Jack Wheeler’s Memories of Moreton Bay

Tags

Koopa, Lucinda, Otter

At the September 2005 meeting of the Redcliffe Historical Society, I listened to the lecture by Peter Ludlow on Peel Island. It brought back memories to me of some of the Bay islands, when I was a very young boy, about seven or eight years old.  I was born in 1910, so this would have been around 1918.  By then, the Otter, the Government vessel, took supplies over to the three islands, St. Helena, which was the penal settlement; Peel Island, the lazaret; and to Stradbroke Island, at Dunwich, where there was a home for the elderly.

In those days you had to obtain a permit from the relevant department to travel on the Otter.  I think if you had relatives at Dunwich you could travel more often, but other people were limited to visiting there once a year.  I distinctly remember going there one day with my grandmother.  We sailed firstly to St Helena where a trolley was rolled out along the jetty by men who I take it were the ‘residents’.  The supplies were loaded onto this trolley.  Then we proceeded on to Peel Island where the same procedure was followed, the trolley perhaps rolled out by the healthier patients, or possibly staff.  Then the boat sailed on to Dunwich where I think we stayed for about two hours.  This gave you time to visit residents or walk around the area.  Then of course the Otter returned to Brisbane at North Quay.  I understand that it made this trip about twice a week.

The Otter at Dunwich Jetty (Photo courtesy Ossie Fischer)

It’s marvellous how listening to Peter’s lecture has revived my memories about these events.  Also, referring to old memories, I think it must have been in late 1914 or early 1915 that my father took me to Redcliffe. I would have been four or five.  I remember going there on the Koopa.  Now the Koopa, to us young boys, was the pride of the Brisbane River.  It had to be because it had two funnels, and any ship with two funnels was marvellous, you know!  I remember pulling in to the old Redcliffe Jetty, walking along this long jetty and coming to this house in the middle – I think we called it the halfway house – then stepping ashore at Redcliffe.  That was my first visit.

The second visit to this area was landing at Woody Point, on the Lucinda.  This boat used to bring the children of the State Schools there, for a picnic once a year.  Once again, I was with my grandmother.  We left Queen’s Wharf to sail down the Brisbane River, and then cross Bramble Bay to Woody Point.  We never came to Redcliffe for these picnics, just Woody Point.  I remember doing this trip a couple of times.  They were my early memories of Moreton Bay.

The Queensland Government’s vessel – Lucinda

My memories of Bribie Island were when the Brisbane Tug Company who owned the Koopa and the Beaver had a lease of the island.  There was a caretaker there, and little huts on the Passage side.  I remember staying there with my grandmother.  The huts were simple, one room, with beds, a wood stove and a sink.  There was no running water.  You had to use the pump at the caretaker’s house and carry the water in a kerosene tin back to your hut.  I think the rent was two shillings and sixpence (25 cents) a week.  That’s all there was at Bribie.  There was nothing over at the main beach.  We walked across, about three miles, on a sandy track.  I remember my mother and me doing this walk carrying drinking water in a billycan, which was always very warm on arrival!  There was only one vehicle on the island, which belonged to the caretaker, who was the only permanent resident.  It used to be amusing.  We’d sail to Bribie on the Koopa, which was equipped with a bar.  The people holidaying on the island would be waiting for us to tie up, then, as we went ashore, they would board the boat and enjoy the bar facilities.  This procedure was reversed when we were about to leave in the afternoon.  In later years, when people came to live on Bribie, a bowling club was formed.  In those days, Brisbane had no hotels open on a Sunday.  The bowling club had a liquor license, but could sell alcohol to members only.  This resulted in many Brisbane people joining the club, which was reputed to have the largest membership of any bowling club in Queensland!

The old Koopa kept on running, year after year.  Then the Second World War broke out in 1939. I was in the Navy, and I came across the Koopa at anchor in Milne Bay in New Guinea.  She was the mother ship to the Fairmile class of small Australian patrol boats.  I never heard of her after that, and don’t know what happened to her – whether she lies somewhere still or has been broken up for razor blades.

The Koopa (photo courtesy Yvonne D’Arcy)

Later when I was about fourteen, I sailed the bay with my family and friends.  I remember that we always skirted around Peel Island, afraid that we might get washed up there.  Then we sailed on to Dunwich, where we would get lovely fresh bread and stores.  We would travel down the Canaipa Passage, on to the Broadwater and Southport, where we anchored.  Altogether we spent a lovely two weeks around the southern part of the bay.  We lived on the boat, but went ashore for events such as the New Year’s Eve festivities at Southport.  Unlike some events today, with young people running wild, these were orderly yet enjoyable occasions. In those days, too, the waters were quiet, not crowded with the shipping that there is today.  There were no ‘tinnies’ with outboard motors, no jet-skis.  The Bay was peaceful as you sailed across, and plenty of fish for dinner!

Anyway, these are memories I like to think back on, and when you hear a lecture, someone else talking about these items, it brings back more recollections.  So to have people such as Peter Ludlow revive these memories for me is indeed a real pleasure.

Jack Wheeler

Redcliffe Historical Society

September 2005

Editor: Like my lecture to the Redcliffe Historical Society, I hope this blog will invoke many such memories of our Moreton Bay for you, my reader. But if you have none to invoke, then I hope my words will stimulate you go down to the bay and collect some of your own.

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

The Friends of Peel Island Association (FOPIA) Inc. closes down

Tags

Lazaret, Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), Peel Island

On June 30^th this year, FOPIA will close down for good. FOPIA was formed in 1998 to assist in maintenance and restoration work of the former lazaret, and to promote public awareness of Peel’s cultural and historic values. As one of the original founding members, I was a bit sad to see this group, once so full of hope for the future of Peel’s restored lazaret, finally call it a day. It had been a long time coming, but its death knell was surely last year’s decision not to rebuild a jetty to access the island. This effectively put a stop to any future development – for better or worse.

However, many fond memories of FOPIA remain:  our work parties often visited the lazaret and stayed overnight; many public lectures on the island’s history; fund raising boat trips; and curating a Peel Island exhibition at the Redland Museum which also visited the Redcliffe museum and was then on permanent display at Fort Lytton.

