Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum (1865 - c. 1880)

The Woogaroo Asylum was founded by the Queensland government as the first publicly-funded mental health institution in the colony. As well as people with a mental illness, the asylum also housed those who were destitute, ill, or old and without family or other means of support.

The provision of health and welfare services was regarded as the responsibility of charitable and religious organizations in the nineteenth century, however the care and treatment of mental illness was the one exception.

Woogaroo Asylum's first patients were transferred from the Brisbane Gaol on 10 January 1865. The Brisbane Courier of 14 January 1865 reported that:

On Tuesday morning last, the lunatics, which hitherto have been confined in Brisbane Gaol, were removed to the new Asylum at Woogaroo. They were conveyed to the steamer Settler in cabs, under the supervision of Mr. Warder Phillips, who was accompanied by four ordinary wardsmen and by ten constables. Tho female lunatics were under the charge of two female warders. The embarkment was very successfully managed, considering that there were 57 males and 12 females, and we understand that all were safely lodged in their new quarters.

The first buildings consisted of a male division, erected near the creek, and a female division, located further up the hill. The superintendent quarters stood in between. Due to recurring floods additional buildings were erected further up the hill.

Location

1865 - c. 1880

Location - Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum was situated on the Banks of the Brisbane River at Wacol. Location: Wacol