Sunnyside Hospital (1863–1999) was the first mental asylum to be built in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, New Zealand. It was initially known as Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum, and its first patients were 17 people who had previously been kept in the Lyttelton gaol. In 2007, Hilmorton Hospital is just one of the mental health services that are based on the old Sunnyside Hospital grounds.

Architecture

Sunnyside was primarily designed by the New Zealand Victorian Gothic architect,

Benjamin Mountfort Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique ...

, with an administration building designed by John Campbell. Some of the buildings were built by Daniel Reese.

Staff

Edward Seager Lieutenant-General Edward Seager (1812–1883) was a British Army officer who served in the Crimean War and in the Indian Mutiny. Seager, was born on 11 June 1812, and, after serving in the ranks for nine years and one hundred and eighty-eig ...

was the first superintendent of Sunnyside Hospital. He had previously been superintendent of Lyttelton Gaol. Seager's wife, Esther Seager, had been matron of the gaol. She was appointed matron at Sunnyside in 1863. In 1995, four years before the hospital's closure, nurses walked off the job because of dangerous working conditions.

Chatham Cup

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team largely made up of staff from the hospital, was the first Christchurch champions of the Chatham Cup in 1926.

Notable patients

Rita Angus Rita Angus (12 March 1908 – 25 January 1970), a New Zealand painter, has a reputation - along with Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston - as one of the leading figures in twentieth-century New Zealand art. She worked primarily in oil and water ...

(1950), artist *

Janet Frame Janet Paterson Frame (28 August 1924 – 29 January 2004) was a New Zealand author. She was internationally renowned for her work, which included novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, and received numerous awar ...

, writer. Frame described some of her experiences in Sunnyside Hospital in her autobiography ''

An Angel at My Table ''An Angel at My Table'' is a 1990 biographical drama film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, ''To the Is-Land'' (1982), ''An Angel at My Table'' (1984), and ''The Envoy from Mirror City'' (1984 ...

'', and her novel ''Faces in the Water''.

rs R. said it wouldbe a good idea for me to admit myself as a voluntary boarder to Sunnyside Mental Hospital where there was a new electric treatment, which, in her opinion, would help me. . . . I woke toothless and was admitted to Sunnyside Hospital and I was given the new electric treatment, and suddenly my life was thrown out of focus. I could not remember. I was terrified.

Mabel Howard Mabel Bowden Howard (18 April 1894 – 23 June 1972) was a well-known New Zealand trade unionist and politician. She was the first woman secretary of a predominantly male union (the Canterbury General Labourers' Union). She was a Member of Parl ...

( – 23 June 1972), union worker, politician, and New Zealand's first woman cabinet minister. *

Richard Pearse Richard William Pearse (3 December 187729 July 1953) was a New Zealand farmer and inventor who performed pioneering aviation experiments. Witnesses interviewed many years afterward describe observing Pearse flying and landing a powered heavie ...

(June 1951 – July 1953), inventor and aviator. Pearce flight-tested aircraft in New Zealand from 1902, and is reputed to have successfully flown on about 31 March 1903.Bernard John Foster. 1966
'Pearse, Richard William'
In , A. H. McLintock, ed., ''

An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'' is an official encyclopaedia about New Zealand, published in three volumes by the New Zealand Government in 1966. Edited by Alexander Hare McLintock, the parliamentary historian, assisted by two others, the e ...

''. (Accessed 19 August 2007)

Footnotes

References

* Blake-Palmer, Geoffrey. 1966. 'Hospitals, Mental', In A. H. McLintock, ed., ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand''. (Accessed 19 August 200
Christchurch City Libraries, Heritage, (accessed 19 Aug 2007)
* Frame, Janet. 1991. ''An Autobiography''. ''To the Island''. ''An Angel At My Table''. ''The Envoy from Mirror City''. New York: George Braziller. * Frame, Janet. 1961. Reprinted in 1980. ''Faces in the Water''. London: The Women's Press.

External links

* Hospital buildings completed in 1863 NZHPT Category I listings in Canterbury, New Zealand Psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand Hospitals established in 1863 1999 disestablishments in New Zealand Defunct hospitals in New Zealand Benjamin Mountfort buildings 1860s architecture in New Zealand {{NewZealand-hospital-stub