Millbrook Rise Hospital opened in New Norfolk in 1933. It was a public psychiatric hospital which took some adolescent patients. In 1968, Millbrook Rise merged with Lachlan Park Hospital to form the Royal Derwent Hospital. Millbrook Rise officially opened on 21 February 1934 (Willow Court Tasmania website). Initially, the main purpose of Millbrook Rise Hospital…
The Hospital for the Insane replaced the Lunatic Asylum in 1859. It remained on the same site. In 1937, the Mental Diseases Hospital replaced it. The Gentleman’s Cottage, which in 1941, became an institution for men and boys with intellectual disabilities, was built in 1859. The Ladies Cottage, which later became ‘J’ Ward, opened in…
The Lunatic Asylum, New Norfolk began in 1827 as the Invalid Barracks for convicts. A good proportion of the invalids were classified as ‘lunatics’ and as the hospital became more crowded, it increasingly specialised in ‘caring’ for people with this diagnosis. Over time it catered for all kinds of people, rather than just convicts. The…
The Blind, Deaf and Dumb Institution, run by the Society for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, opened in North Hobart in 1898. It provided an education and industrial training to adults and children with hearing and sight disabilities. There was accommodation for the country children who attended the school on the site. The Institution closed…
Wingfield House, run by the Board of the Royal Hobart Hospital, opened in 1938. It was on the grounds of St John’s Park. Wingfield provided residential and outpatient aftercare to children affected by the polio epidemic of 1937 to 1938. Later it offered services to children with a range of physical disabilities. It closed in…
Lachlan Park Special School, run by the Education Department, opened in 1959 following lobbying from the New Norfolk Branch of the Retarded Children’s Welfare Association. It was located within the walls of Lachlan Park Hospital, in a former hospital ward. Education at Lachlan Park had more or less stopped by 1965. Margaret Reynolds, the former…
Tascare Society for Children superseded the Tasmanian Society for the Care of Crippled Children in 1988. It provided support to the parents of children with disabilities.Tascare Society for Children closed in 2019. The name change appears to have followed the Society’s decision in the mid-1980s to give up its medical and clinical roles in order…
St Giles School, run by the Society for the Care of Crippled Children, opened in 1931. The School provided an education to the children with physical disabilities who lived at St Giles Home or attended it for treatment. Children did not live at the School. In the 1980s, the Education Department took the School over…
St Giles Home, run by the Society for the Care of Crippled Children, opened in Newstead in 1937. It provided residential accommodation and schooling to children with physical disabilities, including wards of state. The Home closed in the 1990s. St Giles Home provided accommodation and treatment for children who had contracted polio during the 1937…
Orana Retarded Children’s Home, run by the Northern Branch of the Retarded Children’s Welfare Association, opened in Newnham in 1968. It accommodated country children with intellectual disabilities, aged between 6 and 16, so that they could attend special schools in Launceston. State wards with intellectual disabilities also lived at the Home. Orana closed around 1990….