Henry Schultze died on a bloody mattress at Mt View Lunatic Asylum in 1895. Laura Walters and Katie Kenny explore how his life, and countless others, were affected by society's attitude towards some of our most vulnerable.
A preference for forgetting
Barbara Brookes sits next to a table piled high with books. The sun streams into her University of Otago office as she searches for a book on asylum photography and adds it to the mound.
“Although they’re truncated and not a full life in any sense, what interests me is the captured biographies of ordinary people who wouldn’t otherwise enter the historical record,” the historian says.
Brookes believes psychiatric medical records tell the stories of those with no public voice.
“You have to record why you’re denying someone their liberty.
“The difference about being found a criminal is that you get a sentence and you get out. But being found a lunatic you have an indeterminate sentence. So there is a continual stream of paperwork to justify denying the liberty of the subject.”
That paperwork now sits in Dunedin Archives in heavy, leather-bound medical casebooks.
While Brookes specialises in 19th century psychiatric patients, particularly those admitted to Seacliff Lunatic Asylum north of Dunedin, her profession arms her with a wider lens.
“The history of mental health care demonstrates that from time to time, an event will lead to an eruption of public concern about the mentally ill,” she writes in the foreword of Unfortunate Folk.
“Yet, for most of the time, the mentally ill take a low profile in the preoccupations of the community. The public preference is for forgetting… because the fear of madness reflects a deeper fear of self-disintegration.”
Her role is to make sure society doesn’t forget.
Ordinary humans, terrible problems
“The concentration camp” — that’s what the former patient calls Lake Alice.
He was first admitted to what became New Zealand’s most notorious modern-day institution in 1989, when he was 16.
The hospital located in the rural back-blocks, 30 minutes north-west of Palmerston North, opened in August 1950 as a response to overcrowding in the country’s other asylums. With its National Secure Unit — known by its occupants as ‘The Block’ — the hospital became a dumping ground for the country's most difficult patients.
This patient, who now lives at home with his parents, recalls bullying staff and being forced to walk the 'mad mile' around a paddock behind the villas. He remembers the silent, 6ft 4in (193cm) Bulgarian affectionately named Coogie Bear, and his best friend at Lake Alice, the child sex offender Lloyd McIntosh.
He also recalls an ally in an unlikely position of power — the hospital's first and last chaplain.
When Jonathan Boyes started at Lake Alice in 1987 the New Zealand Hospital Chaplains’ Association featured him on the cover of its monthly newsletter.
A crudely drawn Boyes sits atop an ark. “Induct a chaplain: break a drought,” it reads.
“They were just ordinary human beings with terrible problems,” the Wellington retiree says, his eyes welling with tears.
“I loved them; I still feel for them. They were damaged but amazing people… Almost everything was harsh and terrible. They couldn’t see beyond the walls. Very few had anything to look forward to.”
Boyes and a handful of forward-thinking staff took it upon themselves to implement small-but-meaningful changes for those written off as hopeless cases, like the “rockers and moaners” in villa 15 at the back of the hospital.
A group of nurses fundraised to take patients on a trip to Picton. “In 20 or 30 years, they’d have never had any hopes like that,” he says.
A psychiatrist ordered a carpenter to remove the locks from the villa doors while the charge nurse was on a day off.
In Boyes’ view, the last years of Lake Alice were the best years. The years when patients experienced the little pleasures — fish and chips on a Tuesday and trips to nearby towns.
But those small acts of compassion didn’t come from a system looking to restore hope and dignity. They were initiatives taken by compassionate staff who saw an opportunity to make a small improvement.
The local farming family who bought the property when the hospital closed in 1999 has secured signs to the gates: "private property", "trespassers will be prosecuted".
Most of the villas and hospital buildings have been torn down. Soon the physical evidence of Lake Alice will give way to grazing land.
But the stories of those who lived through the institutional era will not be forgotten. Behind the overgrowth, they're etched into history.
Where to get help
Need to talk? 1737: free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
Lifeline: 0800 543 354
Youthline: 0800 376 633 free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
Samaritans: 0800 726 666
Healthline: 0800 611 116
Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 or www.depression.org.nz
The Lowdown: www.thelowdown.co.nz or free text 5626
SPARX.org.nz: online e-therapy tool
OUTline NZ: 0800 688 5463 for confidential telephone support for the LGBTQI+ family, as well as their friends and families
Note: all helplines are available 24/7. For further information about supports available to you, contact the Mental Health Foundation's free resource and information service (09 623 4812 or info@mentalhealth.org.nz) during business hours.
This project was made possible by funding from the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust, through the Mental Health Foundation.
Words: Laura Walters and Katie Kenny
Illustration and layout: Jemma Cheer
Visuals editor: Alex Liu
Copy editor: Joanne Butcher