But to my mind, FOPIA’s most memorable achievement was to host a Peel Island Lazaret families’ day. What a day! After two unsuccessful attempts due to inclement weather, we were third time lucky, with the weather beautiful and the sea calm for a unique gathering on Peel Island at the lazaret. Family of patients and staff of the lazaret, along with FOPI members, QPWS staff and others travelled to Peel Island on Sunday 26 September 2008 to commemorate the Centenary of the lazaret, and of National Parks in Queensland. For some it was their first time to the island, for others it was the first time in many years, but for everyone it turned out to be a very special day. Connections were made or renewed, and with stories of the place and the impact of its history shared. 

The gathering of Peel’s families at the lazaret

In the words of Welcome to Country from Aboriginal elder, Auntie Margaret, ‘it was  ..a day of getting together with beloved families and friends of patients. Friends and families of the staff, and most all the Aboriginal families of our Aboriginal workers who worked here all those many years ago… Today is for all to come together, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. To reflect with kindness, unity, and most of all trust because deep down, trust is a gift of learning, everything that life brings.’

Related to HD – A Post Script by Evelyn Hogan’s daughter, Noela Carver, in 2010

Tags

Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), Peel Island

            I became involved with the Relatives and Friends of Peel Island because my mother, Evelyn Hogan, was on that committee. We used to have the meetings at our place, which was at Morris Street, Paddington. I was born in 1938 and I had to be 15 before I was allowed to visit Peel Island, or have any involvement with the committee, so it was from about 1953 that I became involved.

            I went down to Peel with mum with the concert parties, mostly at Christmas time. I played the piano, so I was their accompanist. Pam Hinton played the violin while I played the piano, but there were many others who played instruments in the band. I particularly remember the piano accordion. Pam was the daughter of Ernie Hinton who at that time was the president of the Relatives and Friends Committee. Ernie was a wardsman at Greenslopes Hospital, and that is where he saw the first HD patient and recognized the disease, and that’s when we first formed the committee. 

Rec. Hall piano, Peel Island Lazaret

            I also went down to Peel with my mum as a visitor, but it was not often because it was hard to get a pass in those days. I didn’t really know about the stigma of the disease then, so I was not at all apprehensive about visiting the island. In those days we used to disembark at the old stone jetty near the Platypus ‘wreck’. At one stage it was too blowy to land, so we were forced to anchor behind the ‘wreck’ and then they took us ashore in a little rowboat to the jetty because they couldn’t get the larger vessel across. We had to trans ship all the musical instruments in the small boat, much to everyone’s distress, for fear that they would end up in the water.

            We used to catch the boat from Cleveland then. It was owned by a Mr Fitzjohn, whom we used to nickname ‘Fitzy”. The boat was probably the Flirt, which would have been hired specially for the trip.

            After arriving at the jetty, we were taken up to the Lazaret on the other end of Peel Island by their truck (the patients called it their bus). It had two forms along each side of the tray, which was covered with a tarpaulin. It was a windy ride – ‘air conditioned’ the patients called it – a bit of an eye opened the first time I went there, but afterwards it never bothered me. At the Lazaret we gave the concert in the recreation hall.

            As well as taking all our musical instruments down to the island, we also had all our ‘Christmas cheer’ for the party and wrapped presents for everybody – so many were prepared for the males and so many for the females. Then we’d go over to the hospital and see the patients there.

In the Family

            I had two family members who had HD¹. One was my grandfather, who I shall refer to as ‘John’ ² and the other was my mother’s brother – my uncle – who you referred to in your book “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison” as ‘Jim’ ². 

(Editor: Doctor Eric Reye’s notes have the following details of John: 

            Admitted 13.3.1924 aged 40. 

            He escaped from the island on 28.12.1929

            Readmitted 8.1.1930

            Paroled when his disease went into remission on 11.10.1930

            Readmitted to Peel on 7.9.1931

            Died there on 25.7.1935)

            His readmission to Peel in 1931 is interesting because he was ‘cured’ in 1930, but his wife had found another partner since his first admission (being admitted to Peel was usually a life sentence then). John did live for a time in their home at Wynnum in a room under the house, but things didn’t work out and he asked to be readmitted to Peel because this was the only other home that he knew. My mum used to go down to see John (her father) quite regularly with the pass, but that was before I was born.

            He stayed there until his death in1935. He is buried on the island. He used to play the button accordion, but when he died, we weren’t allowed any of his possessions because they were thought to be contaminated with HD. This upset mum a bit at the time. So, when I hear about the musical instruments on Peel, I often wonder what became of John’s accordion.

            My uncle ‘Jim’ was 17 when he was admitted to the Lazaret. There was an older patient there, ‘Ned’ in your book, who took Jim under his wing, and there is a photo of the two of them standing beside the patients’ truck. We had a lot of other photos of Jim but when he passed away at his home in Bald Hills mum got rid of them because she didn’t want everybody to know about him. A lot did not know what had really happened to him. Jim had greyhounds down on the island, which he trained, and on a couple of occasions we brought them up to race at Woolloongabba. In a way, Jim was lucky because they had discovered the cure for HD by then and he was discharged from the island before it was closed down in 1959, and the remaining patients transferred to the PA Hospital.

Emmett Kelly and ‘Jim’ with patients’ truck, Peel Island

            After Jim left Peel he lived up at Bardon with his mother, who looked after him and some friends until he bought the little farm at Bald Hills, where he remained until the end. While he was there, he bought into a horse called Skidge, which we used to race. Although his hands remained disfigured by the HD it was marvellous what he could do with them. As far as the neighbours were concerned, he had it put out that his disfigurement was due to old war injuries. I don’t know whether they ever really knew. Actually even a few of our cousins never suspected, and even to this day they still don’t know. Of course, in those days, none of them knew about HD and none of them would have been any the wiser if they had.

Other Patients

            I got to know quite a lot of the other patients. We used to bring them off and take them ‘unofficially’ to our home at Paddington. We had a piano there and many a time we had a sing-along around it. There was a patient, Bill K. who had only one arm, but could he play the piano! He’d play the bass and I’d play the treble, and then we’d swap around. We had great fun.

