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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
Subjects
Health and Welfare
Health care
Mental health

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Mental health

Subject

Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic

Callan Park Mental Hospital

William Chidley at Speakers Corner

Lunacy Amendment Act 1934

The Answer: a philosophical essay

The Confessions of William James Chidley

Bayview House

Broughton Hall

Kirkbride

Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Administration Block

Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Clock Tower

Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Ward 1

Royal Commission into the former Chelmsford Private Hospital and Mental Health Services in New South Wales 1988-1990

Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic

Buckland Convalescent Home Springwood

Callan Park Mental Hospital

Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum

Cerebral Surgery Research Unit

Chelmsford Private Hospital

Cumberland Hospital

Darlinghurst Reception House

Gladesville Hospital

Gladesville Macquarie Hospital

Liverpool Lunatic Asylum

Macquarie Hospital

New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry

Parramatta Lunatic Asylum

Rozelle Hospital

Bailey, Harry Richard

Campbell, Francis Rawdon

Carter, Ronald Graeme

Hurly, Tom

Hush, Barvara

Jones, Sydney Evan

Manning, Frederic Norton

McGeorge, John

Podio, Miriam Victoria

Sinclair, Eric

Tucker, William

Cumberland Hospital Campus

Garryowen estate

Bay View House Private Lunatic Asylum, Cooks River 1869

Bayview House Private Mental Hospital, King Street, Tempe 1939

Front cover of 'The Answer: a philosophical essay' by WJ Chidley 1912

Men's dormitory in the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum 1861

Mr WJ Chidley will lecture to men and women on health, diet and clothing

Tom Hurly at the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum 1861

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Mental health

Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic

Founded by Dr Sydney Evan Jones after World War I, the Broughton Hall psychiatric clinic was one of the first in Sydney to offer treatment to patients of modest means who were not certifiably insane. The grounds and gardens were part of the therapy to divert patients from neuroses to normality.

Callan Park Mental Hospital

Developed on the Garryowen estate built by John Brenan from the 1830s, Callan Park hospital was designed to treat insanity by the most modern methods available when it opened in 1884. During the twentieth century, overcrowding and ad hoc additions diluted the original intent and design, and by the 1960s the hospital was a place of squalor. The buildings are now used for other purposes.

William Chidley at Speakers Corner

William James Chidley was a regular speaker in the Domain in the early twentieth century. His odd dress and eccentric views led to his repeated arrest and confinement in mental institutions. Considered a social and moral menace by the authorities of the day, Chidley's struggle for freedeom garnered nationwide support, ultimately exposing social conflicts over censorship and freedom of speech, morality and relations between the sexes.

Lunacy Amendment Act 1934

Legislation which made provision for admission of voluntary patients to hospitals, licensed houses and reception houses,

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The Answer: a philosophical essay

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Philosophical essay by William Chidley about sexual ethics.

The Confessions of William James Chidley

Autobiography written before 1899 which was not meant to be published until after his death though extracts were used be Havelock Ellis. It was finally published in full in 1977.

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Bayview House

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Situated near the Cooks River near Tempe, the building was a private residence before it operated as a 'private lunatic asylum' with its first patient admitted on 8 November 1865. The asylum was owned by Dr George Tucker and was opened as an alternative for those who considered confinement in a government asylum 'repulsive to their feelings'. Initially it was licensed for 35 patients and one newspaper article notes that many of its patients 'owed their derangement' to the consumption of absinthe.

Broughton Hall

Two storey Regency residence which was modified several times during the 1880s to facilitate its use as a psychiatric clinic.

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Kirkbride

First purpose built hospital for moral therapy treatment of the insane. It became part of Callan park Hospital and is now occupied by Sydney College of the Arts.

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Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Administration Block

Adimistration centre constructed on the site of the main gates to the Female Factory.

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Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Clock Tower

Tower erected to house the clock that once adorned the central arch of the original Female Factory building. The clock manufactured by Thwaite and Reed in Clerkenwell in 1820, was a gift to the colony by King George IV in 1822.

