AFTER years of planning the Bega District Hospital was finally built and was to be opened on April 18, 1889, by Robert Lucas Tooth.
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HAVING Robert Lucas Tooth officiating at the opening ceremony was a huge coup.
He had not only donated the largest sum to the building fund - 100 pounds - 10 times more than anyone else, but he was one of the richest men in the colony.
It was regarded as a real honour for such an important man to take time from his very busy schedule to perform the task.
Robert Lucas Tooth was born in Sydney, but sent to Eton to be educated.
Returning to Australia he joined the merchant firm of R and Tooth and Company and became active in the management of the Kent brewery, and in 1868 became a partner.
He bought the estate of Kameruka, 13-and-a-half miles north-west from Bega from his uncle Frederick in 1864.
Both a social humanitarian and a philanthropist, Robert Lucas Tooth provided his tenant farmers at Kameruka with six-roomed cottages, a school, a church designed by Edmund Blacket, a meeting hall, store and post office.
He planted English trees, built an ornamental lake, kept a aviary of golden pheasants and liberated all sorts of game - pheasants, quails, hares and foxes. (Unhappily those foxes have multiplied over the years and are a real pest especially to those in the district who breed chickens).
Tooth changed from grazing cattle to dairying, and from imported stock he founded a Jersey herd, made a mature cheddar cheese and was the first in the colony to make Edam cheeses.
Not long after he presided at the opening, he left Australia for England so that his children could be educated there.
He occasionally came back to Kameruka to visit, but he never lived in Australia again.
He was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the Empire.
The Bega Standard reported that at the opening there was "a representative meeting of the principal residents and a very fair sprinkling of ladies.
"Everyone seemed agreed as to the splendid building that had been erected, and spoke highly of the beauty of the site on which it stands; and when a garden is laid out and trees planted about the enclosure, it would be hard to find a more beautiful or salubrious spot in the colony than that occupied by the Bega District Hospital.
"Work has already been commenced in making the garden. And before long we may expect to see a great improvement there.
"It now rests with the public to support and carry on the institution, and we have no doubt that throughout the whole of the district there will be enough raised annually to help the sick and the suffering".
