THE MOST SOLITARY MAN

(Noel Agnew, Peel Island Lazaret)

He came to the Peel Island Lazaret when it first opened in 1907. In fact, it was because of him that it opened there at all. Noel Agnew had been a gregarious child. He liked people. He liked to entertain them. His father was the postmaster at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island. Besides its population of aborigines and sundry fishing families, Dunwich had also long been home to Brisbane’s social outcasts: the Benevolent Asylum for the aged and infirm, epileptics, alcoholics, and since 1892, a lazaret for leprosy patients.

At concerts which were arranged for the amusement of these people, the young Noel Agnew was wont to perform.  They nicknamed him “Laddie”. When the leprosy symptoms appeared on his skin – the familiar purple spot – there was general consternation amongst the Dunwich folk. Noel Agnew had shattered the belief that the Lazaret, which adjoined the Benevolent Asylum, was sufficiently isolated to render its patients harmless.  Consequently, the Lazaret with its 17 patients was transferred to Peel – that tiny tree clad island 2.5 kilometers from Dunwich.

Noel Agnew was one of the patients. . .

Peel was a beautiful island, a tree clad crown ringed by coral reefs swarming with an abundance of life. A brilliant arc of sand stretched along its entire south coast, while thick mangrove swamps ringed the rest of the island with acres of secret places for birds to nest, crabs to hide, and fish to spawn. Peel was a paradise, but to the leprosy patients incarcerated there, Peel was a prison, a life sentence for incurables.

Perhaps there was some communal reassurance to be had from fellow patients, be they aborigines, white Australians, Chinese, Kanakas, or Europeans: after all they did share the same disease. But life at the settlement was in the main dull and restrictive. So many people from so many cultural backgrounds confined in such a small area for so long.

 There had to be some relief.

 Noel Agnew found his in the bird life which frequented the island. Peel was strangely devoid of animal life, save for snakes and wallabies, but birds were everywhere to be found. Their calls woke him each morning, beckoned him from his human condition, and sang as he entered their kingdom. Even his gnarled hands seemed to blend with the mangrove roots he grasped while watching the Egret wade the swamps. He was part of nature where right and wrong did not matter. He communed with Nature instead of men.

Because of his continuous residency of the island, Noel Agnew was able to compile a comprehensive list of his bird sightings. . .

Curlew (Numenius cyanopus) – common. Seen on sand-banks at low tide.

Black duck (Anas superciliosa) – common at times. Shooting parties have frightened most of these birds away. Nests have been found. . .

 In all, he identified 76 species of birds. These were published in the R.A.O.U. journal “The Emu” in 1913, his seventh year on Peel. A further list was published in 1921, his fifteenth year.. 

Boobook Owl (Ninox boobook) – common. Their “more pork” like cry is heard nearly every night. When out in mangroves I surprised a pair. Nests here…

 However, as time progressed, so did the condition of his leprosy.

Some of his fellow patients showed no symptoms at all, others showed symptoms in various forms: skin nodules, loss of eyebrows and ear lobes, areas of numbness, nerve pain, intractable foot ulcers, the softening of the bones in fingers and toes, thus necessitating their removal. It was only in the very few that leprosy ran its full course. Noel Agnew was one of the very few.

With the passing of the years, the leprosy attacked his optic nerves and his sight gradually failed to complete blindness. The nerves in his 1imbs, too, were attacked, with their resulting terrible contractions and deformities. Even from his fellow leprosy patients, Noel Agnew became an object to be pitied. The most solitary of the solitary.

With his birdwatching days now only distant memories, Noel Agnew’s world became his tiny one roomed wooden hut. He couldn’t even help himself to the toilet. When he required help, he would belt on the wall and roar like an animal until someone came. At night, other patients would sleep on the floor beside him in case he needed help. They were paid for their labours. Sometimes, someone read to him.

Leprosy rarely kills its host; it respects life’s longevity, but not its quality. On Noel Agnew, leprosy bestowed its worst curse. At the end, his only world was inside his head. He died in 1937, his thirtieth year on the island. To him goes the dubious honour of being Peel’s longest resident. He was buried in the island’s small cemetery in an unmarked grave, recorded in a Register which was later lost.

All that remains today are his bird lists, but to wade through the  mangroves on a quiet day, it’s easy to imagine him still crouching amongst the roots, whispering as he scribbles in his journal. . .

Australian Egret (Herodias syrmatophorus) rare. This bird. . .

occasionally visits us in twos and threes….

