Lee Street

The Carlton Receiving-House for the Insane, 1866-1873

When the Collingwood Stockade closed as a prison in 1866, it was almost immediately re-opened as a government asylum for the insane. Although it was intended to function only as a temporary asylum, it operated for seven years, until June 1873.

Just as the prison stockade in Carlton had been opened to relieve the crisis in prison overcrowding, the Carlton asylum was begun because of severe overcrowding in Victoria's asylums for the mentally ill. 'Lunatics' had been held at the Yarra Bend Asylum in Kew since 1848 and, when it could hold no more, in penal establishments.

Still-vacant land adjoining the Collingwood Stockade had been considered in September 1862 as a site for building 'a permanent plain and inexpensive brick building for the accommodation of 150 quiet, harmless, incurable lunatics'. Instead, a commission of inquiry was appointed, and recommended the building of new asylums at Ararat and Beechworth.

In order to ease the overcrowding problem pending the opening of these new asylums (they were not completed until 1867), in October 1863 the old Collins Street Gaol was turned into a temporary asylum. When this, too, proved insufficient, in early 1865 the former Powder Magazine in Royal Park was also opened as a temporary relieving house, and other patients were sent to the Cremorne Private Asylum in Richmond.

Still the accommodation crisis continued, and in January 1866, with the Collingwood Stockade about to close as a prison, the Superintendent at Yarra Bend urged that 'no time should be lost in making the Collingwood Stockade available' as an additional relieving house. The prison stockade was closed on 5 March 1866 and, after partial conversion works, began receiving asylum patients in May. The Superintendent at Yarra Bend advised the Chief Secretary on 31 August 1866 that the 'Stockade at Collingwood has been opened for the reception of patients and into it are being drafted the insane population of the several gaols.'

Although it had been opened as a temporary receiving house, with apparently little structural alteration to the buildings within it, the Collingwood Stockade - now called the Collingwood Receiving Hospital - was formally gazetted in October 1867 as a government Lunatic Asylum. In a veiled criticism of the appropriateness of its recycled prison buildings for asylum purposes, the Inspector of Asylums reported in 1868 that the Carlton Receiving-House for the Insane, as he now termed it, 'was generally in a creditable state, and, considering the nature and character of the buildings, it may be said to answer the purpose of a receiving-house in a satisfactory manner.'

The following engraving, which was published by the Illustrated Melbourne Post on 12 October 1868 with the caption 'Collingwood Lunatic Asylum Ball', provides a unique 'snap shot' of life within the asylum walls:

Illustrated Melbourne Post

The asylum was expected to accommodate up to 200 patients, and at the end of 1866 was almost full to capacity: 194 patients were listed there on 31 December 1866. In following years the number of patients stabilised at between 130-140, as the opening of the new asylums at Ararat and Beechworth eased accommodation pressure and enabled the Carlton Receiving-House to be 'reserved as much as possible for the care of harmless imbeciles'.

1869 Parish Plan

A Parish Plan dated 19 November 1869 shows land subdivision for suburban house building rimming the original six acres of the Stockade reservation. A hand-written note on the plan refers to more land sales to be held in January 1870. The quarry workings on the site of present-day Curtain Square, and the walled-in buildings of the asylum, appear incongruous amid the surrounding grid of rectangular house allotments. The Stockade obstructs the line of what is now Lee Street between Rathdowne and Canning Streets (the western portion of which was called Brierly Street, and its resumption east of Canning Street was called York Street). O'Grady Street has yet to be formed, its site still occupied by the Stockade.

A clearer view of the asylum buildings is provided by an undated (c.1874) plan after the asylum had closed.

1874 Plan

Another undated manuscript plan that was apparently prepared for the Education Department in 1875 provides a still-more detailed view of the old Stockade's buildings, and identifies the uses to which they were put before the asylum closed.

1875 Plan

Access to the asylum was via a circular drive, approximating to present-day Lee Street. It led to an entrance hall, office and surgery, which was flanked by an attendants' mess room, male dormitories, a school room and hospital. To its west stood a wooden building that was used by the male attendants, and behind it were more wooden buildings which comprised bedrooms, and a lavatory and bathroom block. These were flanked to the west by a kitchen garden and on east by a large exercise yard, on the other side of which (to the rear of the entrance building) stood a large rectangular wooden building that contained a school room, day rooms for males and females, and additional male dormitories. A kitchen and store-room block was located nearby, and on its eastern side stood an L-shaped row of wooden dormitories for female patients. A block of 10 bluestone cells, and a wooden wash-house and store, were located further towards the north-eastern corner of the perimeter wall. Immediately to the east of the entrance building stood an assemblage of stone and wooden buildings, which included the residence of the Head Attendant and Matron, and a dormitory for 'feeble females' (this stone building may have been the stockade's officers' quarters, or was purpose-built for the asylum). To their north were wooden quarters for female patients and women attendants. The Superintendent's stone house stood beside the eastern wall along Canning Street.

When the Kew Asylum opened in 1872, the Carlton Asylum became an out ward of this massive new institution. Its remaining patients were transferred to Kew on 16 June 1873.