Millbrook Rise, 1995, courtesy of National Library of Australia.
Details
Millbrook Rise Hospital, run by the government, opened in New Norfolk in 1934. It was a psychiatric hospital which took some adolescents in the 1960s. In 1968, the Royal Derwent Hospital took Millbrook Rise over.
The main purpose of Millbrook Rise Hospital was to treat World War One veterans and their families but it also took private patients. Patients were treated for mental illness, alcoholism, and intellectual disability.
Millbrook Rise Psychopathic Hospital opened in Burnett Street across the road from Lachlan Park Hospital in 1934. The Tasmanian Veterans Trust paid for its establishment with funds given to it by the Red Cross after World War One. Under the Psychopathic Hospital Management Act of 1933, the State government took over the management of the Hospital. The Act also provided for the Hospital to give priority to ex-servicemen and their families.
The Millbrook Home Board managed the Hospital. It included several members of the Tasmanian Veterans Trust. The Secretary of the Board was also the Secretary of the Trust.
From the outset, Millbrook Rise had a close association with Lachlan Park Hospital. Although Millbrook Rise had its own nurses and attendants, Lachlan Park supplied the doctors and psychiatrists. Patients were readily transferred between the two Hospitals, which explains why a few adolescents sent to Lachlan Park went on to Millbrook Rise.
1934 - 1968 Millbrook Rise Psychopathic Hospital
1968 - 2000 Royal Derwent Hospital
Sources used to compile this entry: Gowlland, RW, Troubled asylum: the history of the Invalid Barracks, New Norfolk Colonial Hospital, New Norfolk Madhouse, New Norfolk Her Majesty's Lunatic Asylum, New Norfolk Mental Diseases Hospital, New Norfolk Lachlan Park, New Norfolk Royal Derwent Hospital, Self publication, New Norfolk, 1996; Reynolds, Margaret and Hols, Monica, Remember the children: stories about the lives of young people in Tasmania's last mental institution, 1950-2000, National Disability Services, Hobart, December 2011, 15 pp.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 4 July 2012, Last modified: 24 March 2014
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/tas/biogs/TE00502b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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