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People – The Complete Collection’.

The Agnew Family Outdoors at Dunwich c1920 (Noel is sitting at the table)

Notes of Alex’ Visit to Peel Island in the 1990s

In 1999, the death occurred of “Alex”, a former patient of Peel whose remembrances are featured in many pages of “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison?” In the 1990s I was fortunate enough to accompany him on two return visits to his former place of internment. His last visit was 60 years after his first admission there! Here are some of the comments made on his visits to the Island in the 1990s:

‘Alex’ and his girls at the Lazaret

* When I first arrived at Peel in 1936, the present Ranger’s house was occupied by Superintendent Goldsworthy, Deputy Superintendent Jack Carling, and the housekeeper, Mrs Snow. It was out of bounds to myself and the other patients. This visit was the first time I had been allowed to enter the house. Nurse Dwyer then occupied the (later) Superintendent’s house.

* The hospital extensions at the rear came from Dunwich when the Benevolent Asylum was moved to Sandgate. I think the Recreation hall, too, came from Dunwich. So too did the horses (“Dolly” and “Podge”), the mower, and the grader.

* Superintendent Goldsworthy was nicknamed “Old Goldie” by the patients. When Goldie drove the dray to the jetty, he used to let “Dolly” plod along at a painfully slow pace. 

* The billiard table was donated by the masons, and when Peel closed, it was moved to S12 at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.  

* There was never any hut on Lovers’ Island (Cucumber Point). However, when the men took the ladies out fishing to the Rainbow channel, they would call in there to boil the billy for lunch, and to have some time together in private.

*Another patient, George, often fished with me, and was adept at spearing fish.

*During my time on the island, there were no married couples there, however, two patients did marry in the lazaret church.

*After wind blows, the patients used to search the mangroves for boats which had broken loose from their moorings in other parts of the bay. I had four dinghies, only one of which I had to buy.

*A patient, Moore, owned a motorbike that he used to ride around the island.

*I won the contract from another patient to fill in the holes along the track from the settlement to the stone jetty.

*Jack Howard was a patient who had a hut near the cement circle next to the rec hall. His initials are still in the cement.

*The patients called the quarry near the wooden jetty “The Red Hill”.

*The trolley and tramlines at the patients’ jetty came from the stone jetty.

*Some of the patients (myself included) kept beehives which they stocked by raiding natural hives in the bush for their queen bees.

*”Old John” was a blind patient who had once been a bullocky from Cooktown. The other patients had rigged up a wire from his hut to the toilet, and as he felt his way along it, he used to swear all the way.

*There was a ship’s square steel tank in the bush on the way to Lover’s Island. The patients used to cut pieces out for use as centreboards for their boats.

*After the men’s rec hut was burnt, dances were held in that patient’s hut which was later converted into the Roman Catholic church.

*Dubs (toilets) were emptied once a week using the horse and dray.

*During the war (WWII), a yank ship was wrecked off Amity, and its supply of coffee was washed ashore.

*Oregon timber was readily available on the beach (as driftwood).

*Keith Spencer’s grandfather planted the trees on Bird Island. When I was on Peel, Bird was tree-less. Also, there was no roof or partition in the jail. These must have been put in later as a holiday house for a patient. The door was there, however. There were no trees around the jail, only grass, yellow flowers, and daisies. The shape of the previous quarantine gardens could still be seen from the position of the flowers. The heather growing in the area was thought to have been brought originally from overseas by the quarantined migrants. The Public Works Department built a shed at the stone jetty for the patients to entertain their relatives.

*Sylvia was a HD patient who died of Bright’s Disease.

*Coloured and white patients were buried in their own areas in the cemetery (whites closest to the road; coloureds to the back).

*Two young Aboriginal girls were locked up at night by Matron O’Brien, but the young male Aborigines got to them by dislodging the floorboards of their hut.

*Me and my friend George used to go for morning tea to Myra’s hut (the one with traces of lattice still remaining). George and Myra were lovers.

*I obtained sheets from the store and made sails for my dinghy from them. (I put eyelets in them).

*Twice a year, patients were able to obtain catalogue orders from T.C.Beirne’s. Jimmy Kangaroo would wear his new shirt until it dropped off.

*A white patient named Keogh was very musical and a comedian. He taught the “darkies” (as we used to call the Aboriginal patients in those days) how to play musical instruments, and they formed a brass band.

*I went out on the mudflats below the embankment to obtain oysters, and small crabs and worms to use as bait.

