Statement of Significance

Criterion A:

The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland’s history.

Wolston Park Hospital Complex (established in 1865 as Woogaroo Asylum) is important in demonstrating the evolution of mental health care and welfare in Queensland. It is an early and distinctive example of a substantial public mental health institution. Wolston Park Hospital Complex demonstrates the primary role of the state in the care of people with mental illness since the 1860s. Founded by the Queensland government as the first publicly funded mental health institution in the colony, by the 1950s, it had become the largest institution providing care and treatment for people with mental illness in Queensland. The site is also important in demonstrating the development of specialist mental health services for returned service personnel and people with intellectual disabilities, including children. Wolston Park Hospital Complex retains a range of buildings dating from the 1860s, which through their design, relationships with each other and their setting, including designed landscapes, gardens and bushland, demonstrate the changing practices in the treatment of mental illness: from confinement and separation in the 19th century (Asylum); to activities and an environment conducive to mental health/recovery from 1909 to the 1930s (Moral Treatment or Therapy); to active treatment and cure through drug and medical therapies from the 1940s (Mental Hygiene 1940s-50s and Psychiatric Services 1960s-70s); to deinstitutionalization and community-based services by the 1980s. The site's physical evolution also demonstrates these changes in practice, as the complex developed incrementally across its large reserve.

Grounds landscaping and patient gardening during the moral treatment era served as a form of therapy, providing meaningful work that created a pleasant environment and recreational facilities. Farming was also used as a therapy during the moral treatment era and from the 1950s for those with intellectual disabilities. The institution’s philosophy of self-sufficiency is illustrated by the riverside quarry (1860s) and associated buildings, structures, and landscaping featuring its sandstone; the Farm Wards, which provided food supplies; and the Female Wards 1 and 2, constructed using bricks made on-site and timber felled nearby. Criterion b: The place demonstrates rare, uncommon, or endangered aspects of Queensland’s cultural heritage, as one of only three mental health institutions established in Queensland in the 19th century, and the only one that illustrates, through its fabric and layout, the evolution of mental health services from the 1860s onwards. Wolston Park Hospital Complex is rare and distinctive.

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Criterion B:

The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland’s cultural heritage.

As one of only three mental health institutions established in Queensland in the 19th century, and the only one that illustrates through its fabric and layout the evolution of mental health services from the 1860s onwards, the complex is rare and distinctive.

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Criterion C:

The place has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland’s history.

The Wolston Park Hospital Complex has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of early and evolved mental health treatment practices and conditions, the associated activities and infrastructure, the people who lived and worked there, and broader 19th and early-20th-century social attitudes towards mental health patients in Queensland. Detailed analysis of the hospital buildings – their planning, design and fabric, along with associated objects and documentary evidence – has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the historical functions, operational activities, and conditions experienced by patients subject to a controlled environment. Archaeological investigations at and around the three former cemetery sites may clarify the presence, nature and extent of burials, which, along with the identification and analysis of associated artefacts and features, have the potential to yield information about the treatment of deceased patients and burial practices at the hospital; spatial distribution and arrangement of graves; and the extent and methods of reinterments. Archaeological investigations of the early asylum area – its wards, hospital, doctors' residence and cottage sites, and associated jetty and bridge sites – have the potential to reveal sub-surface artefacts and features that might inform on the layout and operational activities, the living conditions of occupants, and transportation infrastructure associated with the complex. Previously the site of the 1840s Simpson residence, this area also has the potential to yield information about the site's mid-19th-century occupation. The medium- and high-density artefact scatters in the riverbank bushland area, including glass, ceramic, and metal kitchenware and tableware, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the occupants, their material culture, and the day-to-day activities of hospital life.

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Criterion D:

The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

Highly intact, Wolston Park Hospital Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial public mental health institution in Queensland developed from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Principal characteristics include an expansive, isolated, and highly secure site; groups of hospital buildings arranged by function, with segregation of male and female patients; on-site services and infrastructure to support self-contained operation; patient cemeteries; and landscape features and functions designed for patient therapy. Wolston Park Hospital Complex is the earliest and most extensive example of its type in Queensland.

