Quarantining the fever ships
LA TROBE PICTURE COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA
The story of Point Nepean
BY ROS STIRLING
Two years ago, the Australian government transferred 90 hectares of Crown land on the Mornington
Peninsula near Melbourne from the Department of Defence to be managed by the Point Nepean Community
Trust. The property is the former Point Nepean Quarantine Station which played a vital role for more than a
century in protecting Melbourne from diseases brought by ship. Its story began with the arrival in Port Phillip
Bay of a ship carrying emigrants infected with the deadly disease, typhus.
W
HEN THE SAILING
SHIP, Ticonderoga,
arrived in Port Phillip
Bay on 5 November
1852 with a load of Scottish, Irish and
English emigrants, she was flying the
dreaded yellow flag that signalled
disease on board.
It had been a hellish voyage. Most
of the 795 passengers were farm
workers and their families, sponsored
by the British government to replace
workers who had abandoned
Victoria’s sheep stations for the
goldfields. As a result of the labour
shortage in the colonies, the
authorities had relaxed the
restrictions on the number of
children permitted to accompany
emigrants, and many families had
seized the opportunity of a new life.
They boarded the Ticonderoga from
the emigration depot at the port of
Birkenhead, on the Mersey River near
Liverpool, and set sail on 4 August
1852. The double-decked ship,
manned by a crew of 57, had been
built just three years earlier primarily
for cargo transport, and had been
refitted to provide two passenger
decks, upper and lower, in line with
the regulations of the day.
It was the children who started
dying first – from malnutrition,
pneumonia and diarrhoea. Then
scarlet fever broke out, and adults
soon joined the death toll. Before
long, there was a full-blown epidemic
of typhus on board, spread rapidly in
the crowded conditions by body lice
(although this was not then known to
be the cause).
There is no known painting of the
Ticonderago, but she was one of four
double-decked vessels which took large
numbers of emigrants to Melbourne.
Another was the Marco Polo, which left
Liverpool on 4 July 1852 and made the
journey in record time, arriving in
Melbourne on 20 September 1852. Of the
940 people on board (including those born
during the voyage), 52 died, 46 of them
children under four years of age. Of these,
20 died of measles. The painting above is
the Marco Polo by Thomas Robertson,
1859. Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria.
Australian Heritage 45
MAP: KATHERINE CARNELL
From 1838, lime burning was an important industry for the new colony,
providing the lime needed to make cement for building. Lime was found
in good quantities on Point Nepean, and some kilns were built on the
shore close to good lime deposits.
Conditions were appalling, and in the last month of the
voyage, the Ticonderoga was pounded by storms in freezing
conditions as she struggled through the southern seas of
the Great Circle Route to Australia. Each day, two or
three more of the sick died and their bodies were cast into
the sea wrapped in their blankets.
Medical supplies ran out, the ship’s
sanitation system – nonexistent on the
lower deck – was inadequate for the
needs of its sick passengers, and
secondary epidemics of dysentery and
diarrhoea swept amongst them. Despite
the best efforts of the captain, Thomas
Boyle, and ship’s surgeons, Dr Joseph
Sanger and Dr James Veitch, shipboard
hygiene routines broke down and
attempts to clean up after the sick and
dying failed.
When the Ticonderoga finally
reached the heads of Port Phillip Bay
90 days after setting out, 100
immigrants and crew had died and
250, including Dr Sanger, were
seriously ill, mainly with typhus fever.
In these ghastly surroundings, 19
babies had been born.
46 Australian Heritage
The pilot who escorted the fever ship in through the
Heads was uncertain what to do and guided her to
Shortlands Bluff (now Queenscliff), where she waited at
anchor for three days. The decision was finally taken to
land her at Point Nepean, a site which had been under
consideration as a quarantine station.
The location had the advantage of being isolated from
any significant settlement at the tip of the Mornington
Peninsula and, having deep water close to the shore,
offered comparatively easy disembarkation. However,
there were virtually no facilities to receive the
Ticonderoga’s human cargo – just a small stone cottage, a
stone underground dairy and a wattle and daub cottage
used by shepherds and lime-burners. Two stone wells built
by the limeburners provided water.