            We also used to take them to the RNA Show (‘Exhibition’ or ‘Ekka’), and to the dogs. The patients used to come across from Peel in one of their boats to Cleveland, where we’d pick them up in our car. Sometimes we’d take them to the Grand View Hotel there for a drink on the way. It didn’t happen often but it did enable them to keep in touch.

            In later days, Frank Bennett, an ex-patient, boarded with my sister and I. We had the house next door to my mum’s and we had extra rooms so he and another ex-patient stayed with us until they died. They were the good old days, but sad. I think we helped make life a lot better for them.

            There were a few blind patients there, and we became very friendly with one called Donohue who lived in the second row about three doors along from ‘Jim’. His wife was on our Friends and Relatives Committee, and she was a fighter who fought a lot on the patients’ behalf.

            I joined the committee once when there were not enough members to make up a quorum and that was it, I was on it for the rest of its life. Mum had a lot of paperwork under her house at Nudgee, but when Peel closed, we disposed of it.

NOTES:

1. Because of its stigma, the name Leprosy has now been replaced with the term Hansen’s Disease, or just HD.

2. Because of the stigma that surrounded Leprosy and to which some family members are still sensitive, I have used the pseudonym ‘Jim’ to denote this patient – the same one that I had used previously to record some of his reminiscences in my 1987 book “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison”.  

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

Related to HD – recalled by Evelyn Hogan

Tags

Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), Peel Island

(Evelyn was a relative of Jim², a former patient at Peel Island Lazaret)

Segregation

What the HD¹ patients hated most about their Lazaret at Peel Island, and what was the worst thing was their segregation away from their families, which were broken up – not just for months but for years – and in many cases the other spouse went their own way. Probably under the circumstances you couldn’t blame them. To be sent to Peel Island was virtually a lifetime sentence in the early days.  

I could never understand why segregation was imposed because there were people living and working there amongst the patients, without any ill effect – and the conditions weren’t hygienic by any means.  They used to boil the instruments on a primus (kerosene) stove in a dish.  Can you call that hygiene? 

A Kerosene Primus stove similar to one used in Peel’s surgery

A Relative’s Visit

            One of my first visits to Peel Island as a patient’s relative was on board the Otter – the Government steamer that used to service the island. It cost us a shilling (10 cents), which probably was quite cheap, really. To catch the boat, we used to leave home at about 6.30 in the morning. It used to depart from William Street in the city and then travel down the Brisbane River.  Then, when we got to Moreton Bay, we’d call into St Helena to deliver the stores to the prison that was still operating there. Then we’d sail across to a point just off Peel Island, and they’d bring out the launch Karboora.  We’d be transferred onto that, and many a time then have to be transferred again onto a dinghy because the tide was too low.  Sometimes it was very rough, so that we really and truly knew that we were in a boat.

The ‘Otter’ steaming down the Brisbane River

We took our own lunch down with us, so when we met our patient relative at the jetty, we could sit down under a tree and have lunch with them. We’d stay there until the boat came to pick us up in about an hour. We weren’t allowed to go up to the hospital section on the island. 

Then, of course, we’d have the same procedure coming home.  If it were really rough, we’d have to have the dinghy to get to the Karboora, but if it was good they could get the Karboora right into the jetty. Of course, this was the old stone jetty on the eastern end of the island. Later they did build a new jetty on the western side of the island, which was a lot better. 

The ‘Karboora’ nearing Peel’s stone jetty. (‘Platypus’ hulk as a breakwater in background).

The Otter returned to Brisbane about 6 pm, and by the time we got home it was 6.30. It was a lot of travel just to spend one hour with our relative on Peel Island. It was worse for people who had to travel all the way from the country, just for an hour. It was especially tiring for elderly people.

This was in the 1930s, and we were allowed two visits per month. In later years they gave us extra visitation rights, and we then were allowed two passes a week. No kiddies under 14 were allowed to go down, so therefore a lot of the patients never saw their children. 

            To get a pass we had to apply to the Health Office in William Street.  We couldn’t go without one; nor could we land on the island.  The Superintendent there would collect the passes when we went ashore. It was thought that the passes were one way of controlling the patients’ behaviour – if the patient misbehaved, his relative wouldn’t be given a pass. On top of their segregation, that there were a lot of rules and regulations that the patients didn’t like either, and of course they used to renege against it, and because they did that, the authorities would say, “Well, you’re not getting visitors,” you know.

            So they were kept on Peel under these circumstances like little children to a lot of extent until the latter years.  

The Patients’ Committee

            Then a Patients’ Committee got together, and they stirred things up quite well.  They formed a big committee down there amongst themselves and laid the law down implacably to the Government. They hadn’t been allowed to have anything of their own on the island, but then the Health Department under Dr Fryberg, did give them quite a few things that they wanted. They were allowed to have chooks or ducks or whatever. This was a really good help for them, because it gave them something to do.

            Originally the patients weren’t allowed boats, but they eventually did allow them a boat amongst themselves. They were only supposed to be small boats or rowing boats – but the Health Department relaxed the conditions a bit towards the end. The boats were difficult to police all the time, because there was no one there to do it. The patients weren’t allowed to leave the island.  They could go out fishing on the reefs, but they weren’t supposed to go onto the mainland.  Some did, though.  They had quite a few parties away from the island. You’d meet them all at the Exhibition (Brisbane’s Royal National Association show held annually in August), where they had quite a good time, and then they’d go back to the island.  I don’t think the authorities ever knew, or if they did, they didn’t say anything.

Patients’ jetty with some of the patients own boats. Lazaret Channel and Moreton Island in background. (Photo courtesy DrMorgan Gabriel).

The Patients Committee used to write letters to various people.  They even got in touch with the Carville Clinic in Louisiana, America, who gave them all the particulars about the discovery of the new sulphone drugs, and that’s where they all started on the new treatment.  It was through Carville, and through the patients getting in touch with the patients there, that they got the idea of this new treatment. In fact, I don’t know that it was even known to the authorities today, but at that time there were patients at Peel who were having the treatment from Carville.  They bought it themselves – it was by injection, and they were doing their own injections, unbeknownst to the Health Department here at that stage. 

