Destitute Asylum (GA2619)

The Destitute Asylum was an institution established to care for poor and destitute people in South Australia who were unable to provide for themselves, whether through old age, accident, widowhood, or unemployment. It also served as a maternity home, venereal hospital, reformatory, orphanage and school. By the early twentieth century, it was largely a nursing home for the elderly and a maternity hospital for unmarried or destitute women.

Its exact opening date is unclear, but a Destitute Board was established in 1849 to care for destitute people living in Emigration Square, and the police barracks on North Terrace were made available for use by the Destitute Board as housing in 1852. The police barracks, armoury and former Police Court were all eventually adapted for use as the Destitute Asylum (1).

By 1855, the Asylum buildings included offices of the Relieving Officer (responsible for running the Destitute Asylum), Destitute Board, and Protector of Aborigines; a female ward; a lying-in [maternity] ward; an infant school and children's ward; a men's ward; and a small hospital for men "the nature of whose diseases renders them unfit to be lodged with the other patients" (2), usually meaning venereal disease.

The Destitute Asylum was officially regulated in 1863, with the introduction of the "Destitute Poor Act, 1863" ['An Act for the regulation of the Asylum for the Destitute Poor and other purposes']. The Destitute Board was responsible for rules and regulations regarding the care and management of the destitute poor, including admission to the Destitute Asylum and the "maintenance of order, discipline, decency, health, and cleanliness amongst the inmates [of the Asylum]".

By the 1870s, the Girls' Reformatory and the lying-in ward were in the same building. Following a riot by reformatory girls in 1877, during which a lying-in ward inmate gave birth, there were public calls for the Reformatory to be made a separate entity (3).
In 1877 - 1878, a separate building for a lying-in hospital was built. The lying-in hospital had two storeys and including three wards: two upstairs and one downstairs. The three wards were for the three 'classes' of women treated there: married women, unmarried women who had 'fallen' (mostly women expecting their first child who weren't reported prostitutes or otherwise known to the authorities), and suspected prostitutes. They were segregated from the other Destitute Asylum inmates and from each other within the same department.

The Girls' Reformatory was removed from the site in 1881 to Magill, taking up space recently vacated by the Boys' Reformatory. The "State Children's Act, 1895" removed responsibility of children in care from the Destitute Board to the State Children's Council. The Destitute Asylum, including the lying-in ward, remained the responsibility of the Destitute Board, although children born at the Asylum could come under the care of the State Children's Council.

In 1913, there were talks to move the Destitute Asylum from the city. Land at Magill, near the Industrial School, was chosen and the 'Magill Home' (colloquially known as the 'Magill Old Folks Home', although it did house young people too) was opened in 1917. The Destitute Asylum remained open for a little longer as temporary or 'casual' accommodation, but it no longer accommodated long-term elderly inmates (4). The lying-in home at the Destitute Asylum closed on 30 June 1918 (5).

Sources:

(1) 'The Destitute Asylum', "The Adelaide Express", 2 October 1865, p. 2
(2) 'Public Works No. 3', "South Australian Register", 8 March 1855, p. 3
(3) 'The Female Reformatory and Lying-In Hospital', "South Australian Register", 4 August 1877, p. 6
(4) 'Old Police Barracks', "The Register", 7 March 1917, p. 6.
(5) GRG29/15 (Register of infants born in the Destitute Asylum, later Magill Home)

Other Sources:
Mary Geyer (1994). "Behind the Wall: The Women of the Destitute Asylum Adelaide, 1852 - 1918". Axiom Publishers: Adelaide.
Margaret Barbalet (1983). "Far From a Low Gutter Girl: the forgotten world of state wards: South Australia 1887 - 1940". Oxford University Press: Melbourne.