Able-bodied crew were ordered to build shelters from
the ships sails and spars, while the slow process of
transferring the sick to shore got under way. Nine more
deaths occurred as disembarkation proceeded. The ship’s
doctor, himself now ill, sent an urgent letter to the
Colonial Secretary begging for ‘medical comforts’ and
clean bedding. The harbour master, Captain Ferguson,
and a doctor, Joseph Taylor, arrived the next
day by government schooner.
Most of the sick were still on board
the Ticonderoga, and Dr Taylor was
faced with the task of single-handedly
assessing hundreds of sick and dying
patients and prescribing medication,
while the task of carrying the sick
ashore continued over the next couple
of days. The Lysander, a ship that had
earlier been converted for use as a
quarantine ship, arrived, and the 50
most serious cases were transferred to
her. In fear of the disease, most of the
healthy passengers were unwilling to
help nurse the sick, and an assistant
lighthouse keeper and his wife were
co-opted to the unenviable task.
The tombstone of Malcolm McRae’s wife and
three of his five children, all of whom died in
quarantine aboard the Ticonderoga.
Conditions on shore were little
better than on board. Many of the
sick were laid out under bark shelters
covered with the filthy, lice-infested
blankets they had brought from the
ship. The lime-burners’ cottages were
hastily prepared to provide protection
for the most seriously ill.
There was urgent need to bury the
dead still on board, so a cemetery site
was chosen near to the beach of what
is now known as Ticonderago Bay.
Many of the bodies were buried by
their families and friends in shallow
graves in the sand marked by rough
wooden crosses or lumps of roughly
hewn sandstone. In one of the saddest
cases, Malcolm McRae was forced to
bury his wife and three of his five
children, aged between two and 16,
all of whom died in quarantine
aboard the Ticonderoga and the
Lysander within a two-month period.
Before long it was realised that the
cemetery site was unsuitable and
could infect the water supply, so a
new site was selected further down
the Peninsula. Many, though not all,
of the remains were moved there
years later. (These days, workers on
the site are warned not to dig too
deep as they may disturb the
remaining graves.)
The Shepherd’s Hut, the oldest building at the Quarantine Station, dates from between 1845
and 1854.
Meanwhile, the healthy passengers
and crew, restless at being detained,
were set to work to build a stone
storehouse, and more supplies were
sent from Melbourne. A small
contingent of mounted police arrived
overland to prevent escape and
maintain order in the quarantine
settlement.
Over the next weeks, the deaths
continued despite the arrival of more
surgeons and provisions. Then, for
some reason, the Ticonderago was
given quarantine clearance and those
pronounced healthy and not needed
for the running of the quarantine
station re-embarked to make the final
voyage to Hobsons Bay. From there,
the passengers were ferried up the
Yarra to Queen’s Wharf in the paddlesteamer, Maitland.
On December 28, the Argus
published an article entitled ‘A
heartrending scene’, describing their
arrival.
Five of these two-storey hospital buildings were constructed in 1857. They were built from local sandstone and with slate roofs. Each could
accommodate 100 people.
Australian Heritage 47
The two hospital buildings on the hill with fine views across the bay were for first and second class passengers, while the other three, on lower
ground, were for third and steerage class passengers.
On their landing at the wharf the
majority of them seemed in a
deplorable condition from debility
and sickness, the females especially
looking most emaciated and feeble,
and many required assistance to the
drays which conveyed them to the
Immigrants Depot. Whilst the
steamer was coming up the river one
poor little child died of fever, whilst,
on the boat arriving in Melbourne, its
mother was engaged in laying out the
body of her child on the deck, having
left, we hear, her husband on board
the ship, still suffering from fever.
Another female was carried from the
vessel, apparently in a dying state, it
being doubted whether she would
ever reach her destination alive. The
disgust and astonishment, mingled
with the greatest sympathy, that
these poor unfortunate passengers
should have been sent on shore
while still in so weak and sickly a
state was loudly expressed by the
spectators of the scene at the wharf.
