The building commonly known as the 'John Street Doctors' was originally constructed as a private residence on Town Acre 760, Wellington. The land on which the building stands was acquired from members of the Te Ati Awa iwi in 1839 by the New Zealand Company and was allocated to 28-year-old Pakeha speculator T. F. Knight. Knight did not develop the property and F. Collier, who received an official Crown Grant for the land in 1879, appropriated it. In 1872, five years before he received the Grant for the land, Collier sold the property to manufacturer Herbert Gaby. With the assistance of a mortgage from Turnbull, Gaby developed the section. In less than a year Gaby had constructed and commenced operating a soap factory, a venture that increased the value of his property from £4 to £100. Gaby used the property solely for commercial purposes until 1877 when a dwelling, thought to be John Street Doctors building, was erected on the section. It is likely that the house was constructed by and for Gaby, the owner of the land. Its construction appears to have caused Gaby financial difficulties as less than a year later, Turnbull, Gaby's mortgager, acquired the house and land. Turnbull sold the land within a month to Kitchen & Sons, a company that manufactured four types of candles and 'the purest soap in New Zealand'. The head of the company, Joseph Kitchen and his family lived and worked on the property, residing in the two-storey dwelling constructed by Gaby in 1877. The company expanded and by 1883 Kitchen & Sons had acquired a second factory in Wellington, a factory in Burnside, and a head office in Wellington's central business district. By 1891, surveyor Thomas Ward's map of Wellington shows that Town Acre 760 was a highly developed site with a house and six outbuildings on the property. Joseph Kitchen continued to expand the company and by 1892 it began manufacturing laundry blue and washing powders in addition to its other products. Yet in 1893 a competing company, the New Zealand Candle Company, opened a factory in Kaiwarra (Kaiwharawhara). In less than a year it forced Kitchen & Sons out of business in Wellington. Joseph Kitchen sold the house, then occupied by company manager Lucas William, and part of Town Acre 760 to the New Zealand Candle Company. The soap and candle factory was demolished and the company Neilson, Murray & Frederick ran an iron foundry in its place until the 1940s. The house was sold separately in 1894 to Scottish-born William Copeland Alexander (1854-1907), a private medical practitioner. When Dr. Alexander purchased the building in 1894, Newtown was a thriving commercial suburb, and Riddiford Street was at the centre of local business activity. It was also at the hub of Wellington's health facilities as, in 1881, a new 'state-of-the-art' hospital had opened on Riddiford Street to the south of the John Street Doctors' building. From this prime location Dr Alexander lived and operated as a private practitioner until his death in 1907. Dr Alexander used the ground floor of his residence as a surgery and consulting room for his patients. To create more space he constructed a two-storey lean-to on the east elevation of the building. He used the ground floor as an office and the first floor as an extra bedroom for his growing family of five children. The incorporation of the doctor's surgery into the private residence was typical of contemporary medical practice and meant that the doctor was literally on call at all hours of the day and night. By the time of his death in 1907, Dr. Alexander had established a prosperous medical practice in the building. His widow, Annie Porter Winks, sold the house and practice to the eminent doctor Frederick Thomas Bowerbank (1880-1960). Bowerbank became a New Zealand pioneer in electrocardiography and the measurement of the basal metabolic rate. In conjunction with Clarence Meachen, he was responsible for the first blood transfusion service in the country and was knighted in 1946 for his contribution to the medical health of the New Zealand armed forces during the Second World War. He also received the Dutch honour of grand officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau and was made a knight of the Order of St John. An important New Zealand doctor, Bowerbank established his career in Dr. Alexander's former residence in Newtown. Bowerbank first immigrated to New Zealand with his wife Maud Pick in 1907. Prior to immigrating, Bowerbank had served as an assistant in a practice in Bury, Lancashire, and as a house physician in London. After practising for a short period in unsuitable premises in Adelaide Road, Bowerbank bought Dr. Alexander's former residence. Upon purchasing the house, Bowerbank notes in his autobiography that he was 'advised to pull it down and build a new house but the state of my finances made such an undertaking impossible'. Instead he commissioned a patient, builder P. Bydder to modernise the building. Like Dr. Alexander, Bowerbank used the majority of the ground floor rooms as a surgery, office and waiting room. The upper storey and the northern side of the ground floor were reserved as his private residence. Bowerbank developed his practice and skills and in 1912 became visiting physician at the nearby Wellington Hospital. Bowerbank enlisted for military service at the outbreak of the First World War. Appointed officer commanding the medical division of No. 2 New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Bowerbank left for Egypt in 1915. Before leaving he placed a notice on the gate of 27 Riddiford Street telling his patients to visit any of the other medical men in the suburb. Bowerbank returned in 1918, having earned an excellent medical reputation. He remained at his Newtown practice until 1924, when he gained his MRCO in Edinburgh and began specialising