Kew / Proposed New Lunatic Asylum Melbourne

Rare set of two maps and one architectural floor plan of the Kew Lunatic Asylum dated 1857.

Kew Asylum in Melbourne, which by the 1890s was the largest in Australia, was planned in the 1850s, built on a prominent site in the 1860s, and opened in the early 1870s with accommodation for over 500 patients. Costing nearly £200,000 and visible for miles

1. Plan Shewing Situation of the Proposed New Lunatic Asylum Melbourne 1857.  Sheet size: 372mm x 497mm
2. Proposed New Lunatic Asylum Near Melbourne. Sheet size: 372mm x 497mm
3. Untitled architectural floor plans. Sheet size: 340mm x 213mm

During the 1850s, the existing lunatic asylums of the Colony of Victoria were overcrowded. Yarra Bend Asylum, while only six years old, was considered unsuitable and Carlton Lunatic Asylum (which was originally a gaol) was in a state of disrepair. As a result, in 1854 the Government of the Colony of Victoria commissioned a report proposing sites and designs for a new lunatic asylum. Contemporary educated opinion was that lunatic asylums should be built “on a healthy site, freely admitting light and air, and drainage …[on] a gentle eminence in a fertile and agreeable country”.  In a report by the New South Wales’ Inspector of Asylums, Frederick Norton Manning stated that “the site chosen is of primary importance. On it must depend the comfort, happiness and health of the inmates.” Thus a hilltop site, across the Yarra River from Yarra Bend was recommended in a report by G.W. Vivian of the Public Works