Peel Island (Janday: Teerk Roo Ra, also sometimes phonetically spelt Jercuruba or Jercroobai) is a small heritage-listed island located in Moreton Bay, east of Brisbane, in South East Queensland, Australia. The island is a locality within the local government area of Redland City and a national park named Teerk Roo Ra National Park and Conservation Park.
The island is only accessible by watercraft. Dugongs, turtles, dolphins, jellyfish, and sharks are known to inhabit the waters around the island. Horseshoe Bay, with its sandy beach, is popular with boating visitors, and a common overnight anchorage for sailors and sea kayakers. The island is known for its natural environment, with bird and animal life largely undisturbed by pollution. In the , Peel Island had "no people or a very low population".
The isolation and limited access to Peel Island has meant that many of the original lazaret buildings still stand in original condition to this day. Access is restricted in an effort to preserve the historic remains. As a result, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service has managed the park since 1992, during which time they have restored a number of key structures, and have worked to make the island a safe place for future visitors.FOPI Inc. "Management" and "History", Friends of Peel Island Association. Redlands City Council and Arts Queensland, 19 February 2011. Web. 28 August 2013.
Geography Peel Island is situated in the southern half of Moreton Bay on the east coast of Australia, approximately from Brisbane, Queensland, and from the town of Cleveland. The island lies between Cleveland Point and Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island and is fringed with mudflats, seagrass, coral reefs and mangroves. The island covers an area of approximately , and extends for north to south and east to west. Horseshoe Bay, running in an unbroken arc along the southern side of the island, provides clean, sheltered waters for swimming.
The northern tip is known as Cucumber Point. A headland to the south-east is known as The Bluff. The Harry Atkinson Artificial Reef has been constructed to the north of Peel Island, off of Amity Banks. It was established in 1975. More closer in the west is another artificial reef, known as West Peel Artificial Reef. Peel Island has been part of a declared fish habitat zone since 1971.
Demographics In the , Peel Island had "no people or a very low population".
In the , Peel Island had "no people or a very low population".
History
From the mid-19th century until 1906, Peel Island was used as a quarantine station for the colony of Brisbane. Sailing ships would anchor to the north of the island, and the passengers would disembark on Peel Island for a quarantine period before moving on to Dunwich on nearby North Stradbroke Island. The arriving sailing ships would be fumigated and scrubbed down with carbolic to sanitise them before they ventured on to Brisbane with the new arrivals.
The quarantine station was located on the eastern side of the island at a placed called 'The Bluff'. In 1910 the defunct buildings were utilised for an inebriate asylum. The inmates were made to harvest sisal and manufacture rope which was sold to help fund the asylum. The asylum was shut and the buildings demolished in 1916 with the remaining inmates being transferred to Dunwich.
Between 1907 and 1959 a leper colony facility was established on the western side of the island. The leper colony's housing has had preservation works, and been 3D digitally mapped.
In 2007, the island was declared as Teerk Roo Ra National Park and Conservation Park, usually called Teerk Roo Ra National Park. Since 2011 it has been jointly managed by the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.
Peel Island Lazaret Peel Island operated as a lazaret from 1907 to 1959. The Peel Island lazaret, or leprosarium, is important to Queensland history because of its social and political significance in terms of state health policy, serving as a reminder of the conditions in which people lived and worked on the island.
Background The lazaret (lazaretto, leper colony or leprosaria) in Queensland was established to isolate those infected with leprosy. The influx of migrants to Queensland after colonisation brought leprosy, or Hansen's disease, to Australia. Hansen's disease has had a history of forced patient isolation from society, and Queensland's Leprosy Act of 1892 was an example of legislation intended to isolate leprosy patients from the mainland.
Before Peel Island was used as a lazaret in 1907, it was used for a number of other purposes by colonial and Queensland governments, as well as being occupied by Aboriginal people. Before British colonial settlement in Australia, Indigenous people lived on Peel Island, with the land used as a feasting and ceremonial site.No Author. "50th Anniversary of the Closing of the Peel Island Lazaret". John Oxley Library – Blogs. The State Library of Queensland, 2013. Web. Retrieved 3 October 2013 Archaeological studies show evidence of Indigenous occupancy through the presence of several midden sites. Into the 1800s, Peel Island, as well as North Stradbroke Island, was used as a quarantine station by the New South Wales colonial government which "housed persons considered unsuitable for mainstream society". Subsequently, the quarantine station developed into an inebriates' asylum, and then later a lazaret was built in 1907. There were already two established lazarets in Queensland: one on Friday Island and another on Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island. Both were closed due to varied criticism of conditions and treatment of patients. Subsequently, the Peel Island lazaret was established as a replacement.Blake, Thom. 'The leper shall dwell alone: A history of Peel Island lazaret'. Brisbane: Moreton Bay Matters. 19. (2002): 72–86. Print.O’Brien, Anne. 'All Creatures of the Living God: Religion and Leprosy in Turn of the Century Queensland'. History Australia. 5.2 (2008). 40.1–40.16. Print. Peel Island was used for multiple purposes at any given time by the government, but was specifically chosen over North Stradbroke Island to permanently establish the lazaret.
