The Chinese played an important role in the founding of Ararat, although they weren’t always welcome. Although many Chinese who came to seek wealth in the region returned to China, some stayed on in Australia. The last image in this group shows some of the descendants of Wong Tung On, who arrived in Victoria in the mid-19th century. The photographs below were taken at the Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre.
These days the old J Ward jail is a museum, but it used to house extremely violent criminals who’d been deemed to be criminally insane. The jail closed in 1991. The vast majority of inmates were paranoid schizophrenics. One man spent sixty years in the jail, and he was incarcerated at the age of 40. As shocking as the straitjackets and the gloves to stop people self-harming and the claustrophobic rooms was the information that the first known HIV-AIDS patient in Victoria was placed in J Ward because they didn’t know how the disease was transmitted back then. The pictures below respectively show a straitjacket, autopsy equipment, and a reenactment of an inmate receiving Electroconvulsive Therapy (which evidently isn’t an effective treatment for schizophrenia).
There were patients who were taken from the general psychiatric facility, the Aradale Mental Hospital, to J Ward after they’d engaged in violent behaviour. The old Mental Hospital can be seen from the train, and is a vast white complex located on a hill. It closed in the early 1990s and is now owned by TAFE, however, it’s largely unused and becoming decrepit. According to the Public Records Office Victoria:
Ararat Asylum was opened in October 1867. Its proclamation as an Asylum was published in the Government Gazette on 1 October 1867. Since its establishment the title of the institution at Ararat has been altered several times to reflect both the community’s changing attitude towards mental illness and the Government of Victoria’s approach to the treatment of mentally disturbed persons. Despite the changes in designation the function and structure of the agency has not altered significantly, therefore the institution has been registered as one continuous agency. From its establishment until 1905 the institution at Ararat was known as an Asylum. This title emphasised its function as a place of detention rather than a hospital which provided treatment for mentally ill people who could possibly be cured. The Lunacy Act 1903 (1873) changed the title of all “asylums” to “hospitals for the insane”. This Act came into operation in March 1905. The Mental Hygiene Act 1933 (No.4157) altered the title to “mental hospitals”. Over recent years Ararat has also become known as “Aradale”.
The picture below was taken at the Ararat Cemetery. My great-grandmother, Margaret Louise Box (her married name was Marney), is buried in one of those unmarked graves. She died in 1957. She was a patient at the Aradale Mental Hospital at the time. I’ve no idea why she was a patient, how long she was a patient for and why she ended up in an unmarked grave. I’ve read that the files of Aradale Mental Hospital patients who’d been dead for a significant period of time were destroyed during the Kennett era. Don’t know if this is true or not. Rest in peace, Margaret.
Actually, electroconvulsive therapy is a legitimate therapy for schizophrenia.
The literature review at the following website gives a good overview: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15846598
An uncle who spent a short period at Aradale in the mid 50s and who had schizophrenia was many times given shock treatment and ultimately lived on the streets of all east coast cities. Compare that with my son who also suffered schizophrenia and after a few years of compulsory chemical treatments to no effect except extreme discomfort and chronic side effects- shaking dribbling lethargy depression etc-found the right chemical answer in clozepene and has since been able to manage well enough to also give support to others. It certainly isn’t unusual to have ancestors in Ararat and Stawell cemeteries as they were central to the goldrush influx of immigrants in the mid 19th century. The pic of the Chinese family reminds me of a lad who was raised with me at Burwood Boys Home [Vic]and who’s father served in WW2.
Thanks for that, Chris. I had read that it can be effective in treating major depression, but wasn’t aware of positive effects re: schizophrenia.
zorronsky, good to hear that the medication has proved to be positive for you son’s condition.
Perhaps ECT is also more effective these days. Such a complicated field.
That picture of the Chinese family is so interesting. It must have been taken during WWII.
Just found an article about the Burwood Boys Home. Seems there was a book written about it. Are you aware of that book? I’m sure you have plenty of memories of the place.