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Parramatta Lunatic Asylum Ward 1

Ward constructed from the sandstone blocks of the Female Factory for 100 male inmates of the asylum. The clock from the original Female Factory was also included in the building's tower.

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Royal Commission into the former Chelmsford Private Hospital and Mental Health Services in New South Wales 1988-1990

Royal Commission, better known as the Chelmsford Royal Commission, that investigated the use of deep-sleep therapy, a controversial treatment for psychiatric illnesses, between 1963 and 1979 at the Chelmsford Private Hospital in north west Sydney. The Commission was established after an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald and was chaired by Commissioner Justice Slattery. It found that 24 people had died as a result of the treatment. Only four of the deaths had been investigated by a coroner. The report led to the treatment being banned and changes to the way coroners worked in New South Wales.

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Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic

A shell shock clinic established during World War I in a stately house in Lilyfield, Broughton Hall became a psychiatric clinic on modern principles after the war.

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Buckland Convalescent Home Springwood

Convalescent hospital at Springwood endowed by Sir Thomas Buckland in 1934 as a public hospital' for the relief of female mental patients'.

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Callan Park Mental Hospital

One of the first purpose-built hospitals for 'moral therapy' which opened in 1884.

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Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum

First asylum in the colony improvised in a two storey stone building which had once been a granary and convict barracks. Opened by Macquarie as a means of relieving the congestion in the town gaol, it soon became overcrowded and squalid and by 1825 plans were being made for a replacement at Liverpool.

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Cerebral Surgery Research Unit

Medical research facility established within the then named Callan Park Mental Hospital

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Chelmsford Private Hospital

Small private psychiatric hospital that was established in a former house at 2 The Crescent, Pennant Hills, in 1963, where psychiatrist Dr Harry Bailey undertook experimental treatments on patients including deep sleep therapy and electric shock therapy. By 1979 more than 24 people had died. Despite complaints from patients and their families, coronial inquests found Bailey had no case to answer. A Royal Commission into the treatment of the patients at the hospital was established in 1988 and prompted the Medical Practitioners (Amendment) Bill (1987)which introduced ‘improved disciplinary structures for [the] investigation and hearing of complaints concerning medical practitioners’.

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Cumberland Hospital

Mental health facility established in the buildings of Parramatta Female Factory in 1849, it has operated under a variety of names before becoming part of Cumberland Hospital in 1983.

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Darlinghurst Reception House

Psychiatric assessment hospital constructed to cater for the mentally ill who would normally have been placed in gaol. It was conducted in a building on the corner of Forbes and Burton streets directly behind Darlinghurst Gaol.

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Gladesville Hospital

Psychiatric hospital complex that grew out of the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum established in 1838. Patients were treated there until the 1990s.

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Gladesville Macquarie Hospital

Mental health facility formed by the amalgamation of Gladesville Mental Hospital and Macquarie Hospital in 1993.

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Liverpool Lunatic Asylum

Temporary facility at Liverpool Court House which housed patients from the unfit Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum until the Tarban Creek Asylum was built.

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Macquarie Hospital

Mental health residential facility at North Ryde.

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New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry

Profession body providing quality learning and research to the mental health workforce and the wider community

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Parramatta Lunatic Asylum

Public asylum established for the remaining invalid or insane inmates of the Female Factory after it closed, as well as the criminally insane.

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Rozelle Hospital

Hospital formed in 1976 by the amalgamation of Callan Park Hospital and Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic. In 2008 all Rozelle services and patients were transferred to Concord Hospital.

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Bailey, Harry Richard

Psychiatrist who, with others, treated patients at Chelmsford Private Hospital with Deep Sleep Therapy and electric shock therapy. The death of at least 26 of these patients by 1979 eventually led to a Royal Commission in 1988. Bailey had taken his own life while being investigated in 1985.

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Campbell, Francis Rawdon

Medical practitioner of Scottish descent whose treatment of the mentally ill included removal of physical restraint and the use of recreational facilities. He was fearless in his attacks on colonial misadministration affecting the asylum ahead of his time in many therapies.

