in 1810 (completed 1816) despite the British Government's refusal to fund it, and established the policy of founding "Convict Hospitals" with funding from the Colony government in regional areas where demand justified this. The Convict Hospital A correspondent noted that work on a hospital had commenced by September 1833. Some were unhappy with the result, a complainant in the following year claiming that there was only one room in the facility, with not even a provision for a store or a morgue. He also claimed that the Government funds provided were being wasted, with the contractor seeking a contract variation despite using Government provided labour, possibly convicts. In October 1836, a visitor to the old town of Goulburn (close to the Mulwaree Ponds – Wollondilly River junction), noted: "…he [the Police Magistrate] also accompanied us to the new town, about a mile distant, where a few scattered buildings of brick and others of wood, had been erected. One of the latter is an [sic] hospital affording accommodation for about 30 patients. Like other places of this kind, in remote places, it was pretty fully occupied, by stock-men, and others of the lower order; victims of immorality, the scourge of this class, in sequestered parts of the Colony, frequented by the Aborigines." A subscribers' committee was formed in 1842, and on 2 December 1842 the Governor transferred the "Convict Hospital" (Government hospital) to the committee, with the exception of some medical instruments which belonged to the military. By the second annual meeting in 1844, the committee could report the successful funding and running of the hospital. Subscribers paid an annual fee, and non-subscriber patients paid for care at a daily rate, which in some cases would be paid for by charities in the town. By 1848 the Secretary of the committee was a Mr. Kitson, with Captain William Hovell, one of the original petitioners of 1832, chairing the Public Meeting. Debate at that meeting centered on a conflict between those wishing to run the hospital cost efficiently by say, competitively tendering for services and by those supporting the medical staff making appropriate management decisions. One debater highlighted the issue: "... and with respect to what Mr. Kitson said about the hospital working well, he Mr. D. believed it worked well, but that did not say it could not be made to work better (hear, hear) : be it remembered that the