The ever-present threat of deadly disease

The threat of deadly infectious diseases prompted early twentieth-century governments to take steps to ensure the safety of its citizens. In Queensland, the Health Act 1884 was introduced after an outbreak of typhoid fever and dysentery, and the Health Act 1900 after an outbreak of bubonic plague. 

A child being immunised against Diphtheria, 1920s.
Photo: State Library of Queensland.

Introduced at a time when public anxiety over health matters was high, the main issues that concerned the general public included the adulteration of food, sanitation problems and frequent outbreaks of epidemic disease.

Most local government authorities employed a health officer who reported on the general health and sanitary state of the city on an annual basis. In Townsville, Dr Walter Nisbet was the city’s Medical Officer of Health from 1898 until his death in 1920.

Dr Nisbet reported on everything from birth and death rates, the prevalence of infectious diseases, population trends, sanitation issues and even on the number of empty houses in the city. He also reported on the state of boarding houses, butcher shops and bakeries, as well as local dairies. Dairymen could be fined if they were found to have watered down their milk and regular checks were made as to the fat content of the milk being supplied to locals.

Epidemics of measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever and dengue fever, among others, came and went with alarming seasonal regularity.

Typhoid fever proved to be a recurring problem for health authorities and one that often carried a high mortality. In his report for the year 1906, Dr Nisbet stated that 49 cases of typhoid fever had occurred in Townsville, with ten deaths - a mortality rate of just over 20 per cent.

Houses in Walker Street, Townsville, 1903. Top photo shows an open drain with a small child standing beside the drain. Bottom photo shows the drain's contents flowing underneath nearby houses.
Both photos: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection.

In 1915, typhoid fever again reached epidemic proportions in Townsville, with most cases located in North Ward, although there were isolated cases in other parts of the town. In this outbreak, 87 people contracted the disease.

During this outbreak Dr James King-Patrick, Medical Inspector of Health for North Queensland, was interviewed by the Townsville Daily Bulletin about his thoughts on the disease. He had prepared a leaflet with instructions to householders that outlined basic steps to take to avoid potential infection, which centered on many general principles of cleanliness that are taken for granted today.

“The strong point in the instructions to be observed by householders, is that relating to flies,” Dr King-Patrick said.

“People must get it into their heads to look after the sanitary arrangements of their premises, and keep foodstuffs covered,” he said.

“Flies carry filth to food and convey typhoid and other diseases. The fly-road from closet-pan to dinner table is very short.”

In 1918 Dr Nisbet reported that overall, Townsville’s infectious disease record was “fair”, but echoed Dr King-Patrick’s opinion, stating that he felt that the public were not doing enough to protect themselves from possible causes of infection.

Early the following year, the Spanish Influenza pandemic hit Australia and by May, cases were being reported in Townsville. Free inoculation against the disease was offered and 6,000 locals took up the offer.

Dr Nisbet estimated that between 6,000 and 7,000 (25 per cent) of Townsville’s population contracted the illness in either a mild or serious form.  Eighteen people died during the outbreak, ten of those in hospital and eight in private homes.

Stewart's Creek Gaol

Queensland’s only nineteenth-century prison building still in use is at the Townsville Correctional Centre at Stuart.

Central watchtower at Stewart's Creek Gaol, 1916.
Photo:  State Library of Queensland.

The Stewart’s Creek Gaol, as it was then known, was built between 1890 and 1893, to replace an earlier gaol located in North Ward, on the site of what is now Central State School. By the late 1880s the old gaol was overcrowded and considered to be too close to the town centre.

Opened in 1893, it was designed by the Colonial Government Architect’s Office and constructed by Thomas Matthews. The gatehouse building housed quarters for both the Governor and the Chief Turnkey, and behind this building were three brick cell blocks, laid out in a radial pattern.

In May that year, 27 long-term prisoners were transferred from the old town gaol in North Ward to the new prison at Stewart’s Creek.  Initially the facilities at the new gaol did not cater for female prisoners, so they remained at North Ward until after the appointment of Matron Elizabeth Ryan at Stewart’s Creek in September 1894.  

Stewart's Creek Gaol, Townsville, 1914.
Photo: State Library of Queensland.

Stewart’s Creek Gaol was described in August 1894 by Comptroller-General, Charles Pennefather in his report on the prisons of the colony, as the best in the State.

“The North possesses by far the best constructed prison in the colony in the penal establishment at Stewart’s Creek, which has cost over £35,000; while the South has to put up with an ill-constructed old wooden building, badly adapted for administration, separation, and the proper classification of prisoners, with inferior and insufficient accommodation,” Mr Pennefather said.

“I think the time has arrived when a penal establishment designed on modern principles should be built for the southern portion of the colony,” he said.

The development of the modern prison reflects a change in the way society viewed justice, with a system of dealing with offenders that was corrective in nature, rather than punitive.

In the late eighteenth-century, Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher and criminal law reformer designed a concept prison called the Panopticon.

The Panopticon was a circular building with individual cells built around a central tower with windows and lighting arranged in such a way as to make the occupants of cells visible at all times, while those in the central tower remained hidden from view.

The influence of Bentham’s Panopticon can be seen in the radial design of nineteenth-century prisons commonly built in Queensland up to the late 1800s, including the old Town Gaol at North Ward.

Townsville Gaol, North Ward, 1885 (centre of photo).
The buildings in the foreground are the Townsville Hospital.
Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection.

A semi-circular shaped wall surrounded this complex with the buildings inside radiating outwards like the spokes of a wheel, which enabled observation from a central position.

Bentham’s concept of surveillance from a central tower has survived into the modern era, albeit in variously modified forms.

The central watchtower at Stewart’s Creek Gaol was designed by John Smith Murdoch, a Government architect whose later design work included Brisbane’s original Victoria Bridge, Boggo Road Gaol, and old Parliament House in Canberra.