*Milk was obtained from the dairy at Dunwich as well as bread. Sides of beef were boned at the settlement. The kitchen was called “Cockroach Castle”. The ovens still in the bush were from the kitchen.

*Huts were fumigated for bed bugs by Matron O’Brien by putting Condy’s crystals in a saucer and adding ?? She also tried dosing the patients with creosote as a possible cure for HD.

*The patients built a hut for their visitors at the quarantine station.

*Going up the back stairs at the surgery, the two rooms on the left were the original ones. The others were added on at later stages.

*Sukiman and Gumbung were two Indonesian patients who were transferred to Peel during the war from Channel Island near Darwin.

Peter Ludlow, October 1999

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People – The Complete Collection’.

‘Alex’ finds his former fowl yard’s water trough 1990s

The Island of the Living Dead

Part of Father Gabriel Nolan’s duties as Parish Priest at Manly was to service the Moreton Bay islands of Peel and North Stradbroke. Here Father Nolan reflects: 

‘On my first visit to the Lazaret at Peel Island, I was very apprehensive. The Bible, of course, is full of references to leprosy and to the exclusion of lepers from the rest of society. It was difficult not to view the patients at Peel Island in such a manner, so I sought the advice of those who worked amongst the patients: the Matron and the nursing sisters. After their reassurances that it was quite all right to have contact with the patients without the need for any special precautions, I followed their example and moved freely amongst these unfortunate souls. The only warning I was given was to keep my feet covered because at that time it was thought that the Leprosy bacteria might survive in the ground.

‘I visited Peel once a month, arriving on the Wednesday morning, and leaving the next afternoon. My first duty was to chat with the staff over a cup of tea and then visit the patients individually. After a short rest in the heat of the afternoon, I would visit the patients again that night, hearing Confession where appropriate. I visited anyone who wanted to see me, however I was warned that a Japanese patient was particularly violent, so I only went as far as his door to talk to him. He was very resentful, understandably, about being kept there against his will. 

‘Next morning, after sleeping in the Superintendent’s quarters, I would conduct Mass in the Roman Catholic church. Anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs, was able to attend. To minimise the risk of cross infection, patients did not receive wine from the Chalice during Mass. They were offered the bread only. As well as the Catholic Church, the Anglicans had a large Church. Ministers of other religions, notably Cannon Miles, visited on alternate dates to myself.

(EDITOR: The Catholic church was situated at the back of the men’s compound and had once been a hut for several female aboriginal patients. After the aborigines were shifted off Peel up to Fantome Island off Townsville, the hut was shifted using a sled affair to its new position. For a time, it was used as a common room for the men, before being converted to the Catholic Church. Today, its wooden altar remains as well as the nails in the wall on which hung the Stations of the Cross. The fate of the Stations is unknown, but Father Nolan remembers taking the stone relic from the altar back to his Manly Parish when the institution at Peel was closed down.)

Peel Island Lazaret’s Catholic Church following Restoration 11.8.2011. (photo Scott Fowle)

Each patient had their own wooden hut and the whole place was rather beautiful. The only problem was that no one was allowed to leave until they were cured. I visited Peel Island throughout the 1950s, perhaps the best decade of all for this troubled place, because just prior to this, the cure for this ancient disease had been discovered. Most patients responded immediately to the drugs, and only the most advanced cases showed no improvement. To be pronounced ‘cured’ the patients had to produce negative blood smears for each of thirteen months. Thus, the minimum stay for a patient would have to be 13 months. In the past before the cure had been found, this procedure could be heart breaking when after, say, 12 negative smears, a positive one would show up and the patient would have to start the whole process from scratch again.

As well as Mass, I presided over many funerals. These were full ceremonies conducted in the church and at the graveside in the island’s cemetery. All patients used to attend where possible. The Doctor at that time, Morgan Gabriel, was a mighty man. When he first arrived, there was a serious alcohol problem with many of the non-medical staff. Doctor Gabriel had replaced Doctor Lennan, who was himself an alcoholic and unable to control the drinking problems in his staff. As well as being appointed Medical Superintendent of the island, Doctor Gabriel was also given control over non-medical staff. Risking great personal unpopularity, he firmly set new rules for behaviour. Anyone not shaping up would have to ship out. Within a short time, the troublemakers were removed, and morale improved.

