Moral Treatment of Female Patients in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, 1858 – 1908

The University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2020 Hysterical Women: Moral Treatment of Female Patients in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, 1858 – 1908 Alexandra Wallis The University of Notre Dame Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details Wallis, A. (2020). Hysterical Women: Moral Treatment of Female Patients in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, 1858 – 1908 (Doctor of Philosophy). University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/260 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HYSTERICAL WOMEN: MORAL TREATMENT OF FEMALE PATIENTS IN THE FREMANTLE LUNATIC ASYLUM, 1858 – 1908 Alexandra Wallis Submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy The University of Notre Dame Australia, Arts & Sciences, Fremantle Campus June 2020 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP To the best of the candidate’s knowledge, this thesis contains no material previously published by another person, except where due acknowledgement has been made. This thesis is the candidate’s own work and contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any institution. Alexandra Wallis June 2020 ABSTRACT From 1858 to 1908, at least 452 women were admitted to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum. Through an exploration of nineteenth-century theories of moral treatment, new insights into female patient experiences will allow for greater understanding of Fremantle’s working-class women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including those behaviours that were considered insane. The appraisal of moral treatment techniques also allows for a new investigation into the enforcement of nineteenth-century, socially-accepted ideas of womanhood. In its three parts, using patient records, case books, and other sources, this thesis examines understandings of women’s insanity as they evolved in nineteenth-century Britain. It determines how Western Australia responded to such understandings in the provision of care to “insane” women. It also interrogates evidence of patient treatment in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum in order to determine how moral treatment was implemented and experienced in the care of female patients. Finally, this thesis reveals that the application of moral treatment was used without regard to patient circumstance and diagnosis, and had varied outcomes for women. Evidence within this thesis is explored through a feminist lens. I make a unique contribution to scholarship through analysis of new data, and socio-biographical case study investigations of the women admitted to the asylum. The thesis creates new understandings between female lunacy, morality, and the expectations of womanhood in nineteenth-century Western Australia. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the many people who helped me on this journey. Firstly, to my supervisor Dr Leigh Straw. Leigh, you are a mentor and a friend, and I have been so fortunate to have you guide me these past years. Thank you for telling me when I needed to rein it in and for always listening. I also want to thank my secondary supervisor Professor Deborah Gare, whose advice and guidance was so valued and appreciated, thank you for pushing me. Special mentions and thanks go to Adjunct Professor Joan Wardrop and the postgraduate students at the University of Notre Dame Australia on the Fremantle campus. You all fostered a fantastic and supportive research space that made this process so enjoyable and enabled me to bounce my ideas off a willing audience. Thank you all for listening and for sharing your own ideas with me. In particular, thanks to Toni Church, who was a second eye on the inscrutable handwritten records; I am grateful for our friendship and that we started this process at similar times. Extra thanks go to the Nedlands Genealogy Group who were kind enough to listen to my work early on and for their enthusiasm for Mary Jane Hayes! I also wish to thank the academic and research support staff at Notre Dame for enabling me to carry out my research, and I acknowledge that this PhD was supported by the Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship. To my family and friends, you spent several hours listening to me tell you the women’s stories. Thank you for asking me more questions! Special mention to Mum, Dad, and Seb, who helped me track down elusive parts of the stories and supported me through the process. Lastly, I acknowledge the trauma and triumphs of the women admitted to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum and consider myself privileged to have been able to