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/a-medal-moment-to-remember/2007/09/22/1189881834791.html
Has me in mind of Mamdhou Habib etc. We have had the yanks all wrong. They were just rendering folk off to Egypt as sort of kind afterthought, for the humanitarian ECG.
And think of the fascinating places they invented, for the electrodes and thingees. and all that cold water thrown on folk during “treatment”, just to facilitate buzzes.
Actually, gentle souls yanks and their mates.
As for “heathen chinee”, where would we be without them.
No Masterfoods Maggi chow mein; chop suey!
—
Sorry Darls. Usually very heritage minded, in a silly mood after footy side winning.
Thanks Darlene. I was 14 in ‘52 and went to the hostel in Hawthorn for a year before going bush timber cutting until’ I joined the army in ‘57. I have some good memories of Burwood re the other boys however I have many very ordinary memories too. It is the nature of some people attracted to these institutions to prey on the young. The nature -nurture thing is debatable but I lean to nurture as the cause of my anti authoritarian outlook. Never did me much good though and didn’t stop me from embracing an institutionalised early life. Burwood did get me off the streets in ‘43 but if I could write, a book about the Home would not reflect well on at least half the people responsible for my welfare in those years during and just after WW2.
Some more photographs of J Ward, taken by a photographer relative of mine.
http://www.jward.ararat.net.au/gallery/
“My great-grandmother [...] was a patient at the Aradale Mental Hospital at the time.”
“Snap”, Darlene. (Only remove the ‘great’ part.)
I was myself, for 6 years, an inmate of an another Ararat institution for the mentally unstable. The local high school, where a quite number of my fellow inmates were of chinese descent.
Go team, Paul. Which side do you support? Are you an AFL man or a rugby league fan? Not sure if there are any other codes besides those.
zorronsky, thanks for your insight into life in the Burwood home. I think that’d a fascinating book. Your life sounds like it’d make a good book. Going timber cutting sounds like darned hard work.
There are times when one sees people on the TV who have spent their early lives in these kinds of homes and they look so sad and, at times, quite damaged by the experience. So much for the good old days. Of course, there are also people who got through the experience okay.
“Never did me much good though and didn’t stop me from embracing an institutionalised early life.”
I’d be interested to read more about that.
PDAA, thanks. That’s the J Ward website, of course. Interesting pictures. Those restraints just boggle the mind. That underground bathroom is just so awful. It should be noted that they also used it to smoke meat. Can’t remember if they used it as a bathroom and a smoking room at the same time.
Anyway, if anyone’s up at Ararat, I’d recommend giving the J Ward jail a look. The tour guide was very helpful, friendly and well-versed in his subject.
Meself, I hope the high school has improved since the days you were there (although I suspect they’re all homes for the mentally unstable – high schools I mean).
My understanding is that the Chinese ended up in Ararat because they were walking to the diggings from Adelaide. The colony of Victoria had a whites only policy for port landing but they were able to walk overland.
Ararat is still a pleasant sleepy town.
Thanks for that info, wilful.
This is what the Gum San Chinese Heritage website says about it:
“One day in May, 1857, 700 Chinese miners from Southern China, travelling overland from the Port of Robe, South Australia, to the Central Goldfields in the Colony of Victoria, rested at a place at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, some 400 kilometres due east of Robe.
Replenishing their water supplies at a spring, they discovered by chance the Canton Lead, the world’s richest shallow alluvial goldfield that stretched five kilometres at length.
This find marked the beginning of the Ararat Goldfield, which grew to a population of more than 30,000 in a mere few weeks.
In the first three weeks of mining, the Canton Lead yielded ninety five kilograms of gold and in the first three months, more than three tonnes.”
The Chinese were also subject to some sort of tax, but I can’t remember the details (had to get the train and didn’t want to miss it and be stuck in Ararat
)
Ararat certainly looks like a pleasant sleepy town. The tourist attractions and sights would suggest it’s all about facilities for the mentally ill, wine, the Chinese digging for gold and that’s about it. Next place to visit for me is St Arnaud, where my great-grandfather is buried.