Carville’s ‘Star’ Newspaper

Up until that time they didn’t have any variety of treatment.  They just gave them the same old chaulmoogra oil and all those sort of things, but I know for a fact that three of the patients on Peel were on the new treatment, and they leapt ahead in health. The authorities here couldn’t understand that all of a sudden they were doing so well. It was the start of the cure, because after that the Government got onto the new drugs and they brought them into the place. That’s when the patients started to get their ‘clean’ monthly blood smears.  It was a wonderful feeling to realise that there was finally a cure for our relative.

Alcohol

There was a big problem with drinking down there on Peel Island. It wasn’t only the patients who were drinking.  The staff were every bit as bad. I have been on the boats with them, coming back from leave so drunk that you would wonder how they could get off the boat. However, when the Patients’ Committee was formed, they demanded that the problem be attended to. They brought down staff from the Head Office at the Health Department, and from the newspapers, and something was done.

 It did seem to be the turning point, and I suppose the new treatments did come about this time, or just after.  It gave them a new hope.  

Supplies and Pilferage

Maybe they say it was shortage of supplies. That could have been right, but a lot of the supplies that probably should have been down there and were probably billed for being down there, let’s face it, three parts of them probably never got there – or they might have got there, but they went away again. 

Pilferage was always a problem – and don’t say it was the patients, because they couldn’t even get them – although I’ll admit some of the patients used to abuse the privileges, too. They were allowed so much toothpaste and so much soap, so much this and that.  They’d maybe go over to the store today and get a tube of toothpaste, and the next day go again and get another tube of toothpaste because they’d thrown the one away or dropped it or something.  But sometimes the goods didn’t even get to the store. Of course, after the patients formed their committee at Peel they got a lot of things then, and as I said, things didn’t go so bad after that.  They were more accountable.

Relatives’ Ostracism

I have heard of some of the patients’ relatives experiencing ostracism from their neighbours – not myself personally, I never felt anything at all about that, but others had reported that they wouldn’t let their children play with a relative’s children, if they knew the patient was on Peel Island, or they would call out to them, “Leprosy! Leprosy!”  That has been said, I believe, but as far as I’m concerned they never said anything to me, and I never worried.

I think probably when you look around it’s like TB.  If a patient knew he had TB, he didn’t like it to be known everywhere because the simple reason was that they wouldn’t let their children play with fathers and mothers that had TB.

But that’s few and far between, thank God.  There was always that fear, though. Well, I don’t think any patient on Peel Island was ever sent a letter in their right name.  They would have been all under a nom de plume of some description, and more so in the country where a lot of them came from, or up the North, where the postman knew everybody.

The Relatives and Friends of Peel Island

One day quite a few of us had been visiting patients, who at this time were very aggressive about something, and we were just about sick of having to get onto boats and get onto dinghies.  A couple of times when the weather was rough we had to stay there at Peel.  So we decided we’d all get together and we met down at the Botanical Gardens, where we formed our committee, which we called the Relatives and Friends of Peel Island.

We were quite an active committee.  I was secretary in the latter part, but in the first stage the secretary used to write to every Leprosarium practising in the world, and got all the different data from the different places to find out how they were, and how they were on the treatment and everything else like this.

At one stage just after World War II we even got a chap from down in Sydney, and he just about blew the place wide open. He had the newspapers, the editors down there, Lord knows what – but we had to get it across to the public, and get it across to the Health Department that the patients needed attention.

We also organised parties for the patients on Peel, and we used to run a Christmas Appeal.  That Christmas Appeal was well organised, and it was very well received. We got a terrific amount of money from different people who used to send in for the Christmas Appeal.  We used to take down our Christmas parties to the island, and we used to give the patients a Christmas party that they never forgot. 

Of course, we all put in a certain amount of money ourselves.  We had a lot of people in our organisation who were not relatives of patients.  They used to come in, just as friends, and they’d help out in lots of ways.  It was really good.

I think we did get a lot of privileges for the patients: importantly, they were finally allowed their own access to a phone. Before that they used to write to the Health Department, and probably when the Department did get the letters, they tore them up. 

Then the patients were allowed to have their own things – well, one chap had ducks.  Another bloke had goats.  They used to do fishing. Then we were allowed to take the concert parties down to Peel, which the patients used to look forward to.  We took them down a couple of times a year besides the Christmas. 

After the Lazaret was closed and they shifted the remaining patients from Peel to the PA Hospital, the organisation broke up because we had done our part by this time.

A typewriter similar to the one used by Peel’s Patients’ Committee.

NOTES:

1. Because of its stigma, the name Leprosy has now been replaced with the term Hansen’s Disease, or just HD.

2. Because of the stigma that surrounded Leprosy and to which some family members are still sensitive, I have used the pseudonym ‘Jim’ to denote this patient – the same one that I had used previously to record some of his reminiscences in my 1987 book “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison”.  

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

To Peel and Back – A Post Script by Matt’s son, Alf in 2010

Tags

Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), Peel Island

            My father had been in a car accident in his youth, which involved a horse and cart. The horse had reared up and put its hoof through the windscreen and into dad’s chest. This left a scar and prevented him joining the Navy for active service during WWII. However he was allowed to join the Navy band where he played the drums and tuba.

            After he came to Cleveland, he bought a one-acre banana farm, where he continued to grow bananas until he was diagnosed with Hansen’s Disease (HD). His first suspicion that he had HD had been aroused while working on heavy machinery such as tractors and graders for Cleveland and Annerley Councils, for if he burnt his arms on hot manifolds etc he would not feel any pain. When the HD was confirmed, dad was immediately sent to Peel Island for treatment.

            I required a permit to visit him on Peel. Once this had been issued, I would catch the vessel Vega at Cleveland jetty for the short trip across to the island, where visitors, other stores and I would be dropped off at the long wooden western jetty. From there we would be taken up to the Lazaret, while the Vega continued on to Dunwich and then the RKLM Group of islands. On its return journey, it would call again at Peel and collect us visitors returning to Cleveland.

