Kentish residents. Florence (now called Flossie) grew up to be a bright and intelligent girl who found school and learning a breeze. She gave her first recitation at age six, and for several years had a perfect attendance at the Sheffield Baptist church and Sunday school. She learnt the piano, joined Christian Endeavour and C R Morris’ Sheffield Choir. At her last year at Sheffield school, she was dux of her class and selected to go to the Devonport High. But her mother was hard on her, insisting she continue to work at the baby hospital. Flossie found some comfort and support by regular visits to the Baptist Manse next door.

Flossie was only 18 when her mother died suddenly of a stroke. She had worked hard all her life without wages, but never been told who her father was. Flossie went to Launceston where she worked for several Baptist families and became engaged to Lionel (Jack) Austin of Paradise, whom she had known all her life. He was currently studying to become a Baptist minister. Jack & Flossie Austin married in the Sheffield Baptist church in 1940 and spent their lifetimes pastoring Baptist churches across Tasmania and Victoria.  Jack Austin died in 1989, Flossy in April 2003 in Baptist Aged-Care Home in Melbourne. They had three sons and a daughter. One son confided in me that all the family believed their mother’s father was Dr Victor Ratten, but when the sons wanted to undertake DNA testing, they were strongly discouraged.