NSW history: Nun and surgeon’s unlikely love story leads to wine dynasty
The love story of a surgeon from Florence and an Irish nun/nurse can be traced from Macquarie St in Sydney to the vineyards of Windsor in the late 1800s.
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You can’t miss it if you walk down Macquarie St in the Sydney CBD — the life-size bronze
statue of a wild boar out the front of Sydney Hospital.
Many will stop to gaze at it quizzically or even pose to have a photo taken with it. But few know the story behind the statue, which was placed there in 1968 in memory of Thomas Fiaschi and his son Piero, both of whom worked at Sydney Hospital.
One of the bronze plaques at the base of the statue encourages passers-by to rub the boar’s nose for good luck and donate a coin through the slot in the statue to support the hospital.
Thomas Henry Fiaschi was born in Florence in 1853 and came to Australia in 1875, aged 22.
He got work as a surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital and a few weeks later met Catherine Reynolds in the wards, a young Irish nurse who had become a nun with the Sisters of Charity at the hospital.
So strong was their connection, Catherine left the Sisters of Charity — the only woman to have ever left the order — to marry the handsome surgeon the following year.
As a result, the pair were excommunicated from the Catholic Church and they fled to Windsor.
They honeymooned at the Macquarie Arms Inn and Fiaschi started up his medical practice from one of the rooms there, later moving it down the hill to a building that is still known today as Doctor’s House at Thompson Square.
The pair travelled to Italy soon afterwards so Fiaschi could complete his medical studies, graduating from Pisa University.
On their return to Windsor, Fiaschi brought with him the latest medical advances in listerian surgery, which promoted the importance of antiseptic in surgery. These new practices led to fewer deaths and Fiaschi’s practice prospered.
With Catherine, who had trained as a nurse, by his side the couple became a popular and important part of the Windsor and Hawkesbury communities, treating the poor for free, offering home-cooked meals to those who travelled far for their services and attending to the sick and injured at all hours of the day and night.
Alongside the success of his medical practice, Fiaschi was also intrigued by agriculture and in 1882, he bought 230 acres (93ha) at Sackville Reach, dedicating 54 to vines and named his vineyard Tizzana.
By 1889 he was producing 9000 gallons of wine and had established Australia’s first wine bar in the spot that is today occupied by Australia Square in the Sydney CBD and the winery continues to prosper today under the Auld family.
Family member Jonathan Auld said Fiaschi’s enterprise was a “model vineyard in NSW”.
“He applied the same sterilising techniques he introduced to surgery and in this way he really helped modernise the wine industry,” Auld said.
“He also introduced new grape varieties and introduced wire trellising to vineyards.”
Fiaschi was also distinguished on the war front, joining the Italian Army in the war against Abyssinia in 1896, commanding the NSW No.1 field hospital during the Boer War from 1898 to 1900 and the No.3 Australian general hospital on the island of Lemnos during WWI.
He had five children with Catherine — his sons Piero and Carlo following him into the medical field.
Scandal would land on the Fiaschi name again when Carlo was charged with manslaughter after a patient he performed surgery on died.
Although he was acquitted, he died of a self-administered dose of morphine in 1910.
Catherine died in 1913 and Fiaschi later married Amy Curtis of Bundaberg in Queensland with whom he had two more daughters.
Fiaschi died in 1927 from bronchopneumonia and both he and Catherine are buried at Waverley Cemetery, though not side-by-side.
Fiaschi’s original sandstone building on the Hawkesbury River has been preserved and expanded by the Auld family after they purchased part of the original estate in 1968.
“We consider ourselves custodians of the property,” Auld said.
“It’s important historically, not only locally, but on a state level.”
Got a local history story to share? Email mercedes.maguire@news.com.au
VINTAGE RESTORATION MISSION
After Fiaschi’s death in 1927 his second wife, Amy, continued to oversee the business, with the last vintage taking place in 1949.
The original sandstone building was destroyed by vandals and fire in 1955.
Peter and Carolyn Auld bought a five-acre (2ha) block including the remains of the building in 1968 and set out to restore it, re-establishing the living quarters on the second floor and keeping the cellar as original as possible.
The Aulds planted five acres of vines in 1980 and later, four acres of olive trees.
Today Tizzana is a winery with a cellar door, restaurant and bed and breakfast accommodation.
MACQUARIE’S SYDNEY HOSPITAL
Sydney’s first hospital operated as a rudimentary tent premises in The Rocks from the time of the First Fleet’s arrival in 1788.
But when Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived in 1810, he set about creating a permanent hospital.
Australia’s oldest hospital needed a good access road, so Macquarie St was created, named after the governor, and remains the site of Sydney Hospital today.
In the early days, the large structure, which had convicts as its first patients, also housed the Supreme Court chambers and courthouse, the Legislative Council and the Sydney branch of the Royal Mint.
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