Life of Martha Entwistle: Australia's first convict mental health nurse

Lunatic Asylums and Indigenous Australians during the Nineteenth Century

Lunatic asylums formed part of the civic infrastructure that was constructed out of British colonists invading and subsequently colonising unceded, Indigenous Australian lands during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This historical narrative examined nineteenth century primary and secondary sources including, patient lists, medical files, and government correspondence, to provide insight into the experiences of Indigenous Australians admitted to Australia's earliest lunatic asylums. Awareness that lunatic asylums formed part of the structure imposed during colonisation, provides nurses and other health professionals with greater historical literacy regarding the impact of colonial lunatic asylums on Indigenous Australians. Such impacts continue to be experienced through transgenerational trauma and emphasise the importance of culturally safe mental health services.

Historical Context of Custodial Health Nursing in New South Wales, Australia

Australia's prison healthcare originated during the establishment of the colony of New South Wales by Britain in 1788. Initially managed by the Colonial Medical Service, the history and healthcare of the penal settlement has been well documented in government records, academic works, museum displays, and fictional dramatizations. This article explores the origins and historical development of the nursing care of prisoners in Australia, starting with the original Australian prisoners, the convicts of colonial New South Wales. Largely overlooked in historical and academic studies, custodial health nurses are rarely mentioned or acknowledged for their contribution to the health of the colony. However, their expertise as healthcare professionals has continued to grow and is explored within the context of today's health landscape.

Aboriginal Australian mental health during the first 100 years of colonization, 1788-1888: a historical review of nineteenth-century documents

Past histories charting interactions between British healthcare and Aboriginal Australians have tended to be dominated by broad histological themes such as invasion and colonization. While such descriptions have been vital to modernization and truth telling in Australian historical discourse, this paper investigates the nineteenth century through the modern cultural lens of mental health. We reviewed primary documents, including colonial diaries, church sermons, newspaper articles, medical and burial records, letters, government documents, conference speeches and anthropological journals. Findings revealed six overlapping fields which applied British ideas about mental health to Aboriginal Australians during the nineteenth century. They included military invasion, religion, law, psychological systems, lunatic asylums, and anthropology.

Colonial surgeon Patrick Hill (1794-1852): unacknowledged pioneer of Australian mental healthcare

Despite making a substantial contribution to the development of mental health services in colonial Australia, until now the story of Dr Patrick Hill's (1794-1852) life has been overlooked by historians. This paper reviews primary sources including clinical notes, patient lists, letters, government documents and newspaper articles which reveal that Dr Hill was a dedicated physician who played a vital role in the development of Australian mental healthcare. He was held in such esteem that by the time of his sudden death in 1852 he had been elevated to the most senior medical office in New South Wales. Dr Hill's career serves to exemplify how the local practice of individual colonial doctors helped build the reputation of medicine in the modern era.