I had a problem with some of the relatives of the patients, who tried to get me to use my influence with the Doctor to obtain favours for the patients. I always refused because I thought Doctor Gabriel already had the situation well in hand. Eventually as the curative effects of the drugs became apparent, patient numbers declined to such an extent that there were more staff than patients. Eventually in 1959, the remaining nine patients were transferred to a special annex at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. I never attended them there, though.

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People – The Complete Collection’.

A Day’s Routine at the Peel Island Lazaret

(Eric Reye & Rosemary Opala, Peel Island)

The Lazaret (Leprosarium) operated at Peel Island from 1907 until 1959 as the home and treatment centre for Queensland’s leprosy patients.  Like all medical institutions, it was run to a daily routine. Doctor Eric Reye, the island’s resident Medical Officer from 1945 until 1949, and Rosemary Opala (nee Fielding), a Nurse there during the late 1940s and again during the early 1950s have supplied the following,” typical” day’s duty roster for Peel’s medical staff. Two events were to modify their duties there in 1947: the introduction of electricity generation, and the introduction of Promin, the intravenous sulphone drug which was to finally control leprosy, the most dreaded of all contagious diseases.

Peel Island Lazaret – c.1955 – day surgery (red roof) and hospital (silver roof) (photo Dr Morgan Gabriel)

DAYS OFF

Nurses worked several weeks ‘on’, then took cumulative leave off the island. Originally no overtime was ever claimed but by Rosemary’s second term on the island during the 1950s, overtime payments were the norm.

Doctor Eric Reye spent alternate weekends off duty.

AN AVERAGE DAY

4.30AM            Nurses go to the surgery to start the two primuses that heat the big sterilizer. Water takes about an hour to boil.

6.00AM            The helpless hospital patients are washed, beds made, and medications given. The hospital orderly bathes the mobile male patients and takes care of the hospital generally.

8.00AM            Staff breakfast.

8.30 AM           Surgery (“clinic”) commences. Patients present themselves for dressings, check-ups, plasters.

On Mondays, “smears” are taken on a monthly rotational basis.

These involve the removal of a small blood sample from the patient’s ear lobe or eye brow (where the Leprosy bacteria is most intense).

These samples are sent to the Health Department Laboratory in Brisbane for testing. positive for the presence of the leprosy bacillus, negative for its absence. The patients are vitally interested in the results because they will be allowed to leave the island only when they have accumulated twelve monthly continuous negative smears. If one positive smear should be recorded, even after eleven months of negative results, they must begin counting all over again from their next negative smear. Such a result can be heartbreaking.

Chaulmoogra oil injections are given by nursing staff. (The only treatment for leprosy until the advent of Promin, chaulmoogra oil injections were very painful. It was also available as an extremely nauseating oral liquid. Although it produced symptoms indicating it was helping to kill the leprosy bacillus, it may have been only a placebo effect.) 

10.00AM          Medical & administration staff morning tea on the quarters’ verandah.

                                                Mail arrives at about this time.

10.30AM     Medical rounds of hut-fast patients either with the doctor or for routine dressings. Medical equipment has to be carried on a large tray.

 Basically, nursing care on Peel is as much as for any hospital ward.

 Doctor Reye’s particular jobs include:

 1. Fitting walking plasters for trophic ulcers.

These are time consuming to put on and remove.

     Staff make the plaster bandages by hand.

 2. Sharpening IV needles (non-disposable).

 3. Minor surgery. First aid.

 4. Dispensing (usually afternoons).

 5. Microscope work.

 6. Simple dental work (foot pedal drill and wooden barber’s chair).

 NOON:                       Lunch.

Life at Peel is “governed by the cook’s roster”.

All activities must be slotted in around the cook’s self-declared meal times.

  PM:           All staff have free afternoons until compulsory afternoon tea at 3.30 pm. This afternoon break is used for recreation with or without patients (tennis, swimming, bikes, etc.) also for reading to blind patients.

 Sometimes extraneous work is performed such as whitewashing the inside of an old hut for use as a makeshift laboratory.

 4.30 PM          Evening meal (cooks again!)

5.30PM            Evening surgery lit by pressure lamp on table. Usually minimal patient attendance. Day jobs finished. Patients’ temperatures charted. A medical round is held of any sick patients. No night nursing staff are rostered. Matron is called if there are any problems.

BASIC SURGERY HYGIENE

* Only tank, no sink. Hands are washed in a basin on a tripod, ‘Dettol’ is first added to the water.

* Zephiran solution (benzalkonium chloride) is used for skin preps and gloves.

* While on duty nurses wear theatre gowns.