            I continued to look after dad’s bananas in Cleveland until one day an officer from the nearby Experimental Farm said that they had become diseased, so I chopped them all out and someone with a rotary hoe chopped them up so that they could be buried. I was then faced with the decision of what to replace them with. I asked the Royal National Association people if locally grown cotton would be suitable, but they laughed at me, and instead gave me a bag of Mexican Cotton seeds. These grew well, but the cotton attracted insects, which made the neighbours angry. So I sold off the cotton, which was of a good quality. All this took place while dad was a patient on Peel Island. At this stage I worked as a driver for Redland Bay Buses, but later, when the company closed, my wife and I moved out to St George.

            Dad had been a patient at Peel Island’s Lazaret from 1954 until its closure in 1959, when he was taken with the other dozen remaining patients to Ward S12 at the South Brisbane (now Princess Alexandra) Hospital. He had been glad to leave Peel Island, but did not like the dreary Ward S12 very much. However he was not allowed home until Dr Gabriel had trained me to use a surgical knife to pear away (debride) the dead flesh from dad’s trophic ulcers on his legs and arms. This I did conscientiously at 7 pm each day for two years. If my debriding got too close to a joint or bone, then I had to contact Dr Gabriel, who would come to the house and perform the operation himself. Sometimes he would have to remove a piece of bone from a finger or toe, but dad didn’t need an anaesthetic because his HD had killed the nerves there, and he had no feeling in the affected limbs.

            Dad couldn’t return to work after his return home, but amused himself with his woodwork, which he had taken up on Peel Island, where he had made furniture and dolls houses. He liked talking with visitors and feeding the birds. Dad was able to get around by wearing surgical boots, but he found the front steps of his home at Cleveland to difficult to manage so he sold up and he and his wife moved into a retirement village. Dad even went on a trip to New Zealand by himself to visit a distant relative.

            After his discharge from Ward S12, dad continued to have regular blood tests to make sure his HD was still in remission, but he, like all the other ex-Peel Island patients, eventually gave up taking his precautionary medication. All the members of dad’s family had been tested for HD, but no one else contracted the disease. Like many families of HD patients, some family members even denied that dad had been sent to Peel Island at all.

            Dad died on September 9^th 1992.

Male Patient’s Cottage Peel Island Lazaret 1951 Note the outdoor dunny in background and the shared water tank (photo courtesy Doug Hinton)

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

To Peel and Back

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Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), Peel Island

“Matt” ¹

(A former patient at Peel Island Lazaret from 1954 until its closure in 1959)

My diagnosis

Soon after I came down to Redlands from Gympie in 1951, my local doctor must have suspected that I had HD ²so he sent me to Brisbane to Dr Landy at the PA.³ who sent me to the Health Department to have blood smears taken. The doctors there thought I had arsenic poisoning because I had been spraying bananas with arsenic pentoxide, so they didn’t bother with the HD then. They treated my arsenic poisoning for nearly two years with BAL (British Anti Lewisite), and, oh brother, I think the cure was worse than the cause, because those injections with BAL were really terrible. 

But if the Health Department had taken the tests for HD when they took the tests for arsenic, they would have cured both of them at the same time, and I would never have had to go to Peel Island. However, when they cured the arsenic in 1954, I tried to go back to work, but I couldn’t. When I burnt myself, the sores wouldn’t heal, so I went back to hospital and saw Dr Landy at the PA again, and he said, “Well, I don’t know, Matt, I’ll have to have my own way now.” So he got the Health and Home Affairs chaps up and they took the smears and they found the HD. When the results of the smears came back I immediately had two guards on the bed and there were nurses all around me and I was sent to Wattlebrae. ⁴

Brisbane’s General Hospital, Nurses quarters and Wattlebrae
(Wattlebrae is the building top right)

When the ambulance came up to take me to Wattlebrae, the ambulance driver came in with his wheelchair and he said, “Right-o mate, hop in.” So I hopped into the chair and he wheeled me down to the ambulance. 

He said, “Get in the front.” 

I looked at him and questioned, “In the front?”

“Yeah, in the front.”

I said, “You know what I’ve got, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I don’t give a damn what you’ve got. Get in the front.”

There were three or four other patients in the back of the ambulance, and they didn’t seem to mind, so I got in the front and away we went. When I got to Wattlebrae, the staff there dropped everything I had like a hot coal, and wouldn’t touch it with a forty-foot pole. And when I got my tea, the meat was all cut up, and all I got was a fork. The situation didn’t warrant a smile, but I had to smile because I had an open cutthroat razor with my belongings in a pillowslip, and if I had wanted to cut my throat, I could have cut it with that! As the doctor at Peel Island stated later on, if I had wanted to cut my throat, I wouldn’t have cut it with one of their knives anyway. He was most jubilant about that!

They kept me there at Wattlebrae nearly all the afternoon. Then eventually the ambulance driver from Cleveland came up. “Hello, Matt,” he said. “So you’re going to Peel Island.”

“Yes, Gordon’”

“Alright, we’ll get your papers and we’ll go. They’ve cut it pretty fine. We’ve just got time to get to the boat.”

The authorities were aware I knew Gordon very well, and that if he got half a chance he’d call into my home at Cleveland. But they cut it fine. All I had to wear were the hospital pyjamas of the PA. No gown, nothing. I am nearly sure to this day that I still had my clothes at the PA Hospital. Anyway I didn’t have them then, and I still haven’t got them. Probably they all went up in smoke long before I left the hospital – or soon after, because the old sister they had there was a crabby old thing. Thank God they have got rid of all them now, because they are all God’s people up there now.

Anyway Gordon Stewart said, “So that’s all you’ve got? Just your pyjamas?”

“That’s all, Gordon.”

“Well, we’ll soon have to fix that up.”

Anyway we were coming down in the ambulance and we were talking, and I took a dim view of all this, because I had heard a lot about this leprosy. I’d been over there with the Buffalo Lodge and didn’t like the look of the place. I’d heard that if you went over there as a patient, it was curtains. Anyhow, Gordon Stewart enlightened me quite a bit. 

