Authors: Sue Rosen and Rosemary Kerr
Words: 7600
This report was commissioned by Peter McKenzie Of Jackson Teece Chesterman & Willis in 1996 to inform the preparation of a Conservation Management Plan for the Riverside precinct of Cumberland Hospital. It was found that:
Ward 12 and its companion suite of buildings (a male Admission Block and a two storey building for administration with accommodation for nursing staff and a matron on the top floor) that were built c. 1909 - 1910/11 reflect in their design and setting evolving views concerning the appropriate treatment of the newly and acutely mentally ill. Similar separate hospitals for the acutely ill were also built at Gladesville, Kenmore and probably at Callan Park (although the exact buildings at Callan Park have not been identified).
Jacaranda House was built in 1900-01 to accommodate nurses on night duty. The site was chosen because of its distance from the wards then in existence. Designed by George Oakeshott, while its domesticity and setting have some similarities to nurses homes elsewhere, on the whole its comparative small size is in variance with other nurses’ homes, particularly those of general hospitals which were usually much larger.
Contents: The Physical and Philosophical Context; Insanity and the Insane pre 1848; Parramatta Lunatic Asylum; Nursing; Pavilion Ward; Ward 12 - Female Admission Block; Jacaranda House (Nurses’ Home); Physical Development of Ward 12; Physical Development of Jacaranda House; Chronology; Bibliography.
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