In 1940, Bronte House became the Boys' Cottage and the former Boys' Cottage, L Ward, became M Ward for women and girls.

In a submission to the Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, a former ward of state described her time at Lachlan Park during the 1950s. The Sisters at the Magdalen Home had arranged her transferral to the children's ward there because they found her behaviour difficult to manage. She helped look after the younger children on the ward. In her submission, she recalled that the nurses restrained the children with Downs Syndrome so that they could not walk. On one occasion, the nurses caused burns by putting hot water bottles without covers on children who were too physically disabled to move. When the young woman tried to escape, after attempts to sedate her, she was transferred to another ward where, according to the submission, there was 'lots of screaming'. She was put in a cell with a 'small peephole' in the door.

Margaret Reynolds, the former senator, went to teach at Lachlan Park Special School, located in the grounds of Lachlan Park, in 1963. In her autobiography, she describes the asylum as a 'dumping ground'. Reynolds remembers her first visit to the Children's Ward. She wrote:

The Children's Ward was a very dispiriting place. It contained rows of cots and narrow iron beds, but there was no colour or life in the room. The floors were regularly mopped with standard hospital-issue disinfectant so the air was thick with an overpowering smell. Several young children suffering various degrees of paralysis or mental retardation were confined to their beds. I was appalled to discover that many of them were actually tied down with bandages, their bodies lifeless and their expressions vacant.

Later Reynolds discovered that there were other children in the asylum. Girls over 10 were scattered throughout the adult wards. Even J Ward, a maximum security ward for disabled adult women, occasionally held girls with 'behaviour problems'. Reynolds recalled that the ward smelled of urine and faeces, making it difficult to breathe. These children witnessed the disturbing behaviour of the adults and heard patients receiving electric shock treatment.

About 40 boys lived in a separate secure ward close to the school. Reynolds often heard the sound of boys being beaten. They had few activities to engage them. Some of them did not have intellectual disabilities but were juvenile offenders, placed at Lachlan Park because it was the only secure unit available, apart from Risdon Prison.

Plans to close Lachlan Park go back to 1944 when Dr Catarinich, Victoria's Director of Mental Health, condemned the buildings as too crowded, out-of-date, unhygienic, and structurally unsound. He suggested that it be replaced with a new hospital. In 1949, following a Parliamentary Standing Committee recommendation, the government decided to build a new mental hospital on the eastern side of the Lachlan River. It opened in 1968 as the Royal Derwent Hospital. However, Lachlan Park was not abandoned. Instead as part of the new hospital, it was used exclusively for people with intellectual disabilities.

Location

1937 - 1968

Lachlan Park was in New Norfolk. Location: New Norfolk