He said, “I’d like to call into your house to see your wife, but I don’t think they’ve given us much time.” 

As he passed our road, he had his foot on the clutch. He was in two minds whether to call in or not, and they knew this. So he said “No we’d better not. The boat’s waiting with its engines running. But I’ve got to call into the ambulance station and get you an overcoat. I can’t send you over to the island in them cursed pyjamas. I’ve got a spare one there.”

We called into the ambulance station at Cleveland and he got me a nice warm overcoat. 

“They can get it back to me later on,” he said.

So he backed onto the Cleveland jetty, and I got aboard the Vega. The skipper was Harold Walker, who I also knew.  He was surprised to see me going over to Peel Island. There was only he and I on the boat. I was a special trip – vice regal!

On the way over to Peel, Harold enlightened me quite a bit more than Gordon Stewart had.

Vega coming in to Peel Island’s western jetty 1958 (Photo courtesy June Berthelsen)

At Peel Island

When we got over to Peel, there was the doctor and four men waiting for me in the truck, and when we docked, Harold went over and had a talk to the doctor. I knew they were talking about me, because they kept glancing over towards me. The doctor kept shaking his head, and of the four men he had with him, three of them I knew very well. We often used to have a beer together and the Grand View Hotel or the Sands at a weekend. Anyway they laughed and we shook hands. I couldn’t understand it, but it appears that someone from the Health Department had rung him and told him not to come down to the boat alone, but to bring a bodyguard with him. So we had a great laugh over it. They had thought I was going to be a bit resistant to staying on Peel.

So I shook hands with Harold Walker. And he went away home on the Vega and we went in the truck to the Lazaret. So we got across the island, and I walked into the hospital. The old matron came down, and the very words I said when I saw her were, “Thank Christ!”

“What have you got to thank Him about?”

I said, “I’m with God’s people at last.” I was relieved to get there.

“I suppose you want a good shower, eh?”

“Yes, and a good feed”

“What about those pyjamas?”

“I’ll keep them as a memento.”

“Like hell you will!”

So I had a good shower, and a good feed, and a nice clean pair of pyjamas. Matron was a hard case because she had my old pyjamas all tied up in a bow and she said, “What are we going to do with these?”

“Wrap ‘em up and we’ll send them back to the sister at the PA.”

“I think we might too.”

Well from that day at Peel Island I never looked back. My feelings were more or less remorse for a few weeks, but when my wife and my own people came over to see me on the island, I began to see that it was not as bad as I had thought it could have been. Later on, I was rather amused at the changes in the attitude the doctor and nursing staff at Wattlebrae from those days to those of today.

Dr Morgan Gabriel and Matron Marie Ahlberg at Peel Island

To amuse ourselves at Peel, there was quite a bit of fishing – we got to know where to go and when to go. Whenwas the main thing. I took up woodworking when I was over there. The only thing I could drive straight was a car, a grader, and a bulldozer, but with the assistance of the doctor, he taught me quite a bit about driving nails straight etc. Between us we did very well. The Red Cross helped me with any timber I wanted. One good job I did over there – a sideboard – I had estapolled one afternoon and left to dry in one of the huts. When I walked in the next morning, there were a lot of stains on it. Its beautiful top was ruined I thought. I was really worried, so when the doctor went past I called him in and said, “Doctor, what do you reckon about this?”

He had a bit of a grin, and he got a rag and wiped them off. “They’re just spider droppings.”

I might add that this time I had five huts at my disposal – there were that many spare huts over there at the time – one to keep my timber in, one to keep my paints and varnishes in, one as a workshop etc. I sold quite a bit of furniture that I made there. 

At night we used to play Canasta. There were two old ladies in the hospital who were great Canasta players, and the matron used to join them too. I used to wander over and play cards with them at night until the tide was coming in. When the tide was nearly three quarters of the way in, I used to knock off the card playing, get in the truck and go down to Horseshoe Bay where I’d throw in about four or five lines, then come back. When I pulled the line in, if the sharks didn’t get them first, I’d get nice big summer whiting. If the sharks got them, I’d only have heads. If you could beat the sharks, you’d be alright for a meal in an hour or so. The sharks were pretty bad there, especially in the Horseshoe. However, the sharks that came in for the fish would only be three or four footers (about a metre).

When the Lazaret’s official truck driver went home, cured, I got that job. It paid me good money. Also I had my boat, so when some of the staff wanted to go across to their homes at Cleveland for the night, I’d take the boat around to the western jetty in the afternoon, then at afternoon tea, I’d take the truck down to the jetty, and reverse it around, and leave the tail light on. Then I’d take the staff over to Cleveland and after a couple of beers at the Grand View Hotel – on the house – I’d get a taxi and go home for a few hours. Then on closing time, I’d go back to the hotel, round ‘em all up, and off we’d go to the boat. The main trouble was getting some of them along Cleveland jetty!

When I started work in the Redland Shire in 1951, we had a Buffalo Lodge on the mainland called Redlands 98, which had 80 members when it first opened. We organised a late stay visit to Peel with the Superintendent, Frank Mahoney in about 1952 – 53. The big recreation hall at the Lazaret was just packed with members and visitors. I think we finished up about 1 or 2 am, and as we left the jetty, the patients and staff were waving goodbye to us in the rain. It was raining like hell. We were the only ones to visit the islands after dark. Later in 1954 when I went over there as a patient, there were only twenty patients there, and I was the only Lodge member in the patients’ category. The rest of Peel’s members were staff.

NOTES:

1. Because of the stigma that surrounded Leprosy and to which some family members are still sensitive, I have used the pseudonym ‘Matt’ to denote this patient – the same one that I had used previously to record some of his reminiscences in my 1987 book “Peel Island – Paradise or Prison”.  

2. Because of its stigma, the name Leprosy has now been replaced with Hansen’s Disease, or just HD.

3. PA = Princess Alexandra Hospital, formerly the South Brisbane Hospital

4. Wattlebrae is the infectious diseases ward at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, formerly known as the General Hospital.

