AGY-63 | Liverpool Lunatic Asylum

Full description

In 1825 the patients at the Lunatic Asylum, Castle Hill were moved to the Liverpool Court House, which served as an asylum until Tarban Creek Asylum was built. (1)

On 28 September 1825 the Grand Jurors had reported to the Court of Quarter Sessions, Parramatta that the Lunatic Asylum at Castle Hill was "altogether unfit" due to it's lack of a reliable water supply and distance from medical attention. The asylum contained 27 male, and 8 female patients, under the care of one keeper. The report recommended that "these afflicted and unfortunate persons should be secured in a proper Hospital more directly situated in the vicinity of the Town", with a building constructed for the purpose. (2) At this time patients were committed to an asylum by an order from a magistrate.

In 1835 Governor Bourke sent a despatch to London advising of the necessity for an asylum to be built, and described the present asylum at Liverpool as " a wretched hired building without outlet of any kind". (3) When the new Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum had been completed patients were transferred from the Lunatic Asylum, Liverpool, and from the Female Factory, Parramatta, the first arriving on 19 November 1838. By 22 November all 28 female patients committed to the Liverpool Asylum had been transferred to Tarban Creek, with the first male patients from Liverpool arriving on 10 January 1839. (4)

Endnotes
1. Concise Guide to the State Archives of NSW, q.v. Health. Q. Records of Mental Hospitals. Lunatic Asylum, Liverpool.
2. Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Vol.11, pp.861-862.
3. Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Vol.17, p.631.
4. Bostock, J., The Dawn of Australian Psychiatry, Glebe, Australasian Medical Publishing Company, 1968, pp.44-45.