Suicide in Tasmania 1868-1943

From ‘barbarous relics’ to an ‘emphasis on cure’? Suicide in Tasmania 1868‐1943 Marcus Atkinson School of History and Classics University of Tasmania March 2019 Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Declaration of originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright. Authority of access This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying and communication in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. ii Abstract Secular understandings of suicide began to emerge in western Europe during the late-seventeenth century. Two hundred years later, in a British colony on the other side of the world, secular approaches had also become well established as the primary way in which Tasmanians understood suicidal behaviour. Witnesses at inquests would invariably point to mental ill health and challenging personal circumstances when attempting to account for the suicides of their friends and family members. The coroners and jury members to whom they recounted these explanations took their responsibilities as investigators seriously, and did not seek to impose moral judgements on the corpses that lay before them. Newspapers similarly eschewed ethical judgements, instead producing detailed, factual, and morally neutral coverage. Official opposition to suicide from Tasmania’s major religions had little influence in public debates or the actions of religious ministers, nor any practical manifestations such as the denial of burials in church grounds. The dominance of secular understandings had profound consequences for the practices, policies and institutions that Tasmania developed to try to manage and prevent suicidal behaviour from 1868. This thesis explores these implications in the areas of the law, the coronial system, inquests, newspaper coverage, psychiatric care, and religion to 1943. iii Acknowledgements I owe a debt I cannot repay for the support, thoughtfulness and attention of my supervisors Professor Stefan Petrow and Professor Philippa Mein Smith. I imagine after careers such as theirs, the supervision of HDR candidates comes to feel somewhat routine. But for me, no one except my parents has had, or probably ever will have, a greater influence on my education than you both. Among far too many things to list here, I have learned from Stefan to love the history of Tasmania, and the people, places and stories that make up its past. From Philippa I have learned the importance of academic humility, of realising a historian’s task is to understand rather than to judge. Both are lessons that forever change the way a person thinks. I am grateful to my mother, who always asked how my thesis was going and whether I’d be finished on time, and my dad, who almost never did. Thank you especially to my sister Hannah, who provided so much assistance that this project must be considered partly hers. It was great to occasionally see Joe on campus after all my friends had long ago found other places they’d rather be. Thank you also to all the people in Pittsburgh who so generously gave up their time for someone they’d never met and who they’ll probably never see again. Professor Marcus Rediker, Professor Lara Putnam, Professor Seymour Drescher and Dr Jonathon Erlen all contributed more than they know to my overall experience of writing a thesis. I am grateful for all my friends, who provided distractions when I needed them and often when I really didn’t. Research and writing—particularly about such a sombre subject—can be a taxing and solitary endeavour. Silliness helps to balance the ledger. But my greatest thanks are reserved for my greatest friend. Melanie was there in Mount Nelson to drink champagne when I found out I got a scholarship, and later when I had no money. She was there in America and Argentina, at the Grange, in Glenorchy and at the cat centre. She flew past on her skis, came walking in a crimp hat, got muddy with a mattock. She was there every step of the way. iv Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv List of Figures and Tables vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Suicide and the Law 32 Chapter 2: The Coronial System 76 Chapter 3: Inquest Findings 113 Chapter 4: Suicide in the Tasmanian Press 191 Chapter 5: Medicine, Mental Health and Suicide 232 Chapter 6: Religion 283 Conclusion 321 Bibliography 326 v List of Figures and Tables Figure 1.1: Inquest verdicts, 1868-1877 Figure 1.2: Charges and convictions for attempted suicide Figure 2.1: Location of inquests, 1870 Figure 2.2: Location of inquests, 1880 Figure 2.3: Location of inquests, 1890 Figure 2.4: Location of inquests, 1900 Figure 2.5: Location of inquests, 1910 Figure 2.6: Location of inquests, 1920 Figure 2.7: Location of inquests, 1930 Figure 2.8: Location of inquests, 1940 Figure 3.1: Inquest verdicts (percentage of total verdicts, 10 year moving average) Figure 3.2: Causes mentioned during inquests (unsound mind verdicts only, by gender) Figure 3.3: Percentage of inquests in which mental ill health was mentioned (unsound mind verdicts only) Figure 3.4: Symptoms perceived by witnesses in inquests resulting in unsound mind verdicts Figure 3.5: Symptoms perceived by witnesses, by decade vi Figure 3.6: Percentage of inquests in which physical illness was mentioned (unsound mind verdicts only) Figure 3.7: Percentage of cases in which financial distress was mentioned (males only) Figure 4.1: Memorial photo of Olive printed in the Clipper Figure 4.2: Memorial notice to Olive printed in the Clipper on the anniversary of her death Figure 5.1: W. Beattie Smith on the causes of insanity Table 5.1: Descriptions given by doctors and families in admission files, 1930 Figure 5.2: A request to release Annie L. from the New Norfolk Hospital Table 6.1: Subjects of articles in Church News, 1 August 1900 Table 6.2: Subjects of articles in the Monitor, 6 April 1906 vii Introduction How a society thinks about, understands and decides to respond to suicidal behaviour has a significant impact upon the lives of suicidal individuals. Such factors not only shape the social world of suicidal individuals, but also significantly affect their material existence. The nature of medical and psychiatric treatment, whether or not a legal system imposes penalties for suicidal behaviour, and both the actual and anticipated reactions of a person’s friends, family and wider community to their situation all combine to structure the experience and consequences of being suicidal in a particular place and time. This thesis analyses the factors that shaped the lives of suicidal Tasmanians and their families in Tasmania between 1868 and 1943. A number of questions are central to the study. What views did Tasmanians hold about the causes of, morality, and appropriate social response to suicide, and why? How influential were various views? Who held them? Why? How and why did such views change, or not change, over time? How did legal, medical and social institutions respond to suicide, and why? How and why did these responses change or remain the same? Most critically of all, how did these factors affect suicidal Tasmanians? The timespan of the thesis has been determined by the availability of archival documents. The thesis begins in 1868, the first year in which detailed Tasmanian inquest records survive; given the files have a 75-year access restriction, 1943 is the final year these records are currently publicly accessible. In a neat coincidence, these years are also five years either side of the first and last major changes to the Tasmanian coronial system as it related to suicide. In 1873 the Coroners Act was amended so that suicide verdicts no longer had the potential to 1 prevent a Christian burial or to bring about the confiscation of the deceased’s property.1 In 1938 significant changes were made to the form of inquest verdicts that reflected key changes in Tasmanian society’s conception of the relationship between mental ill health and suicide.2 By focusing on the period where the most significant amendments to the law were made, the thesis is also well situated to analyse changes to the social attitudes and understandings that underpinned legal reforms. Including the five years either side of the changes allows the thesis to analyse their consequences. Geographically, the study limits its focus to Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state.3 Tasmania is an island of approximately 68 000 square kilometres, and has been populated by the people of nine Aboriginal nations for around 40 000 years.4 The Aboriginal people suffered immeasurably at the hands of British colonialists. Beginning around 1820, the occupation of Aboriginal hunting areas in the Midlands region between Hobart and Launceston was actively resisted and led to violent conflict between Aboriginal and colonial groups. This conflict was followed by a series of increasingly drastic responses from the Colonial Government, including the declaration of martial law in 1828 and the infamous Black Line policy of 1830 that sought the complete expulsion of Aboriginal Tasmanians from British-occupied areas. Known as the Black War, the conflict and genocidal violence of the period decimated the Aboriginal population. By 1 The Coroners Act 1873 (Tas), s. 16. 2 Correspondence Relating to the Making and Termination of the Appointment of Coroners, AGD16/1/1, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office (hereafter TAHO).

Load more