Conditions Particularly under earlier operations of the lazaret, the isolation of Peel Island more resembled incarceration than that of a medical institution for ill patients. In many instances, sufferers were removed from their families and communities without notice or an opportunity to say goodbye.Allam, Laura "You'll Have to Go Away: The Leprosarium on Peel Island ." Hindsight. ABC. 5 September 2010. Web. 25 September 2013. Patients were often locked up or chained by police before they were taken to the lazaret.Friends of Peel Island Association. "History – Lazaret (1907–1959)". FOPIA Inc. 2011. Web. Accessed: 4 September 2013 There have been several accounts of patients being trawled behind a charter ship, isolated on a dinghy en route to the island. Once, at the facility, patients sought help from the outside community and the press in order to improve the dreadful conditions to which they were subjected.Muller, Linda, ‘Rosemary Dispels Leprosy Island Myths’, UQFL, Rosemary Opala Collection, Box 9, Folder 21, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library. Because the lazaret was designed around the principle of isolation, each patient was housed in a separate hut, then grouped into three compounds according to gender, race and severity of illness. Each compound was surrounded by -tall wired fences which would be locked at night so as to prevent perceived "illicit behaviour" between the patients.
In a standard hut, each patient was supplied with a bed, chest of drawers, table and chair. In the lazaret's later years of operation, awnings were also added to the huts to protect the patients from the elements. Other lazaret buildings on the island included a kitchen, dining room, bathhouses, nurses’ cottages, attendants’ quarters and caretakers’ residences.‘Peel Island Lazaret Timeline’, UQFL, Rosemary Opala Collection, n.d., Box 11, Folder 13, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library. For many years it was prohibited to remove the bodies of patients who had died on the island, making it necessary for them to be buried there.
To this day, the site has been preserved and remains a confronting reminder of the conditions of the lazaret.Negus, George. "Peel Island." George Negus Tonight. ABC. 1 November 2004. Web. 1 October 2013.
Life Boredom was a real issue for patients on Peel Island. Whilst staff could freely leave the island, patients were confined there – often for many years – without a release date. Patients, mostly men, would often go fishing or do some gardening to pass the days. Most patients had wireless radio sets, and in the later years of the lazaret, films were shown and dances were organised for both staff and patients. Many of these social events led to marriages over the years. Staff would often spend time at Horseshoe Bay, enjoying the beach and serenity away from the centre of the lazaret.
Due to the isolation and oft-substandard living conditions, many patients and staff members enjoyed drinking. By the 1950s, the island's occupants had built a reputation among the wider mainland community for their alcohol consumption and intoxicated behaviour.
Although the Queensland Government was unwavering in its policy of isolating Hansen disease sufferers on Peel Island, issues often arose due to lack of adequate funding. Problems such as poor food supplies, inadequate medical treatment and lack of maintenance only increased the sense of deprivation among patients, as well as staff. The Anglican Church of the Good Samaritan was built in the north-eastern corner of the lazaret in 1908, originally for primary use by Melanesian patients; it subsequently closed.
In 1925, the island's first multi-purpose medical facility was built, and the first hospital building followed in 1937. It was not until 20 years after the opening of the lazaret on Peel Island that the first medical treatment building (a surgery) was erected, and electricity was not available on the island until 1948 – 17 years after it was available on the mainland.
Racial discrimination There were dramatic disparities between the treatment of non-white patients (Aboriginals, Torres Strait Islanders, South Sea Islanders and Chinese) and white European patients. When leprosy re-emerged in the colonised world, it was viewed as an imperial disease associated with race. This was reflective of the social attitudes of the time.
After much criticism of the conditions in former lazarets on both Friday Island (which held Indigenous Australians and South Seas Islanders) and Dunwich Benevolent Asylum (which held white Europeans), the opening of the new lazaret on Peel Island held both white and non-white leprosy patients for the first time in Queensland. This close proximity of inter-racial patients highlighted the inequality in patient care.