We were told by persons in the
steamer that there are at least thirty
cases of sickness on board the ship
now that she has been permitted to
come into the harbour.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NEPEAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The medical superintendent’s quarters, built in 1899. The verandah was enclosed when the
building was used as an isolation hospital in the latter days of the Quarantine Station’s
operation.
48 Australian Heritage
Three days later a letter to the
editor was published.
Sir – On Friday last I had occasion
to visit the Bay on business, and
while going round the shipping in
the Maitland, we called alongside of
the Ticonderago, for the purpose of
bringing the passengers up to town.
Being a sea-faring man and curious
to know the state of the vessel
which had been the scene of such
unparalleled disease I went on
board, and very soon ceased to be
surprised at anything which had
taken place on board this ill-fated
vessel. The miserable squalid
appearance of the passengers at once
attracted my attention, and on
looking down the hatchway, the
smell and appearance of the
between decks was so disgusting,
that though accustomed to see and
be on board of slave vessels, I
instinctively shrank from it.
As a result of the Ticonderoga crisis,
the urgent need for a satisfactory
quarantine facility was recognised,
and plans were made for more
substantial buildings at Point Nepean.
A wooden hospital was constructed,
capable of holding 50 patients, while
rudimentary accommodation
continued to be provided under
canvas for 450 people. These
primitive facilities proved to be
inadequate as more ships arrived
under quarantine including, in May
1855, the Epaminondas whose
passengers included 130 single girls.
In 1857, construction began on the
double-storey sandstone hospital
buildings that still stand at the
station. Each of these consisted of
four large wards with fireplaces, a
central internal staircase, lavatories
on both levels, and a verandah and
balcony.
Separate cookhouses were built,
fitted with boilers and a bath, and a
washhouse was built near the pier,
with 20 baths fitted with hot and cold
water taps, four copper boilers,
washing troughs, smaller rooms for the
reception of infected clothing and
distribution of clean garments. Water
was pumped from a well to the
building.
For the next century, the
Quarantine Station served to protect
Melbourne from imported disease. In
1900 new buildings were constructed,
including the disinfection building
and boiler, bath blocks and an
infected luggage receiving store.
Perhaps its busiest period was during
the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919,
when 305 vessels were examined in
quarantine, 11,800 immigrants and
returning soldiers were landed at the
station, 253 were admitted to
hospital, and a further 117,410
passengers were examined in on-board
inspections.
For a time a leper station was
operated to the west of the main
station, and the area was also used to
quarantine imported cattle. During its
last years the Quarantine Station was
often empty, and was used primarily
for arrivals who were not vaccinated
against smallpox or yellow fever. The
last arrival was admitted in 1977 and
the Station was officially closed in
1978. In 1952, when demand for
quarantine services was low, the main
buildings were leased by the Army to
house the Officer Cadet School, and
Memorial to those who died on board the Ticonderoga or in quarantine, unveiled on 10
November 2002, 150 years after their arrival in Port Phillip Bay.
The Administration Building, built in 1910.
Australian Heritage 49
after its closure, the Army took over
the entire site for the School of Army
Health.
The future of the Point Nepean
Quarantine Station has now been
secured by the Australian
Government’s decision to transfer it
to the Victorian Government as part
of the new Point Nepean National
Park, which will occur in June 2009.
Until then, the area is managed by
the Point Nepean Community Trust.
Exactly how the 43 heritage
buildings on the site will be used is
the subject of a management plan
which is still under consideration,
but amongst its proposed uses are for
a new National Centre for Marine
A CARGO OF DISEASE
For many of the rural poor of
Scotland, Ireland and Wales in the
1840s, emigration to the new colony
of Port Phillip was their only hope of
survival. Dispossessed by the English
of their meagre landholdings, life was
a pitiful struggle even before the
potato blight caused widespread
starvation. So when assisted
migration to Australia was offered by
the British Government – who
perceived it has having the double
benefit of being rid of the poverty
problem and assuaging demands from
the colony for labour – many grabbed
the chance.