I must say I was impressed by the V-Line train service, which was much better than what one gets on the suburban trains.
On mental illness, the drugs really are far more effective these days – that, not simple changes in attitudes, is the main reason that physical restraint has been able to be reduced so much. High Dependency Units are still frightening and miserable places but very few people have to spend long in them now.
That stuff about ECT for schizophrenia is interesting – I, too, thought that its main use these days is for major depression (especially where it’s a complication of senile dementia). Given ECTs record of being oversold, the impossibility of blind (let alone double blind) studies, and the relative mystery about how it’s supposed to work I have to confess to some mild scepticism. Subjecting a computer to repeated [Ctrl-Alt-Del]s is not usually an effective way of dealing with major hardware problems.
Nice post, Darlene, I really enjoyed reading this and looking at the pix.
I drove through Ararat dozens of times between 1980 and 1998 and I associate it with sinister on-road experiences (getting fined heftily for doing 82 in a 60 zone because the 60 sign was hidden by foliage, as I confirmed on the next trip over; taking a wrong turn on the counter-intuitive route through Ararat to Adelaide and ending up in Halls Gap as night fell, after driving through a lot of dark unfamiliar forest like Red Riding Hood; etc). I particularly associate it with the overalled, farmer-looking dude in the roadhouse who ordered a pot of tea, “and don’t make it with fuck’n teabags.” When the pot arrived he pushed it over to the downtrodden-looking woman with him and said “Here, stick your fork in that and see if it’s a fuck’n teabag.”
Thanks, PC. I enjoyed the day out at Ararat. It was a particularly lovely trek to the cemetery (walked down a dirt road, which contained a rather large puddle). It was a strangely powerful experience to see the place where great-grandma is buried, and to see the bareness of her and some other graves. The cemetery is certainly located in a lovely serene area.
Sounds like a hideous drive that night. My word, almost a scary movie that experience.
Christ knows what that old bugger would’ve done if they’d used teabags. Why couldn’t he stick the fork in himself?
Thanks, derrida derider. Does that mean people can move quite quickly from needing to be in a High Dependency Unit to being released or at least put into the general area of a pysch hospital thanks to the drugs that are given these days? Interesting what you say about the attitudes.
I note that there was an article about ECT (a subject that doesn’t seem to be discussed that much anymore) on On Line Opinion in April:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7179
I got the impression he thought forks and teapots were women’s work.
Country cemeteries are fabulous that way. The Curramulka Cemetery, which is way out in the middle of the wheat on Yorke Peninsula in SA, contains the graves of both my (paternal) great-grandparents and both my great-great grandparents, plus at least a dozen people I used to call ‘Auntie X or ‘Uncle Y’, half a dozen people I went to primary school with, a couple of those people’s children, the bloke who used to bake the bread we bought hot from the bakery, the woman who taught me to read music and play the piano, and goodness knows who-all else. I go there whenever I get the chance and wander around communing with the dead.
ECT is the millstone around the neck of psychiatry. There is no doubt it works about as well as the anti-depressants. The problem is that it’s reputation is so foul it pollutes the capacity of people to trust psychiatrists. ECT is the torture added to the power of imprisonment (involuntary admission). It does not help that in some circumstances ECT has been used as punishment and that memory problems are unavoidable.
Ban it. Move on.
The second issue is the efficacy of medication. Depression and mania are indeed well treated. As to schizophrenia, there is little new in thirty years. The modern drugs have less side effects but no greater efficacy. The only exception is Clozapine, which was invented in the sixties and rejected due to marrow toxicity. It does work much better, assuming your heart and blood hold up.
The main difference is culture. The reduction in fear of violence and limitation of acceptable restraint.
Great post Darlene.