in cardiology and metabolic diseases. In 1924 Bowerbank sold his house and practice to another up and coming doctor, Dr. William F. Shirer (1899-1975), who was then working as a house surgeon at Wellington Hospital. Shirer expanded the building by adding an extra surgery in 1935. The practice flourished. When Shirer enlisted in the Second World War to serve with the 22nd Field Ambulance in the Solomons, the desperate shortage of civilian doctors in Newtown forced the Director-General of Medical Services to request his release to civilian practice. On his return, Dr. Shirer attended to an average of 60 and 70 patients per day, combining in-house surgery with numerous home visits. The constant work and continual intrusion on his home life eventually prompted Dr. Shirer to experiment with what was then a new concept - the group practice. Although now a routine system, medical practitioner Dr. Ian St George notes that in 1946, Shirer's concept of the group medical practice was 'a revolutionary and even subversive idea'. It allowed medical graduates to practice under the supervision of their more experienced colleagues, a new concept in a system that held that the training graduates received in the hospital was sufficient for commencing sole practice in the community. It also ensured that there were a sufficient number of doctors available to attend the ever-increasing numbers patients requiring medical attention. The Shirer family moved out of the residence at the time the building was converted into a group practice and the upstairs rooms were let to nurses and doctors associated with the practice. At its peak, up to five doctors worked in the building. In the early 1980s the building's future was threatened by the development of the nearby Wellington Hospital. Town Acre 760, on which the John Street Doctors is located, was designated 'Hospital Purposes'. Part of the section was taken as part of the hospital but the building was allowed to remain. In 2001 the building was sold to the Child Cancer Foundation Incorporated and is now known as Child Cancer Foundation House.

Designer/Architect: Unknown. It is probable that the original building was designed and constructed by Herbert Gaby, owner of Town Acre 760 and manager of the soapworks at the rear of the property in 1877, the year in which the house is believed to have been built. Builder: Unknown: Known modifications to the building were made by P J Bydder in 1909, N R Lightbody in 1935 and 1946, G Donaldson in 1957, E Weldon in 1960 and H Marshall in 1965. Description: Located on Riddiford Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Newtown, Wellington, the John Street Doctors' building sits on a section reduced from its original 0.4 hectares (1 acre) by encroachments on the east and south side by the Wellington Hospital grounds, and on the west by the roadway. There is no sign of the soap factory, iron foundry or the stables that were originally located on the property. Sited close to the street, public access to the John Street Doctors' building is obtained via a straight, narrow concrete path that leads to the front door of the building. A driveway, paved in concrete, is located on the north side of the house. Originally a right of way was used by the iron foundry workers, the driveway passes the doorway traditionally used by patients to access the waiting room and surgery and culminates in a concrete parking lot at the rear of the building. The John Street Doctors is constructed around a timber frame and the exterior is clad in lapped weatherboards. The roof is made of corrugated iron. The decoration on the house is restrained, consisting of simple eave mouldings and wide corner boards. The building is a two-storey cottage with a single bay on its north side. The earliest available plans, which date from 1891, indicate that the bay was in place by this date. According to heritage consultant Michael Kelly, while the original house almost certainly encompassed the full width of the current building, the differing widths of weatherboards used in the bay indicates that it is an addition that swallowed up the north side of the original house. The original portion of front façade of the house features two 'half-dog-house' windows on the upper storey. The verandah that previously extended across the south wing of the house had been glassed in. On the extreme south side a rectangular, concrete garage dating from 1960s is extant. Originally based on an 'L-shaped' plan, the house has had numerous additions at the rear which served to accommodate the doctors' increasing needs for more surgery and office space. The additions to the rear of the building have not affected the original layout of the interior, which remains similar to its state in 1909. Access to the building is through the front door of the building that, prior to 1946, was reserved for the doctor's private use. Inside the entrance porch is the original door to the house. On the north side of the hall is a wooden staircase. At the end of the entrance hall is the reception desk. The large room on the ground floor of the bay used as a drawing room by Dr. Bowerbank, is now used as an office by staff form the Child Cancer Foundation. The original surgery in the northern wing, complete with fireplace and chimney, is also used as an office. The dining room is now a waiting room, while the kitchen has been converted into a surgery and the pantry into a storage facility. The hallway running along the rear of the south wing to the toilets remains and features timber lining. The original porch at the rear remains extant. The first storey now leased as a private residence to tenants, was not accessible. It is presumed that the layout of the first floor remains similar to the layout in 1946, when the building was converted into a group practice.