Bath Street (Eltham)

George Alfred Harrison was a much-loved doctor in Eltham in the two decades prior to the First World War. His name is forever linked to Bath Street.

Harrison was born in England in 1867. After qualifying as a doctor, he came to New Zealand in 1894 and started a practice in the small Taranaki town. He married Mabel Valintine, the daughter of Stratford’s doctor, and the couple had three children.

The family lived in a house on High Street, where Eltham’s ‘stone wall’ house stands today, beside the library. Bath Street was given its name because when the Harrison family emptied their bath, the water drained out into the street.

Doctor Harrison believed firmly in the importance of his work as a doctor. One day, visiting a very sick patient, he was delayed by a religious minister, reciting prayers. Annoyed, Harrison burst into the room. “I say Parson, your horse has bolted.” The minister rushed off, leaving Harrison free to attend his patient.

His early death caused much shock and sadness in Eltham.

One day in February 1913, he was performing an operation on a child’s neck to drain an abscess. Bandaging the incision, he accidently pricked his left thumb with a safety pin. A few days later he began to feel unwell, as a result of blood poisoning. His condition rapidly worsened, even after his arm was amputated, and he died on Sunday 23 February 1913, aged only 46.

While he was sick, there were regular updates in the newspapers about his condition and, after his death, there was an outpouring of grief. An editorial in the Eltham Argus newspaper said of him that he had a “bright and happy personality and sympathetic bearing” and was “respected and beloved… his loss will create an absolute void.”

Harrison’s property was bought by the doctor who replaced him, Harold Cooper. Cooper later built the ‘stone wall’ house and a maternity hospital at the top of Hill Street. Today, the hospital is a private dwelling.

In 1918, memorial gates were erected in Park Street in Eltham, a lasting tribute to Doctor George Harrison.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.