1907: Fears over leprosy colony
Quail Island became a leper colony but The Press was not a fan. ‘‘The implied intention of the Health Department to establish a leper station for the Dominion on Quail Island is one that naturally does not appeal to the sympathies of the citizens of Christchurch, and already measures are afoot to procure the abandonment of that intention,’’ The Press stated on November 12, 1907.
‘‘The main objections urged against the proposal are, firstly, that such a station would constitute a grave danger to the health and wellbeing of the community; secondly, that it would interfere with the quarantine work at present carried on at the island; and, thirdly, that it would render impracticable another proposal – namely, to establish on Quail Island a prison for the detention and treatment of prisoners sentenced to indeterminate sentences under the new Act.’’
However, some good oldfashioned journalistic leg work showed that the first objection did not stand up.
A doctor told The Press that ‘‘the disease of leprosy, however awful it may be, cannot be communicated either to man or beast if proper precautions, such as will undoubtedly be used at the Quail Island station, are employed’’. But there were other objections.
The island was used for annual holidays for the boys from the Burnham Industrial School, and the girls from the Te Oranga Home, ‘‘and there is no other place in Canterbury so suitable for the purpose’’.
Why Christchurch, a ‘‘medical gentleman’’ interviewed by The Press asked. ‘‘All the bad boys of New Zealand are sent to us at Burnham, and all the bad girls to the Te Oranga Home near Christchurch, and now it is proposed to send all the lepers to Quail Island.’’
Fourteen people with leprosy were sent to the island before the leper colony closed in 1925.
160 Years is a series marking the launch of The Press newspaper in Christchurch on May 25, 1861.