The complex’s buildings, structures, and landscapes are important in demonstrating this type of place, including:

 

Early road network

Ellerton Drive (1870s, 1913-6); Boyce Road (by 1896); Hogg Lane (by 1896); Wolston Park Road, southern section (by 1896); Barrett Drive (by 1896-1948); Farm Roads (1899-1950s)

 

Central Administration, Services, & Staff Residences Area

Visitors Garden (c1912) and Visitors Pavilion (1920); Administration Building (1917); Hospital (1917); Chapel (1961); Medical Superintendent's Residence and Garden (1898); Assistant Medical Superintendent’s Residence and Garden (1912); Reservoir and Pump Houses (1914); Recreation Hall (1890-c1972); Laundry (1918); Powerhouse (1917); Morgue (1902-49).

 

Female Patients Area

Female Wards 1 & 2 (1866-1951); Shelter Shed for Female Patients (by 1944); Anderson House (1917); Staff Residence (1890s-1910s); Bostock House (1885-c1924); Dawson House (1944); Female Bathroom Block (1902)

 

Female Patients Recreation Area & Early Asylum Site

Recreation Grounds (1951-5); Cafeteria (c1951); Change Room and Stores Shed (c1951); Packing Shed and Patients Shelter (c1951); Early Asylum Site (1865), including Cemetery.

 

Male Patients Area

Recreation Grounds (by 1895); Fleming House (by 1896, c1917); Gladstone House, Jenner House, and Kelsey House (all 1936); Male Bathroom Block (1902); Lewis House, McDonnell House, and Noble House (all 1915); Osler House (1928); Pearce House (1934); Cemetery Site (1895-1912).

 

Wacol Repatriation Complex

 Recreation Grounds (c1954-55); Kitchen Block (1948); Wards A, B, and C (all 1948); Occupational Therapy and Recreation Hall (c1961); Cemetery Site (c1913- 45).

 

Gailes Golf Club Course (1925)

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Farm Complex

Piggery Remnants (1916-19); Dam (1950) and Pump House (by 1956); Later Farm Ward Building for Male Patients (c1964); Farm Overseer’s House (1918); Early Farm Ward Kitchen and Dairy (1916).

 

Basil Stafford Centre

Farm Ward Building and Grounds (1954-6); School Building for Child Patients with Intellectual Disabilities (1967) and Swimming Pool (c1973); Villas (c1978); and Hospital Dump Sites. Wolston Park Hospital Complex is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW) 's architectural work, retaining an extensive range of excellent, highly intact examples of DPW-designed buildings constructed over more than 100 years (1875 to c1978). The principal characteristics of the DPW’s architectural work, as demonstrated at the hospital complex, include well-designed, fit-for-purpose buildings with a dignified civic character; the use of high-quality materials; and abundant natural light and interior ventilation.

 

Criterion E:

The place is important because of its aesthetic significance.

Wolston Park Hospital Complex is significant for its aesthetic qualities, owing to the expressive and evocative qualities of its highly intact buildings and landscapes. The place expresses the Queensland Government’s regulation and treatment of people with mental illnesses from the 1860s to the 1970s, particularly its use of moral therapy. Through its elevated location and ordered buildings in formal landscapes surrounded by bushland, with controlled views to and from its features, the government sought to convey the perceptions of order, control, and calm to patients and visitors. The place is also evocative of institutional life and associated experiences of isolation, dependence, confinement, and treatment. These evocative qualities are layered across a variety of aspects, including substantial ward buildings designed for patient observation, control and management; communal patient dormitories, ablutions, dining, and recreation rooms, and individual patient cells; patient work and recreation landscapes; patient morgue and cemeteries; hospital paraphernalia and dump artefacts; and the patina of use on the fabric of the buildings. Important views unfold across the site, exemplified by the imposing early female and male ward buildings juxtaposed with their open, landscaped surrounds.

 

Criterion F:

The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

The place does not display any particular artistic, architectural, or creative qualities or any technical, construction or design qualities to be sufficiently important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

The place does not satisfy this criterion.

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Criterion G:

The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

Operating for more than 155 years, Wolston Park Hospital Complex, the oldest and for many years, the largest mental health facility in Queensland, has a strong and special association with the Queensland mental health community, including past and present patients, their family members, friends, and advocates, medical and non-medical staff, social workers, clergy, and volunteers.

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Criterion H:

The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland’s history.

Wolston Park Hospital Complex has a special association with Henry Byam Ellerton (c1871-1951), its Medical Superintendent and the Inspector of the Insane of Queensland between 1909 and 1936, who made a notable contribution to the development of mental health services in the state. Ellerton improved patient care through staff training, occupational therapy, and improved facilities. In accordance with the moral treatment method of patient therapy, Ellerton transformed Wolston Park Hospital Complex, through major building, farming, recreation, and landscaping programmes, laying out the complex in the form it still retains.