Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart in 1906 (Source: University of Sydney Archives)

by Lyn Collingwood, from Bulletin 4/2026 (June)

Anderson Stuart arrived in Sydney in March 1883 aboard the Parramatta to take up the position of Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Sydney University. He was accompanied by his wife Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’) Ainslie whom he had married in Edinburgh the previous year. The couple took up residence on the corner of Toxteth Road and Mansfield Street in a large house named The Biggin (‘biggin’ is Scottish for a building or cottage).

Stuart had studied medicine at Edinburgh University with Robert Scot Skirving who became a lifelong friend and also migrated to Sydney. In 1884 the pair were appointed honorary medical officers at Glebe’s Children’s Hospital. Their enmity with Frances Holden, the hospital’s Lady Superintendent, is recounted in a ‘Who Lived’ article about Frances Holden in Bulletin 6/2025.

In 1885 the Stuarts made a trip to England. On their return Lizzie was treated by Scot Skirving who diagnosed her as suffering from hysteria. In February 1886 she died aged 24 from an overdose of morphine after Stuart had left The Biggin to stay with Scot Skirving with whom he discussed divorce. Sarah Margaret Shearing, one of the two domestic servants, made the discovery. The jury at the inquest, held at The Biggin, apportioned some blame to her husband but delivered an open verdict.

Elizabeth Ainslie Stuart was buried at Rookwood. In March 1886, her widower auctioned his furniture and household effects (including a 148-piece dinner service decorated with Australian birds and fauna). The Biggin was subsequently renamed Finkenhagen for a brief period, and Minnamurra from 1890 until 1917. The house was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with flats.

‘The Biggin’ in the 1880s (Source: State Library of NSW)

Anderson Stuart was born on 20 June 1856 in Dumfries, Scotland, the only child of Alexander Stuart, a tailor, and his second wife Jane née Anderson. After working as a pharmacist’s apprentice, he qualified for entry into medicine at Edinburgh University but spent some years studying (and winning gold medals) in Germany before enrolling. A brilliant student, he graduated MB, CM, MD in 1882 and was offered the academic position in Sydney.

At Sydney University, Stuart was responsible for dramatically improving medical student numbers and their school, originally a four-room ‘barn’. ‘Andy’s folly’, a sandstone Gothic Revival building designed by Glebe’s James Barnet, is today’s Anderson Stuart Building. A carved raven watches over its entrance, a reference to the founder’s nickname (‘coracoid’ from the Latin for ‘crow’) and his prominent nose. Stuart also set up the School of Tropical Medicine.

Stuart was chair/president of many organisations including the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Board of Health, United Dental Hospital, Australasian Massage Association, and the Immigration League of Australia; was associated with the Highland Society and the Zoological Society; attended the inaugural International Eugenics Conference in 1912; and was knighted in 1914. He collected paintings and antiques and was an active Freemason.

The Anderson Stuart Building, University of Sydney, 1900s (Source: University of Sydney Archives)

In Queensland in 1894 Stuart married 19-year-old Dorothy Primrose. The couple moved to a grand house in Double Bay where Stuart died of abdominal cancer on 29 February 1920. Scot Skirving was with him at the end, and members of the Sydney University Medical Society acted as pall-bearers at his funeral.

Sir Thomas Anderson Stuart was survived by his widow and four sons (two of whom became medical physicians). Lady Dorothy Anderson Stuart died on 21 September 1954 and was buried with her husband in the Presbyterian section of South Head Cemetery.

Sources: Australian Dictionary of Biography; Heritage NSW; Sands Directories; Trove website; Waverley Council cemetery records.