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Carter, Ronald Graeme

Twenty three year old man who was a patient at Chelmsford Private Hospital in 1967and died while under the care of Dr Harry Bailey. The coroner found he had died of pneumonia after barbituates had been administered used in the course of prescribed deep sleep therapy.

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Hurly, Tom

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Resident of Parramatta Lunatic Asylum in 1861 who identified as male. Probably Irish, from Limerick, on arrival in Sydney they were still wearing 'woman's wearables'. The Asylum staff did not force Hurly to dress as a woman.

Hush, Barvara

Artist, teacher and nurse who used art therapy to assist artists with mental health problems.

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Jones, Sydney Evan

Psychiatrist who travelled to the Antarctic with Douglas Mawson in 1911-14 before returning to psychiatric medicine in Sydney where he developed innovative and successful treatment methods.

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Manning, Frederic Norton

Doctor who radically changed the treatment of the mentally ill by breaking down indifference and deep-rooted prejudices and overseeing the construction of purpose built humane facilities.

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McGeorge, John

Forensic psychiatrist who served as a consultant to all three armed services in the 1940s and 50s and assessed many of the worst offenders in his work with the Department of Justice.

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Podio, Miriam Victoria

Twenty six year old woman who died while under the care of Dr Harry Bailey at Chelmsford Private Hospital in 1977.

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Sinclair, Eric

Psychiatrist who campaigned to establish the treatment of mental illness on a scientific footing and to have psychiatry recognized as a legitimate medical science.

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Tucker, William

William Tucker, or Tuckett, was the common hangman in New South Wales in the 1870s until about 1876. In Gundagai, on 20 July 1876, he declared to the Police Magistrate's Court that 'his profession would drive him mad, as it takes a man with very strong nerves to execute a man, and he felt that he was not equal to it, and he intended to give it up'.

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Cumberland Hospital Campus

Public psychiatric hospital campus in Westmead on the site of the former residence of female convicts.

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Garryowen estate

Estate which became Callan Park Mental Hospital.

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Bay View House Private Lunatic Asylum, Cooks River 1869

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From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Illustrated Sydney News, 23 December 1869, p316)

Bayview House Private Mental Hospital, King Street, Tempe 1939

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Contributed By

Marrickville Council Library and History Services

[Asset Number: 003031]

(The Medical Journal of Australia Advertiser, 15 April 1939)

Front cover of 'The Answer: a philosophical essay' by WJ Chidley 1912

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By

William James Chidley

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.aus-vn5214043-s1]

Men's dormitory in the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum 1861

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By

Frederick Charles Terry

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(The Australian Home Companion and Band of Hope Journal, 1 June 1861, p3)

Mr WJ Chidley will lecture to men and women on health, diet and clothing

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From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a128079 / V/120]

(Mitchell Library)

Tom Hurly at the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum 1861

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On leaving this room we saw a little dapper man approaching, dressed in neat frock coat and trowsers., and somewhat shabby white hat. A visitor we enquired? "No," replied Mrs. Statham, "that is one of our characters--it is a woman who fancies herself a man, and whom we humor by allowing her to dress according to her ideas." This strange character took off her hat, and introduced herself as Tom Hurly, offering us a pinch of snuff, and shaking us heartily by the hand. There was a world of humor in the merry twinkle of the lady's eye, and the rich brogue in which she spoke. At our suggestion she proudly sat to Mr. Terry for her portrait, which we here present, vouching for its accuracy. In reply to our queries, she stated that she had three wives, and she named them all. She said she had been in the country over a hundred years, having been sent from Limerick in "woman's wearables' as she did not then know her own "karacter." " Tom" was very amusing and chatted freely while her portrait was doing, and we left her, proud and important that she had been so noticed. Poor woman! her's is an extraordinary case;- we have never heard of any other instance of such an extraordinary delusion. She is in general quiet, but occasionally breaks out, and has to be confined. If her fancy of dressing as a man were denied her, without doubt she would be in a.constant state of excitement and violence.'

By

Frederick Charles Terry

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(The Australian Home Companion and Band of Hope Journal, 1 June 1861, p3 )

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