* Hagedorn needles (for eyebrow and ear smears) are”flamed” between patients.

* “Sharps” are soaked in lysol.

* Blunts and enamel dishes are boiled up in primus operated boiler.

* Phenol is used for disinfecting commodes and sanitary tins.

Minimal cross infection recorded, except when “self-inflicted” by patients using their own ulcer treatment etc. (e.g. Grated apple and flower paste). Occasionally fly maggot infestation.

Eucalyptus full strength or iodoform sometimes needed as deodorant for discarded dressings.

AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF PROMIN

6.00 AM           * Doctor Reye administers intravenous (IV) doses before breakfast, firstly in the surgery to the mobile patients.

 * Syringes (glass, luerlock) and needles are boiled between patients.

 Only 3 or 4 syringes are kept because they are expensive. Needles are sharpened at night. No disposables originally.

 * Patients’ blood is tested before Promin treatment is started.  Hb, WCC, and MCV are done weekly by Doctor Reye. Nurses help with slide preparation. Eventually, to ease the workload, a laboratory technician and assistant are employed.

 * A Blood bank is set up in case a patient experiences an adverse reaction to the Promin. Six bottles of blood are kept in the kerosene fridge on the hospital’ s south verandah.

* With the success of Promin in the treatment of leprosy, patient numbers gradually fall as the patients are allowed home. This lightens the nursing workload to the extent that it is necessary to “make work” on the afternoon shift.

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People – The Complete Collection‘. This book is still available from Boolarong Press at Boolarong Press.com.au

NURSING NO GRUDGE

Rosemary Opala remembers:

During the – can it be? – five decades since I worked on Peel Island, the experience has provided material from medical interest to local, social and natural history. Even folklore! Occasionally I’ve been asked to ‘guest speak’ on nursing at the Lazaret, or field queries at a (now rare) island open-day. Invariably comes that question: “Weren’t you afraid of catching it?” To which the reply still remains: “Never gave it a thought.” And this answer would apply to all categories of Peel Island staff – despite that mythical ‘Danger Money’ allegedly needed for patient contact.

Some of us had heard a bit about poor Father Damien long before that truly moving film was contemplated of course. And I recall Matron Ahlberg handing me a little book called Damien the Leper: something about the hazards of sharing the patients’ pipes and blankets, and rather unlikely to involve us. Otherwise, there were no precautionary measures for a condition where even today the means of transmission remain unclear. Hansen’s Disease is said to be the least contagious of any infectious disease.  The crumpled cotton gowns we wore on duty were standard public hospital issue against pathogens, but on Peel mainly served to keep our nicely laundered uniforms clean.

Peel Island Lazaret – c.1955 – store, nurses’, matron’s quarters (photo Dr Morgan Gabriel)

These over-gowns were in short supply in the larger hospitals even after WWII and, handed on from one nursing shift to the next, were no doubt a focus of cross-infection. Round the time I met my first Peel Islanders in their pavilion-type ward at Wattlebrae (then Brisbane’s infectious diseases collection point), I was recovering from patient-transmitted Whooping Cough. “Reporting sick” was never appreciated, and as I couldn’t produce a Whoop in the Staff Clinic, I returned to my Pertussis patients with a bottle of cough linctus, Phenobarb tablets, and (later on) Pleurisy.

A colleague of mine only found she’d been working with Meningitis when she saw a school of fish swimming along the ward wall. She was put on the ‘seriously ill’ list but made a good recovery.

By contrast, Peel Island was not only a most interesting place of work, but also a real haven! Associated negative attitudes came from friends and family. In the period before the new treatment for H.D. arrived, my mother’s elderly GP reproached me for “throwing away your whole life!” Several of her neighbours stopped calling in.

In my mother’s position, though, I’m sure the issue wasn’t the concern over an irresponsible daughter’s Lost Future, but discomfort at our low-profile family being a Conversation Piece. And without even a broken romance to explain my behaviour!

At Peel Island – Nurse Rosemary Fielding (Opala), Superintendent Frank Mahoney, Matron Marie Ahlberg, Dr Eric Reye, Enrolled Nurse Sharp (?) late 1940s

Further on, as other young and enthusiastic nurses came and went through Peel, that irritation word dedication was heard less often. It has to be remembered that other personnel apart from medical willingly shared the patients’ lives. The permanent staff – all male – included managerial, kitchen, laundry and outside maintenance workers. And let’s not forget the good-hearted attendants (male orderlies) who cared for permanently incapacitated patients either in their little huts or the hospital, after-hours.

