City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 2Figure 80Caring for the aged poorThe Catholic religious order the Little Sisters of the Poor was founded in France in 1839 tocare for the aged poor. In 1883 Archbishop Gould invited the order to Victoria, and in 1894the first eight Sisters - two from France and six from England - arrived in Melbourne. Theyappealed successfully to the Melbourne community to raise funds, with which they purchasedBrown’s property in St Georges Road. They used an existing farmhouse on the site and added atimber building, admitting their first residents soon after they moved in at the end ofNovember 1885. The Sisters admitted men and women over 60 with no other means ofsupport, regardless of their religion. Lemon suggests that the Protestant Northcote Council hadlittle enthusiasm for the new project, and refused to allow the Sisters a small cemetery in thegrounds for burying their own dead, a decision that was overruled by the Central Board ofHealth.The first stage of the large Elizabethan style building, designed by Leonard Flannagan, wasbuilt in 1890. The second stage was designed by James Curtin and completed in 1896. It wasbuilt more cheaply than the first stage, in view of the economic situation of the time, but itincluded a semi-circular chapel. The third stage, by yet another architect, Kempson andConolly, was completed in 1908. The large building accommodated 250 destitute aged people.The Northcote institution was the Order’s first in Australia (Lemon, 1983:90, 129; “JubileeCelebrations”, 1933:34; Butler, 1992).Little Sisters of the Poor Convent,1892Photographer: Beckett, G.[Museum Victoria, ReferenceNumber: MM 008227]Gresswell SanatoriumTuberculosis (TB) was a major health problem in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,when it was considered incurable. Dr Astley Gresswell, Victoria’s Health Inspector from 1890,commenced a campaign against TB, and in 1903, because of its highly infectious nature, it wasdeclared a notifiable disease. As noted in Chapter 7 the Military Sanatorium Macleod wasopened in 1916 for servicemen affected by the disease.In 1927 Victoria’s first Director of Tuberculosis was appointed, and he set up a Statecontrolled TB service with diagnostic facilities, outpatients’ clinics and institutions for intensivecare. In 1933 the Gresswell Sanatorium was established near the Macleod Sanatorium on 500acres of Crown land to the north east of Mont Park Mental Hospital. Two other sanatoria wereestablished out of Melbourne at Heatherton and Greenvale in the 1940s, and three others werein country areas, but Gresswell was the largest. Bundoora’s isolation and rural seclusion made itideal for a sanatorium. Wards were pavilions with verandahs and treatment relied on open air,and physical and mental rest. The introduction of chemotherapy in the 1950s increased therecovery rate, and vaccination reduced the incidence of infection. By the 1960s the incidence116