provide them with a voice. CONTENTS List of Tables Introduction Literature on Fremantle, Women, Asylums and Moral Treatment 4 Research Aims 12 Method, Theory and Structure 12 Significance 19 Part I: Insanity and Hysteria Chapter One: Madness and Deviancy 21 Desperate Communities of the Powerless: Theories on Insanity 21 Deviancy, Moral Transgression, and Women 24 Global Headquarters of Insanity: Victorians and Madness 27 Moral Treatment 29 Chapter Two: Sad, Mad and Bad: Hysteria and Physicians 37 The History of Hysteria 38 The Hysteroneurasthenic Disorders 42 Desperate Communication of the Powerless 44 The Guardians of Female Honour 47 Extreme Treatments: Clitoridectomy and Ovariotomy 51 Part II: The Fremantle Lunatic Asylum Chapter Three: The Asylum and Its Staff 59 The Asylum in Fremantle 59 The Male Medical Superintendents 65 The Attendants: Matrons and Nurses 74 Keeping Patient Records 82 Chapter Four: The Female Patients of The Fremantle Asylum 86 Admission and Discharge 89 Classification and Diagnosis 94 Appearance of Insanity 97 Chapter Five: Moral Rehabilitation 100 ‘Discharged Recovered’ 102 As Long as the Dishes are Washed 105 Repeat Offenders 107 Utility not Cure: The Long-term Cases 109 Chapter Six: Punishments and Rewards 115 Non-restraint and Straitjackets 115 ‘Place in padded room’: Seclusion and Isolation 121 ‘Inclined to be Drowsy’: Chemical Restraint 126 Fremantle Asylum Amusements 130 ‘The treat so kindly afforded them’: Asylum Events and Shows 137 Part III: Female Patient Experiences Chapter Seven: Nowhere Else to Go: The Chronic and Incurable 145 ‘Demented from Old Age’: Elderly Women in Fremantle 147 ‘Imbecile’ and ‘Idiot’: Intellectual Disability 152 ‘Fits Frequent’: Epileptic Patients 157 Chapter Eight: The Impact of Men and Marriage 165 ‘Death of Husband’: Widowhood 166 ‘Disappointment in Love’: Desertion and Heartbreak 168 ‘Driven to Insanity’: Sexual Assault and Marital Cruelty 172 Chapter Nine: Madness and The Female Body 181 Menstrual Madness 181 Baby Brain: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Lunacy 190 Puerperal Insanity 199 Infanticide: Puerperal Extremes 209 Chapter Ten: Moral Insanity: Deviant Women 216 ‘Distinctly erotic’: Pruriency and the Female Patients 218 Self-Abuse: Masturbation in the Asylum 221 Temporary Relief: Alcohol and Insanity 226 ‘Drunk and disorderly’: Criminal Drunken Women 234 Morphinomaniacs: Drug Addiction 237 In the Moral Gutter: Prostitution and Insanity 244 Prostitutes: The Worst Women in Western Australia 248 Conclusion: Insights into the Asylum Significance and Findings 262 Thesis Outcomes 263 Contribution of New Knowledge 264 Recommendations for Further Research 264 Appendix: List of Female Patients Admitted to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 1908) 266 Reference List 295 LIST OF TABLES 4.1 Age of female patients on admission to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 1908) 86 4.2 Nationalities of female patients on admission to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 87 – 1908) 4.3 Religious Denominations of female patients on admission to the Fremantle Lunatic 88 Asylum (1858 – 1908) 4.4 Occupation of female patients on admission to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 89 1908) 4.5 Those who admitted female patients to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 1908) 91 4.6 Female patients discharged, died, or transferred in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum 93 (1858 – 1908) 4.7 Female patients discharged to family from the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 93 1908) 4.8 Reasons for admission to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 1908) 96 6.1 Restraint and seclusion on female patients at the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (1858 – 117 1908) 9.1 Puerperal related admissions for the female patients at the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum 202 (1858 – 1908) INTRODUCTION Honora “Nora” Fitzgerald was admitted to the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum on 15 June 1861, aged thirty-two, Irish Roman Catholic, and married with five children.1 Her history on admission revealed that she was from Limerick, Ireland; her father was a baker who died of consumption and her mother of fever.2 Nora arrived in the Swan River Colony in 1851 on the Pyrenees with her husband Michael, a Pensioner Guard, who was placed on the enrolled force at the Sound.3 They remained in there until February 1861 when Michael was ‘attacked with cancer’ and sent to Perth Hospital while Nora and her children went to the Perth Poor Home.4 It was at the Home that ‘doubts of her sanity arose’, and a medical board recommended Nora’s removal

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