When invited, we all shared the patients’ social activities such as tennis, concerts, and dances. Ingrained Hospital Protocol, not fear of contagion, was a factor in nurses not further “fraternising with the patients”. I’ve told elsewhere of how we had to hike across to the Horseshoe to swim, instead of using the patients’ jetty at high tide, because it “wasn’t professional” to be seen in our decorous bathers.

A final word on the matter. Peel Island was a very healthy place for staff. Most bugs were picked up “off-island”, like the Measles that followed my visit to the Ekka.

Rosemary Opala

January 2003

Nurse Rosemary Fielding (later Opala), Peel Island late 1940s

(Extract from the ebook ‘Peel Island History – A Personal Quest’ Peter Ludlow, April 2015)

This ebook is still available as a PDF file from the author, Peter Ludlow. Click here for details.

People of Peel Island – 7 – Doris Isobel Gabriel

Doris Isobel Gabriel was always known to her friends as Jonnie, a nick-name given to her by her father, and one she retained throughout her life. It was so typical of the person whose unaffected nature and readiness to help out where needed endeared her to so many. Jonnie revelled in helping out; whether it was on the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Women’s Auxilliary, Ignatian’s Musical Society, the Qld Light Opera Company, the Qld Conservatorium of Music, Savoyards or the Art’s Theatre. She was always there when needed.

When I first began my researches into the history of Peel Island’s Lazaret (way back in 1986) Jonnie Gabriel was the first person I interviewed. Jonnie, a former Theatre Sister had been married to the Late Doctor Morgan Gabriel, the Lazaret’s last Resident Medical Officer from 1951 until 1959. As such, she had lived on Peel in the doctor’s house during that time, and the couple raised their two children, Ruth and Bill, there, thus dispelling the myth that children could never remain on the island after birth because they were considered at risk of contracting the disease.

Doris Gabriel and Eric Reye revisiting the lazaret’s doctor’s quarters in 1993 (photo Peter Ludlow)

The Gabriel’s were always passionate about dispelling the stigma of leprosy and of leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) patients. To their credit, they were always prepared to lead by their own example.

Jonny remembers her near decade on Peel with her husband and young family as a time of great personal happiness and contentment. Dr Gabriel worked strict business hours, with an hour off for lunch, during which time he would often take his wife and children for a picnic at Horseshoe Bay. At other times, while he attended the hospital surgery, Jonny Gabriel would attend to the housework or take her children on walks through the bush to collect wild flowers. (She always carried a bill-hook, though, in case she chanced upon a snake). 

The diesel generators were switched on at dusk and operated until ten o’clock producing electricity for the settlement. On ‘non picture’ nights, Mrs Gabriel would spend her time catching up on her family’s ironing. However, she was always ready to join in any parties at the recreation hall, and one ex-patient still has a chuckle at the memory of a very pregnant Johnny Gabriel kicking balloons around the floor of the rec hall during a pre-Christmas wing-ding! 

During their time at the Lazaret until its closure Jonnie and her husband amassed a great collection of memorabilia: photos, memories, stories, other contact people, and artifacts. All of these Jonnie was more than happy to share, not just with me, but also with the Friends of Peel Island, and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Much of the fine collection we have today is due to the generosity of Jonnie and Morgan Gabriel.

For this I am grateful, but most of all I am grateful for her friendship.

Peter Ludlow

16.1.2010

(Extract from ‘Peel Island History – A Personal Quest‘)

A Note of Discord at the Lazaret

The Aboriginal patients on Peel had long since been ‘Westernised’ in that they had all ceased to observe the tribal customs and traditions of their forebears. They dressed in white man’s clothes, spoke his language, and, on Peel at least, shared his diseases. Nevertheless, they did manage to retain a few of their indigenous skills, one of which was their interest in making ‘traditional’ Aboriginal weapons such as nulla nullas, spears, and boomerangs, which they used, not for hunting, but as rhythm sticks to accompany their dances at their many impromptu corroborees. Some of the men also made bows and arrows to shoot the many Lorikeets that frequented the trees around the lazaret. They prized the birds’ green feathers and used them as body ornamentation in their corroborees. The old tribal rituals and meaning had long since been lost in these dances, and the only purpose of the Corroborees on Peel was for entertainment. 

They were held in the Aborigines’ mess hut and were usually of a spontaneous nature. A large pine table pushed close to the wall served as a stage on which the Aborigines danced and sang to the rhythmic accompaniment of wooden boomerangs being struck together. The noise would have been deafening inside the corrugated iron building. 

