Home for Incurables at Adelaide's Fullarton in 1879 for people leaving hospital with 'incurable' diseases and no means
Adelaide's Home for Incurables in Fisher Street, Fullarton, with its building, in Victorian gothic style plus steeple, and the added Gosse Memorial Wing, pictured in 1887. Inset: Nurses and patients outside the building in 1893.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
The Home for Incurables was opened in 1879 in the Adelaide southern area of Fullarton for patients, both adults and children, with diseases and injuries considered “incurable”.
Before the Home for Incurables, patients of all ages who were discharged from the Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace, Adelaide city, as “incurable”, and didn't have any means of support, frequently spent the remainder of their lives in the destitute asylum off North Terrace.
In 1878, the wife of George Farr, St Peter’s College headmaster and later rector of St Luke’s Church in Whitmore, Square, Adelaide city, Julia Farr, who’d been involved in founding the Orphan Home (later Farr House), suggested a home should be set up in South Australia to care for people with incurable diseases. She was supported by Dr William Gosse and a committee of interested citizens was formed to raise funds to start the home. Dr Gosse became the first committee chairman.
A large block of land at Fisher Street, Fullarton, was bought for £1,700 and a further £300 was spent on refurbishing an existing eight-room wooden house on the property. In 1879, the first 10 patients were moved from the destitute asylum into the home. Run by a board of management and funded by charitable donations and government subsidies, the home cared for patients, both adults and children, with the criteria that they suffered from some kind of incurable disease that was neither contagious nor infectious, and that they were mentally sound. With no age restriction, many children and young people became “inmates” at the home over the years.
The growing number of patients soon made the original building insufficient. In 1880, the foundation stone for a new building was laid for two additional wings. The new building, in Victorian gothic style with a steeple, opened in February 1881. It provided for 30 patients and included rooms for the matron and nurses as well as a board room. After Dr Gosse died in 1883, a Gosse Memorial Wing with 40 extra beds was planned. The new wing was opened in 1884, allowing the home to cater for up to 60 patients.
For some years around the turn of the century, patients with tuberculosis were at the home, despite the original rule against infectious diseases. Adjacent blocks of land were bought by the committee aat that time, increasing the size of the grounds and allowing for future growth.
A 1902 newspaper report described the Home for Incurables as providing “ every reasonable comfort, and fresh air and sunlight can be enjoyed even by those who are unable to leave their beds”. Books and pictures were in every room, while three sides of the premises were surrounded by flowers. Wide verandahs and lawns were available for patients able to leave their rooms and those able to do light work could spent part of each day making saleable articles, such as bird cages, flower pot stands, and “fancy work of all kinds”. Large wards were avoided in the design, and most patients had rooms with two to six beds. Smaller bedrooms were reserved for inmates who needed to be isolated. “The inmates are not subjected to such strict discipline as that enforced in hospitals or destitute asylums, and the general arrangements are calculated to convey the idea of homely comfort and freedom.”
By 1928, 142 patients were in the home. This number increased to 400 by the 1960s.