I live near Castlemaine now which has a similar Chinese goldrush era past. As I type I can see outside a window a hill 200 metres into the distance that is covered with “Chinese Scrub” – Cassinia arcuata. Supposedly the Chinese gold miners used this native daisy species as incense.
When you get to St Arnaud Darlene, slip out to Berry’s Bridge, there’s a great little winery…P C That’s the road I live on , sounds like somebody sure had you goin’. Agree with the level of police presence in western Vic and their over zealous attitude to tourists.South Aussies are generally well regarded hereabouts but personally I draw the line at having to watch the Crows and Port as the only game available to free to air sunday.
Dr S clozapine is a blood monitoring problem for my son but modicate[if that's how you spell it] terrified him for both its physical and mental effects. One 42 degree day in a near city institution in Adelaide I found him on a lawn behind his ward, choking on his own vomit, unable to move .The modicate nurse had upped his dosage because of his aversion to the drug and his attempts to avoid being medicated.
Nice thoughts, PC. A lot of history buried in that regional SA cemetery.
Mmmm, bread baked fresh and purchased hot.
Incidentally, according to one website, this is all the events happening in Curramulka:
http://www.australianexplorer.com/events/curramulka.htm
“Curramulka Lights Up! 2008 (EVENT)
Curramulka (Curramulka, South Australia – Australia)
06 December 2008 – 31 December 2008 (TBA)
Following the Curramulka Lights Up! 2008 Light Up Night on Saturday 6 December 2008; the Curramulka town lights will be switched on every night throughout December, until New Years Eve. Stroll or drive around town and see the many wonderful Christmas scenes and light displays. The best time for viewing the Curramulka Lights is after sunset.”
Dr S, it’s all pretty depressing. Makes one wonder about why there is a lack of recent medication for schizophrenia. Dare I suggest that the pharmaceutical companies make more money out of the current “depression epidemic”? Dare I suggest that some GPs find it easier (and less time consuming) to prescribe Lexapro or whatever than discuss their clients problems or arrange appointments with psychiatrists?
Apparently there are some drugs for schizophrenia in the works:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/newmeds2004.html
Thanks, melaleuca. That’s a great image. Alas, it seems that Cassinia arcuata looks good, but is a bit of problem. Castlemaine looks like a nice little town. For those who haven’t heard of it:
http://www.castlemaine.org/
http://www.castlemaine.org/
“When you get to St Arnaud Darlene, slip out to Berry’s Bridge, there’s a great little winery”.
Thanks for that tip, zorronsky. Love a little drop of white.
I agree with Pavlov’s Cat. He could quite easily ordered her to test for the offending tea bag with a spoon instead. Tea bags in teapots are the bane of a civilised person’s existence ( still can’t get past that cat!!).
Stawell and off into the Grampians is a good buzz, too.
Curramulka has lights? Gee, I’ve been gone longer than I thought.
They may be basing this bold tourism initiative on the annual Christmas Lights of Lobethal Festival in the Adelaide Hills. (Note obligatory use of the word ‘nestled’ to refer to any town or building on anything less than dead-flat terrain.)
“Stawell and off into the Grampians is a good buzz, too.”
The Grampians is an absolute treasure. Check it out in spring for the wildflowers. Also go see Royce Raleigh’s hakea collection.
I am a historian working on convict heritage tourism at Monash,Clayton.By recording this past of Ararat,I believe you have done a good service for historicalre-enactment by putting this experience on the web.Keep it up.
Would you mail me back as I would further like to have your views on the J ward
Bye
kapil
Thanks Kapil. You haven’t left an email address in your comment.
Feel free to contact me on darlenectaylor (at) yahoo.com.au and let me know what you’re after.
On behalf of every RU fan and every “world game” fan, it saddens me Darlene but this simply must be done:
You’re not going to struggle when we put you in the pod, are you?
Tee hee, that’s funny.
Okay, okay, there are more codes than just league and AFL. I better concede that before I’m put in the pod.