The white men also had a recreation hut in their compound and among other items, it contained an old upright piano on which the more musical patients would amuse themselves and anyone else who cared to listen. One day, a Brisbane Radio station generously donated a new piano, which the whites quickly claimed for themselves. The old upright (previously donated by the Freemasons) was moved to the Aborigines’ mess hut where it quickly became an important part of their corroboree ceremonies.

However, it didn’t take the whites long to realise that the tone of their new piano was not a patch on the one they had given away to the Aborigines, so they took it upon themselves to arrange a swap. The Aborigines, however, were not fools and, realising that they had the better piano of the two, refused to come into the deal. To emphasise their determination, the Aborigines even produced spears, at which the whites backed off and let them keep their old upright. 

Post Script 1:

On January 8th, 1940 an army landing barge arrived at Peel Island, and all the Aboriginal patients, along with their goods, chattels, and pet dogs were loaded aboard. They were then taken to Brisbane from where they were taken by rail to Cardwell, and then by another barge to Fantome Island. It was a sad leave-taking because, over the years, the members of the Peel Island community – both white and black – had grown to have much more in common than the mere disease which had originally brought them all together. One of the patient’s last memory of them is of their waving black arms, barking dogs, and a hotch potch of their belongings in the open barge, including their most prized possession – the old upright piano which they had managed to keep from the white patients’ grasp! 

Post Script 2:

Later in the 1940s, a further indignity occurred to the whites when their own recreation hut mysteriously caught fire after some rowdy Christmas revelries. Their new piano was also consumed in the flames!

Post Script 3:

When a new recreation hall was built in 1947, another piano was procured (picture). After the lazaret was closed in 1959, the piano went missing. Its fate is still unknown.

The last piano in the rec hall at the lazaret (photo courtesy Terry Gwynn Jones – John Oxley Library)

(Extract from ‘Peel Island History, a Personal Quest‘ by Peter Ludlow)

People of Peel Island – 6 – Elbert (‘Bert’) Cobb

Bert Cobb was an American by birth but when he was aged nine came to Australia with his parents and two sisters. During World War I he became a flying officer with in the Royal Air Force in England during which he acquired a cultured accent. Bert returned to Australia after the war and 1922 records show that he held two pastoral leases in the Northern Territory. 

Before his admission to the Channel Island Leprosarium (off Darwin) in about 1940 he had worked as a manager for a gold mine for many years in the Northern Territory.  When Darwin was bombed, the Leprosarium patients were transferred to either Peel Island or Sydney’s Little Bay Leprosarium.  Bert came to Peel Island. He kept a loaded revolver in his hut to defend himself in case the Japanese arrived on the island.

For many years Bert Cobb had been troubled with painful eyes (iritis) and failing eyesight, finally going completely blind in 1946.  His leprosy also left him with disfigured hands, which were also devoid of feeling.  His nurse Rosemary Fielding observed that when he wanted to feel something he would do so with his lips.

At Peel, after his blindness, he was cared for by an orderly, Bill Fleetwood, a quiet man (unlike some of his alcoholic comrades), who also used to write letters for him.  Bert once told Rosemary that Bill was the perfect ‘gentleman’s gentleman’.  Another letter writer for Bert was Miss Howard, a social worker who used to visit the island every two weeks.  Bert trusted her and always kept the day free for her. 

He could be a charming man, especially with the ladies, but was also very intolerant.  He was a dreadful snob, supercilious, and scathing.  He had a growl of disgust, which could be very disconcerting. He was fussy about who came into his hut.  A well-educated and intelligent man, he loved people to read to him (after he went blind). 

The other patients respected him because he had been one of the founding members of the Patients’ Committee – formed by the patients to obtain better conditions.  He was a ‘stirrer’, and his education and legal knowledge were useful when it came to partitioning the government and newspapers and anyone else (they sent hundreds of letters all bashed out on an old typewriter).

Bert guarded his past very closely and did not want to be buried with any ceremony.  However, when he did die of toxaemia on May 30, 1959 (just a month before the Leprosarium on Peel Island closed down) someone did put an Australian flag over his coffin because he had served in WWI.

