Susan Katherina SCHARDT

SCHARDT, SUSAN KATHERINA (b. Queanbeyan, NSW, 15 Jan 1872; d. Sydney, NSW, 9 Oct 1934). Philanthropist.

Susan was born blind, the daughter of German farmers. With a younger brother, from 1880-87 she attended Sydney's Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind; there her Methodist faith was strengthened. During the 1890s depression she visited Prince Alfred Hospital patients. Finding that incurably ill patients were discharged with no provision for aftercare, she helped organise aftercare for one destitute patient with both legs amputated others were helped, a committee formed, and in 1900 the Commonwealth Home for Destitute Invalids opened. With the help of Sir Henry Moses and others the Home reopened in 1907 in Ryde; it is now the Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Hospital. Susan Schardt, as the Home's honorary country lecturer, canvassed the state with her companion and raised over £35 000. She died in the Home she helped found.

ADB 11; J Godden, 'Philanthropy and the Woman's Sphere' (PhD, Macquarie University, 1983)

JUDITH GODDEN