Past to Present. Memory to Action
httpvh://youtu.be/Wk2CURa9SJA
Lachlan Park Hospital circa 1950-60.
This footage shows the Barracks from the rear enclosed yard which was demolished in the early 1960’s, H Ward and I Ward which were both female Wards, the old clock tower and accommodation rooms on the west side of the hospital including the old metal fold up bed which came from Port Arthur. Black & White silent footage.
K1 Block demolished after recommendation of the Dax Report 1960’s
This is the original Cunningham Dax Report that set the hospital (then Lachlan Park Hospital) in a new direction in 1962. It looked at the direction and some issues that had arisen but concentrated on a new vision for a statewide approach to mental health, alcoholism and mental deficiency (old term used). It was the plan to divide the hospital, re categorise patients and professionalise, recruit and renumerate appropriately the staff. There are planned routine changes and most renovations were to be done with labour supplied by patients. 32 pages. (for study purposes only)
Cunningham Dax is also responsible for the Museum attached to the University of Melbourne and it is described as consists of over 12,000 creative works on paper, paintings, ceramics and textiles, created by people who have experienced mental illness or psychological trauma. The Collection is dedicated to the conservation and ethical exhibition of these works, and the use of art in public mental health education.
Much more than an art gallery, the centre provides a multidimensional experience in the growing field of art in mental health. Increasingly diverse audiences reflect the broader community’s interest in creativity and the mind.
Thank you to Lyell Wilson for supply of this document.
Pages 1 and 32 of Matron’s publicly available first world war records are only part of the display at Willow Court for Heritage Month. Along with original uniforms and the equipment used in the Hospital to treat ex-solders who returned needing the services of either the Hospital or Millbrook Rise. Matron Morey returned to the Hospital after her Military Service and after a short break became Sub-Matron and later Matron. She served the Patients for many years and died shortly after her retirement. The display will be in the Masonic Lodge which will also have open days and is in partnership with the RSL at New Norfolk and some funding received from the Derwent Valley Council, entry to the display is via Humphrey Street and cost $5. 
This article in “The Examiner” news paper is appealing for donations of gifts for Patients at the Lachlan Park Mental Diseases Hospital so they can receive some of the basics at Christmas time. Calling for gifts from a sympathetic Tasmanian public was the order of the day when this article was written on the 13th November 1950 and sat well with in a Charity Model of Care which was predominant around the world at this time. This show how far we have/or haven’t come in the last 64 years as we now sit in a rights movement for people living with mental health issues or with an intellectual disability as set out by all the signatories of the World Health Organisation, part of the United Nations, which Australia is a signatory. The right to have a life that is free for someone else s benevolent actions based on sympathy is inscribed in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While there is a difference today as there was 64 years ago this article is part of the rich history that is important to record and needs to be read in the context of the ideology of the time and the good will of the Tasmanian’s who were moved and personally effected by the States Institution designed for the care and health provision of those people with disabilities and or mental health issues. Want to read more about the rights movement, social movement, medical model and the social movement? This simply website can explain the difference is a clear one page document. RIGHT CLICK HERE and open in a new window. It could be said that Willow Court/Royal Derwent Hospital closed down because there was a different approach from an emerging Social Model as opposed to the then current Medical discourse.
A large sign of things to come and a gem from the past, this stored sign is one of the artifacts ready for display in a new museum at the Barracks of Willow Court. While the community wait for the Derwent Valley Council to announce opening dates and activities, more artifacts keep coming in, or out of storage in readiness for a display of the history of the Hospital. The site was named the Royal Derwent Hospital after it’s Lachlan Park tag in 1968.
A couple of weeks ago I visited the State Library to source some information about Willow Court/Royal Derwent Hospital and was delighted to find that they referred me to this website(Willow Court Advocacy Group). They said it was a great site for people studying the history of the hospital throughout time and through the eyes of the patients, families and also the staff.
We have been asked to supply our website to students studying Community Services while incarcerated at Risdon Prison on a local intranet which we have been please to do. It’s been great to have a good quality resource about the hospital history for students who are studying the past practices that the community had to support people living with a disability and/or mental health issues together in one place and in a respectful manner.
We have supplied teaching resources to high schools and guest speakers, often ex-staff and ex-patients to interested groups.
If you have anything to share about the history of Willow Court/Royal Derwent Hospital please contact us HERE, we would love to speak to you about sharing your historic knowledge, artefact, report or picture etc. We are able to professionally interview and present your knowledge and we can create a professional podcast to the highest industry standards.
About the same time as Millbrook Rise opened in 1934 Matron Jane Power M.B.E handed in her resignation from the position of Matron. Miss Evelyn Rose Morey AANS (pictured left) was then appointed as Matron of Mental Diseases Hospital New Norfolk and served the institution for 18 years.
