Administrators Based at the Ipswich Asylum

From 1878 to 1910, the staff at Sandy Gallop were responsible to the Medical Superintendent or Inspector of Asylums at Woogaroo. The first chief warder at Ipswich was Mr Broderick, about whom we know very little. In 1879, Mr Samuel Lewis was sent to Ipswich as a warder and stayed until 1916, during which time he held differing positions, ranging from superintendent to steward. We are thankful that he was indeed a punctilious public servant and his letters have shed light on all facets of running the asylum. His expertise had to spread from animal husbandry for the farm animals, to the logistics of feeding over 300 people every day, to having a reliable water supply, to name but a few.

Dr Hogg was Medical Superintendent at Goodna from 1898 until 1910 and oversaw the next stage of the growth at the Ipswich branch of the Asylum. He is credited with the design of the radial plan which was fundamental in the development of the site. He was also instrumental in the formation of the ha-haA sunken fence designed not to interrupt the view from within. It is invisible until seen from close by and consists of a trench on the inner side. and scrolls between the bars on Blair Pavilion to lessen the feeling of restraint. Unfortunately, he died shortly before Blair was opened. He was described as a “person of unusual qualities and rare energy”.2

Upon Dr Hogg's death, Dr Nichols occupied the position temporarily until it was decided that Ipswich was now an institution in its own right and needed its own superintendent.

Dr Harold Vernon Foxton was appointed as the first Medical Superintendent of Ipswich. He was from a well known Queensland family and proved to be an able administrator and doctor. With the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 Dr Foxton joined the Australian Medical Corp and although he held the position at the Asylum until 1919, he did not return, having been given a medical discharge from the army on the grounds of deafness. He went on to become a well known ear, nose & throat specialist in Brisbane. Perhaps his war experiences had left him unable to deal with the insane.

At the same time as Dr Foxton took up his appointment at Ipswich, Dr Byam Ellerton had been appointed as Inspector of Asylums at Goodna. He was also an advocate of moral treatment and abhorred any measure of restraint. Although Female 1 was by now ready to be opened at Ipswich, patients could not be moved in until there was accommodation for nursing and allied staff. Thus began the construction of all the services buildings between 1910 and 1917. All of these buildings, still in existence, are now heritage listed and form part of the present day campus.

The next permanent appointment after Dr Foxton was Dr Alexander Morrison. Appointed in 1919 he remained in the position until his death in 1926. Dr J.E.F. McDonald succeeded him for just over a year, after which he became medical superintendent at Toowoomba.

Dr Basil Stafford took up the next appointment and his influence on mental health and the way asylums were run was to have long lasting effects in Queensland. A graduate of the Melbourne Medical School, he had studied psychiatry, a burgeoning field at this point in time and had very different ideas to the custodial approach that had been in vogue under Dr Ellerton’s 28 year directorship. Stafford’s approach is best summed up in his own words-

Stafford remained at Ipswich until 1937, when he became Medical Superintendent at Goodna and later Director of Mental Hygiene. Under his guidance, he was determined to remove the stigma attached to words such as, “insane” and “asylum” and replace them with “mental illness” and “mental hospital”.4 New legislation such as The Backward Person’s Act of 1938 and The Mental Hygiene Act of 1938 was introduced at this time. His contribution to mental health cannot be underestimated.

He was succeeded at Ipswich by Dr William Patrick Hugh Parker who served from 1938 to 1953. His stewardship took in the difficult war years and saw a marked increase in the early fifties, of babies with a disability, being sent directly from the hospital where they were born to the Asylum. Dr Parker complained of the difficulty this presented to staffing levels and the care the babies required.

Dr John Allen Hede was the next superintendent from 1953 to 1960, when Dr Richard Aubrey Atherton was appointed and the institution once again changed its name to the Ipswich Special Hospital.

Dr George McCutcheon was appointed as Superintendant in 1968 to oversee the biggest changes in the history of the institution. With the advent of the Challinor Centre, the staffing arrangements changed from a nursing based model to a caring model, with the emphasis on the resident becoming more independent. Initially this required a lot of input in training, and many more paramedical staff. Conflict arose between the nursing staff and the paramedical staff and resulted in a number of rolling strikes.