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

Frank Boyce – A Moreton Bay Character

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Frank Boyce, Kooringal, Peel Island

After the Peel Island lazaret was closed down in 1959 and the remaining patients transferred to the South Brisbane (now PA) Hospital, the Queensland Government announced plans to have Peel Island developed. The possibilities mooted were for a tourist resort, a National Fitness site, a boating centre – or all three. So early in 1962, the Government called tenders for its lease. The only bidder was an American, Doctor Cecil Saunders, who had plans to turn Peel into a “Disneyland-by-the-sea”. Perhaps fortunately, these plans collapsed. Another proposal was to subdivide Peel for residential purposes, much as Tom Welsby had suggested way back in 1923, but this too lapsed. In all, the Government called twice for applications for the island’s development for tourist purposes but all failed to come to fruition. 

So, in 1968, the lazaret buildings were put up for sale on the condition that the purchased buildings were to be removed from the island within two years from the date of sale – otherwise the timbers would revert to the Government. 

Anglican church at Peel Island 1955 (photo courtesy Dr Morgan Gabriel)

Among the buyers was Frank Boyce who purchased Peel’s former Anglican Church, which he duly dismantled and then ferried across to Kooringal, a small township on the southern tip of Moreton Island. Keith Gurtner had it rebuilt as a private residence, which he painted blue. Keith Gurtner, was a motor cycle ace, and known to his legion of fans as ‘Little Boy Blue’ – a misleading nickname considering his fearless feats at bike racing: Gurtner having the dubious claim to be the only rider to have been catapulted over the fence at the Exhibition Speedway.

Frank Boyce was born in 1910 and at 15 was caught unawares by Bay legend, Frank Day, while having a feed on Frank’s oyster lease on Moreton Island. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Frank Day. When ‘Boycey’ (as he liked to be called) visited Moreton, he would always bring fruit down for the Day’s kids, there being none available on the island. It was also the beginning of a lifelong fascination with Moreton Island. Later during the Great Depression, he was to purchase land at Kooringal when it came up for sale.  A woodcarver by trade and a wheeler and dealer in second hand wares, Frank Boyce learned that the Government was scrapping thousands of old school desks and forms, so he purchased 5,000 of them cheaply and took them, 500 at a time, to Kooringal stacked on the deck of his vessel Hurry-Up, a former World War II submarine chaser he had purchased – with its armour plating – at the end of the war.

‘Boycey’s Moreton house was always a work in progress over the next fifty years, and a notable addition was its penthouse – a small bedroom perched on top of the main house that was accessed by a steep set of stairs and offered views across Moreton Bay.

He bought other houses from Peel Island and they were used in the building of many other houses at Kooringal. 

Renowned for his story telling while enjoying a cold beer, Frank would often tell of landing a giant octopus in his boat, or being chased up a tree by a crocodile in Darwin. But perhaps the most interesting of his stories concerns the boat Hurry-Up that he purchased after the war. A former crew member once told him they had rammed a submarine just off Moreton Bay, and he was sure it was the one that had sunk the hospital ship Centaur.

When Frank Boyce died in 2004, Kooringal, and indeed Moreton Bay, lost one of its last great characters.

Peel’s former Anglican church relocated as a private house at Kooringal (photo courtesy Kathy Brinckman)

Peter Ludlow and Kathy Brinckman, May 2010

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

Miss Red Lead, Marjorie (‘Mardi’) Spencer

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Aborigines, Marjorie Spencer, Peel Island

Marjorie recalls: I had married Dr Eric Reye in August 1945, and by this time, Eric had been appointed a full-time Government Medical Officer, and was visiting the Peel Island Lazaret (Leprosarium) regularly. In January 1947 Promin therapy was introduced there, and its daily intravenous administration necessitated Eric remaining full time on the island. Thus, he became Peel’s first Resident Medical Officer, and I was appointed a temporary laboratory assistant, because no one was available at the time, and because the nurses were fully occupied. By the end of 1947, the services of a science graduate Miss (later Dr.) Herbert had been obtained, and I was no longer needed. 

There was no provision for accommodation of a Medical Officer on Peel so to accommodate me, Eric purchased a wartime surf landing dory that, because of its flat bottom, was easily beached amongst the mangroves at the base of the lazaret’s north embankment. The mosquitoes and biting midges could be very troublesome at times and we had double mosquito nets on our barge which we also sprayed with fly spray for more protection.

Mardi on Maroomba with Coolooloa in the mangroves (photo courtesy Eric Reye)

Eric and I were forced to continue living on the boat for about a year. Patient accommodation was also desperately short, and it was only on Eric’s threat of resignation that two ex-army huts were procured from Redbank and shipped to the Island. Finally, in September 1947, we were able to move ashore and occupy the new Doctor’s residence which was situated at the top of the embankment several hundred metres to the east of the men’s compound. Its small balcony commanded a fine, sweeping view northwards across the waters of Moreton Bay towards the rolling tree covered sand hills of Moreton Island. Closer to home in the water at the bottom of the embankment, Eric’s yacht Maroomba rested at her moorings. 

My laboratory duties involved taking blood samples, and I went to the Red Cross Blood Bank in Brisbane to learn the basics. There I learnt how to perform white and red blood cell counts. I also tested patient’s urine samples for diabetes. The blood samples were taken from the patients’ ear lobes because there was less chance of infection from that site. Before I took the sample, I would wipe the site with ether to cleanse it.

Another of my occupations on Peel was to read to the blind patients, especially Bert Cobb, who was a learned man with a fine collection of books in his hut. He was not able to learn Braille because his Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) had left him with no feeling in his fingers.

In those days, boat’s hulls were painted with a mixture of red lead powder and linseed oil for protection from seawater vermin. However, we didn’t have any linseed oil, so Eric substituted shark liver oil which had a most unpleasant pong. However, the smell didn’t worry me, so I went on using it. I used to get the red lead in my hair, which I washed out with kerosene from our Primus stove. This turned me from a blond into a redhead, and earned me the nickname of ‘Miss Red Lead’.