The Mercury – Dated 28th April 1934 Reported:
APPOINTMENTS HOBART, Friday. At a meeting of the Executive Council
to-day Miss Evelyn Rose Morey was promoted from the position of
sub-matron to that of matron at the Mental Diseases Hospital at New Norfolk.
Matron Morey witnessed the large construction process that saw the destruction of many old building on the west side of the Lachlan River and construction of the new east hospital, but she wasn’t just a bystander, she was called as a witness before J. H Chamberlain in 1949, who chaired the Parliamentary Standing Committee, looking at the need to have a new hospital and a segregated model that serves people with intellectual disabilities on one side of the hospital and people with mental health issues on the other. Plans were submitted for the construction of a new hospital at the cost of 1,500,000 pounds.
Nurse Evelyn Rose Morey AANS was born in Triabunna, Tasmania on the 2nd of April 1885 and trained at Lyell District Hospital for 5 years
She enlisted on the 17 September 1917 and joined AANS 17 October 1917 aged 32. She embarked AMATS Nestor on the 21 November 1917 and disembarked at Southampton on the 18 January 1918. She took up her post as staff nurse in the 2nd Aust. Aux. Hospital, Southall 19 January 1918, staff nurse at 3rd Aust. Aux. Hospital Dartford 4 February 1918 and staff nurse at 1st Aust Gen Hospital Sutton Veny, 19 October 1919.
She returned to Australia 1 November 1919 per Nestor because she had an injured knee during a fall on the ship, Grace Darling on 7 January 1920 and was recommended “unfit” for general service by the 26 January 1920. Her service was terminated on the 25 February 1920 due to “demobilisation”. 
TREASURED COIN SOVEREIGN THAT WAS NOT WANTED (Newspaper clipping)
A sovereign with an interesting history was among the articles disposed of in
competitions at a fair held at New Norfolk on Saturday in aid of the Crippled
Children’s Fund. The Sovereign, which was donated by the matron of
Lachlan Park Hospital (Sister Evelyn Morey) brought 8 pounds 15 shillings.
With nine others it was taken to France during the Great War by Sister
Morey, and when a shop assistant refused to accept it in payment for a pair
of gloves in a French shop, the coin was kept as a treasure. That the novelty
of gaining possession of a sovereign appealed to a great many was
indicated by the amount collected for it on Saturday.
Her Headstone Inscription read:
In Loving Memory of Evelyn Rose Morey M.B.E Late A.A.N.S 1914-1918
Daughter of the late A & E Morey of Okehampton Died 18th January 1953
Aged 69 Years Matron Lachlan Park Hospital for 18 years. Loved by all.
The Mercury notice – dated Monday 19th January 1953:
MOREY. – On January 18, 1953, at Hobart, Evelyn Rose Morey, M.B.E., loved and loving daughter of the late Abraham and Ellen Morey, Okehampton, Triabunna, in the 70th year of her age. Late Sister, Nursing Staff, 1st A.I.F. late Matron, Lachlan Park Hospital, Tasmania.
Truly a life dedicated to the Hospital and service to people with disabilities and mental health issues.
Research by Karen Richards and Mark Krause
Source: Trove, Troubled Asylum
“Delving into disabled people’s social history can help us understand modern
attitudes to disability, argues Richard Rieser, coordinator of the UK’s annual
Disability History Month.”
I really like this concept and think that this is a real going here in Australia,
and why shouldn’t we be the first State to start something like this after all we
have the oldest institution in Australia?
This back brace was from Ward 3 of Royal Derwent Hospital. The brace is formed from material covered metal in the centre two supports. Most of the specialist equipment was made on site by the hospital’s own trades people. This could make a display at the restored Barracks Museum.
A Museum isn’t a new idea, it was suggested back in 1963 by Dr Cunningham-Dax M.B., B.S. (Lond.). B.Sc. (Lond.) D.P.M., (R.C.P. & S) In a report presented to the Tasmanian Parliament in January 1963, when he warned that, in front of “the old barrack square” was to be used as a State Museum, that every effort should be made to collect the remaining relics now.
A copy of Troubled Asylum, second edition sold on EBay for $155 on Sunday. This reprinted book was first released as a hard copy in 1981. Resent prices for the hard copy version (1981) have reached selling prices of over $250. The book is a collation of archival documents about the Hospital’s history from 1827 til 1981.
There has been a call for the addition of the history post 1981 which includes the closure and total re-think of the mental heath and disability support systems and the resulting effects of such a change on the people who called Willow Court/Royal Derwent Hospital home and the staff and community that supported them through that history.
The original price for this book was $19.95 and is now considered rare in second edition and scarce in hard copy edition. Signed first edition copies are considered highly collectable.