Peter Ludlow

From material supplied by Rosemary Opala (nee Fielding) and Bert’s great nephew, Dudley M.Cobb

Nurse Rosemary Fielding’s painting of Bert Cobb

People of Peel Island – 5 – The Sisters of Mercy

Sr Mercia Mary, Sr M Conrad, Sr M Agnese Mater Hospital Private Pharmacy c1962

My first contact with Sister Mercia Mary was in 1986 while I was writing “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison?” – my history of the Lazaret (Leprosarium) that had been in operation in Moreton Bay between 1907 and 1959. In a pleasant and informative afternoon with her and fellow Sisters of Mercy, Sister Mary Conrad and Sister Mary St. Rita I was to learn of the Nun’s great compassion for their fellow humans.

Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) patients had been treated at the Mater Hospital and their blood smears had been processed in the Mater’s Pathology Department. It was through these contacts that the link to the patients at Peel Island was established. Not being content to treat these people as mere numbers in a waiting room or initials on a list of blood samples, the Sisters of Mercy led by Sister Mercia Mary made it their business to visit them on their island. This was a bold step because of the public neuroses that the stigma of Leprosy engendered.

The extent of such public neurosis can be gauged from Sister Mary St Rita’s account of a Hansen’s suspect in a crowded waiting room at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital in the late 1940s. The nodules had already become obvious on the man’s face when he entered the room, and one of the other patients thought he recognised the disease. Word quickly got around the waiting room, and the Sister was surprised to find when she called for the next patient that the crowded waiting room was suddenly empty – except for the Hansen’s patient who was then diagnosed and sent on to Peel Island.

For several years at Christmas, the Sisters of Mercy from the Mater Hospital visited the Lazaret on Peel Island and distributed presents. These included Sister Mercia Mary, and Sister Mary St Rita. Their main fear was not of contracting Hansen’s Disease but of getting their cloaks wet as they stepped off the boat.

I am told by one of the patients that they would often forsake lunch with the other staff on the verandah and spend the time talking with a patient, Bert Cobb, in his hut. Bert was a well educated man, an atheist, but always ready for a discussion. The Sisters of Mercy were always ready to oblige.

Most recently just before Christmas 2005, at a book-signing in the city for my re-release of “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison?” a former Mater Pathology Scientist told me more about Sister Mercia Mary’s devotion to the Hansen’s Disease patients. For the matter didn’t end in 1959 when the Peel Island Lazaret was closed down and the remaining dozen patients were transferred to Ward S12 at the South Brisbane Hospital (now the Princess Alexandra Hospital). It would have been easy to forget the patients now that they were no longer isolated, but each Christmas Sister Mercia Mary would still make up a Christmas Hamper for each of the Hansen’s patients and would personally deliver them to Ward S12. 

Another story about Sister Mercia Mary that I really like, and which illustrates her practical devotion to humanity through the philosophy of the Sisters of Mercy, is supplied by Ron Pope. In Mercia’s time before a Blood Bank had been set up, doctors were not nearly as readily available around any hospital as they are today. In order to fill a small part of that vacuum, Mercia trained in venipuncture and then could always be called upon to take blood from a donor. One of her early nursing associates recalls, with some humour, accompanying Mercia to Boggo Road jail with her trusty sterile flask, stirring rod and other paraphernalia, relieving a jail warder of the required amount of blood and bringing it back for a Mater patient!  

Pro Deo et Humanitate!

Peter Ludlow

March 2006

(Extract from Mater Scripts by Peter Ludlow)

Peel Island – White Leprosy Patients’Huts

The Peel Island Lazaret was the only purpose-built Lazaret in Australia: the others were modifications or add-ons to existing institutions e.g. at Dunwich, it was an add-on to the Benevolent Asylum; at Little Bay in Sydney as part of an infectious disease unit; at Fantome Island it was a former Lock Hspital.

This site plan shows the relative areas of Peel’s Lazaret. 

Notes to the plan’s labels: 

The Female Compound was for white females (one patient per cabin).

The Male Compound was for white males (one patient per cabin)

The Coloured Compound consisted of galvanised iron huts for the coloured male patients (four patients per cabin) and wooden huts similar to the white female huts (but accommodating six patients per cabin).

The Peel Island site plan as drawn up in the 1950s

Peel Island Lazaret – white male patients huts when it opened in 1907

Initially the male patients huts were constructed as a square wooden box like structure, but later on, a verandah was added to the design. The white femals huts were similar but with the addition of a kitchenette with a combustion stove.

Floor plan of the white male patients’ Hut

Floor plan of the white female patients’ Hut

The following aerial photo shows the Peel Island Lazaret institution as it appeared in the 1930s:

Lazaret from the air 1930s