One of Eric’s duties as Medical Officer at Peel Island was to search out new cases of Hansen’s Disease occurring on the mainland. Once I accompanied him to Mona Mona on the Atherton Tableland to pick up two Aboriginal sisters who were found to have the disease. One however was sick and she had to be left off at Cairns before being sent on to Fantome Island (the Aboriginal Leprosarium in the Palm Island Group, which Eric was also in charge of).

Mona Mona Mission in the 1940s showing the marriage ceremony of 6 couples (photo Courtesy Eric Reye)

Eric resigned as Medical Officer at Peel Island when he was not allowed by the Health Department to do further patient surveys in the Aboriginal communities behind Cairns. I had been interested in Aboriginal anthropology to the extent of going down to Sydney to the university for six months, but when Eric resigned, I gave it away. We stayed on his boat on the river at Yeronga, where Eric commenced his study of biting midges. We then split up and I went home and worked as a librarian, first at Stones Corner and then at South Brisbane.

Marjorie Spencer

Bulimba

October 2011

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People 2012 by Peter Ludlow (now out of print)

The Dorunda’s Bees

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bees, Peel Island, quarantine

Peter Ludlow: While researching my book “Exiles of Peel Island – Quarantine” about 1990, I was given a series of photos taken at the Peel Island quarantine station in 1885 while the ship Dorunda with its crew and passengers were being detained there following an outbreak of cholera on its voyage out to Australia. The photographer of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland copied the photos for me. These two beehive photos were at the end of the roll of negatives and we weren’t sure whether they were part of the quarantine station or not. They seemed so out of place to be on Peel and the building and fence did not match either. The question vexed me until 2009 when I received the following information via email from Peter Barrett of Caloundra:

Peel Island’s quarantine station beehives?

Peel Island’s quarantine station beehives?

Peter Barrett: I’m interested in the fate of some hives of bees that were aboard the R.M.S. Dorunda when it arrived in Moreton Bay in Dec. 1885 with cases of cholera on board. The bees were consigned to a commercial beekeeper, one Mr. Spry. It seems that, along with passengers and crew, the hives were quarantined on Peel Island. (Brisbane Courier, 15 January 1886)

Due to the belief by some that the bees could collect dangerous germs on the island “… it is evidently advisable, in the interests of the public health, that the hives and combs should be destroyed.”

The following day a well-known apiarist of the time, Charles Fullwood, wrote strenuously in the bees defence. “I understand Mr. Spry has brought some of the most valuable strains of bees to be found in Europe or Asia, and believed to be the most suitable for this climate. I hope they will not be injured.”

I also found in the Brisbane Courier, 16 Dec. 1885 that one of the saloon passengers was a Mr. A. Spry. Rhetorically – was this coincidence or could it have been the consignee himself?

In the Brisbane Courier, 21 Jan. 1886 “There will be on view to-day, in the window of Mr. Hislop’s furniture shop, a series of over a dozen photographs taken at Peel Island by Mr. Woodford, F.R.G.S., and Mr. A. Spry with the apparatus sent down from Brisbane by Mr. Courtney Spry. [Yet another Spry!] These comprise views of the various houses and tents, which form the Quarantine Station, groups of the immigrants by the Dorunda, and general views of the surroundings. Some of them are very well executed, and Mr. Spry should have no difficulty in disposing of them, particularly as his solo object is to obtain by this means some addition to the Dorunda Relief Fund.”

So to sum up, the photos are not likely related to the Dorunda – there are just too many hives. As well, they each have two boxes, not what I would expect for long distance shipping of bees. And thirdly, imagine the logistics of unloading such a large number of hives from a steam ship anchored off the island.

What you have are photos of a commercial apiary. They could be on Peel Is – if the building in view could be identified as such. More likely they are of the Spry brothers’ Flowerdale Apiary at Rocklea, then known as Rocky-waterholes.

Peter Barrett, Caloundra, July 17, 2009

(Extract from Moreton Bay People 2012 by Peter Ludlow)

Peel Island in Retrospect

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FOPIA, Lazaret, Peel Island

RQYS Sailing Cruising Group at Peel Island 9.11.2019

In October, after the all-too-familiar uncertainty about the weather, I accompanied the Sailing Cruising Group from the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron to Peel Island to assist as a tour guide of the former Lazaret buildings. It was only my second visit to the island this year (the first was to conduct Paul Smith’s small family group in May as they researched their ancestor, Paulus Fredrick Schwarz, the Lazaret’s Assistant Caretaker there in 1908.) It was good to be back on the island, and I was even given a ride from the beach, thus bypassing the 40-minute trek that the rest of the 36 members of the group had to make. 

So, I was dropped off at the former Nurses’ Quarters and while waiting for the walking group to arrive, was left to contemplate my 30+ year’s association with the island: the exciting times in the early 1990’s when the Cowie’s were caretakers and who enthusiastically cleared the bush that had covered most of the buildings for 30 years. They were happy to greet all and sundry who cared to visit. My wife and I had many a memorable sing-song with them…

Phyllis and I sharing a sing-a-long with Ray and Nola Cowie at the former Nurses’ quarters in 1993.

Later in 1998 I helped establish the Friends of Peel Island Association (FOPIA), a group formed to assist with the maintenance and restoration work and to promote public awareness of Peel’s cultural and historic values. Our regular work parties were well supported and have continued, albeit in a now diminished form, to this day. A beach party at the end of the day’s work was always a highlight for me…

FOPIA members on the beach at Horseshoe Bay in 2004

Now the first of the sailing group have arrived and I show them around the Lazaret buildings. Unfortunately, their stay must be very short due to the dependence on the tides. It would have been nice for them to rest on the verandah and soak up the atmosphere of the place, but time and tide wait for no one. 

For an hour we tramped around the buildings and then it was straight off down the track to their boats at Horseshoe Bay: for me a visit of unsatisfying brevity. I’d love to have had more time with this enthusiastic group of boaties. Time, too, is catching up with my body, and my aches and pains protest at my big day out. But there is something else missing: my hopes for the future of the island as a tourist destination. Gradually due to the lack of official manpower/money/interest, the island seems destined to be reclaimed by Nature. With the channeling of funds into the development of tourism at nearby Stradbroke, but not Peel, an opportunity has been missed.