Perhaps unsurprisingly,
arrangements for migration voyages
were made as hastily and as cheaply
as possible. Under a bounty system
that entitled purchasers of land in
the Port Phillip district to a quota of
imported labour, the first wave of
assisted immigrants was loaded on to
ships organised by shipping agents
whose first priority was, without
doubt, their bottom line. Some of
the ships were old square-riggers and
barques that were poorly ventilated,
inadequately provisioned and totally
unsuitable for the numbers of people
that were crammed aboard for the
long voyage. Others, such as the
Glen Huntly, were built specifically
for the immigrant trade.
It made little difference. The Glen
Huntly departed from the Scottish
port of Greenock on 19 October
1839, but met with misfortune soon
after when it struck rocks off Oban.
After a delay of several weeks for
repairs, the ship set sail again, but in
that time smallpox had found its way
amongst the passengers. Some seven
or eight died in the Greenock
hospital, and as the voyage got under
way, more and more passengers
developed symptoms. By the time
the Glen Huntly reached Port Phillip
Bay, 105 of the 170 immigrants had
50 Australian Heritage
been ill, 85 were still ill, and 15 had
died.
For the port authorities in
Melbourne, the arrival of the ship
flying the yellow flag that signalled
disease on board was a crisis.
Superintendent Charles Latrobe
ordered that a quarantine camp be
set up at Point Ormond, near St
Kilda. Here the passengers, both
healthy and sick, were disembarked
and housed in tents on the foreshore,
while desperate efforts were made to
cleanse the Glen Huntly, arrange
water and provisions for the
quarantine camp, ensure its isolation
from local Aboriginals and others
who might become infected, and
provide medical treatment. Over the
next few weeks, with careful
treatment, most recovered – but
three more died.
Throughout the early 1840s, more
‘fever ships’ arrived – the Salsette
which started out with 190 migrants,
lost 14 during the voyage to typhoid,
and brought a virulent new strain of
the disease to Melbourne; the
Georgiana which lost 17 passengers –
3 adults and 14 children – to
typhoid, scarlet fever, whooping
cough and gastroenteritis; the Argyle,
where the same diseases and others
such as measles killed 45 of the 196
passengers; the Manlius, which like
the Glen Huntly, arrived at Port
Phillip with typhoid aboard, having
lost 44 passengers en route and with
many sick of whom 17 more would
die in the quarantine camp.
It became evident that Point
Ormond was unsuitable for
quarantine purposes – it was too
close to Melbourne, and many
people absconded, raising fears of an
epidemic outbreak. Officials were
still pondering the options when the
arrival of the Ticonderoga in
November 1852 forced them to take
action.
and Coastal Conservation to be run
by the Australian Maritime College,
as well as use by heritage groups and
to provide respite care for
disadvantaged children and their
families.
In June this year, Point Nepean was
included on the Australian
Government’s National Heritage List
in recognition of the historic heritage
values associated with the Quarantine
Station and the defence of Victoria at
Fort Nepean.
Further reading
Fever Beach by Mary Kruithof, QI
Publishing Company, 2002
From Hell to Health, by Major J H Welch
Nepean Historical Society,1988
The Portsea Station …People and Plague,
Nepean Historical Society, 2002. ◆
Heritage
Touring
Point Nepean, named after Evan
Nepean, Secretary to the British
Admirality, is at the tip of the
Mornington Peninsula, 95 km
south of Melbourne. Point Nepean
and nearby areas of the
Mornington Peninsula have a rich
history. There are extensive
Aboriginal sites; the site of the first
white settlement of Port Phillip
briefly established by Captain
David Collins in 1803 and the
graves of those who died there; the
remains of the first industries such
as lime burning and grazing; a long
history of shipwrecks; Fort Nepean
built in the 1880s to defend
Melbourne against a feared attack
by the Russians; the use of the area
for military training in the second
half of the 20th century; and a
memorial to the drowning of the
Prime Minister, Harold Holt, at
Cheviot Bay in 1967.
Tours of the Quarantine Station
are conducted on weekends and
Tuesdays and Thursdays in January,
and from February to December on
Sundays only. Group Tours are by
arrangement. Contact the Nepean
Historical Society on (03) 5984
0062 and fax (03) 5984 0067 or by
email: [email protected].