Smallpox Camp Subiaco 1893
1893Sepia photograph on brown mountboard with handwritten title, 'Smallpox Camp Subiaco', in the lower right-hand corner.
The photograph depicts a collection of six military style tents in bushland with a small sign on a post in the centre reading:
'Smallpox'
Printing in pen on the back at the top right-hand side reads:
'Neg No 867399'.
This may be a number allocated to negatives by the RPH Medical Illustrations Department when photographs were taken using film as similar numbers appear on other photographs in the collection.
The mountboard is missing sections in the top and lower right-hand corners. Foxing appears throughout the photograph and mount but particularly in the lower right-hand corner of the photograph.
Details
Details
Handwritten title, 'Smallpox Camp Subiaco', in the lower right-hand corner.
Printing in pen on the back at the top right-hand side reads:
'Neg No 867399'.
In 1893 the SS Saladin sailed into Fremantle from Singapore with a sailor, Ibrahim, on his way to the goldfields. Ibrahim found work as a servant in a boarding house on Adelaide Terrace. A few days later he was admitted to the Colonial Hospital with a fever and rash. Dr Elgee diagnosed his illness as smallpox.
After treating Ibrahim, Nurse Agnes Seymour caught smallpox.
By April a quarantine tent hospital was set up in bushland near Subiaco to isolate the growing number of patients.
While still recovering, Seymour and several untrained nurses cared for patients in the makeshift hospital.
“We were driven in the old Police Van…over a very rough track…we found several military tents erected, but beds and bedding had to be unpacked and made up for the patients and as we were all tired and some very ill we were all glad to lie on the ground until our beds were ready”. Agnes Sadlier (nee Seymour), Westralian Voices
The tent site became the Victoria Hospital and eventually the Shenton Park Rehabilitation Hospital.
This rare item has extremely high interpretive potential and can be used to discuss themes including the development of the Western Australian health system, community response to infectious diseases, the development of the Shenton Park hospital site. It has aesthetic appeal and the provenance is strong as it was received as part of a collection of Lovegrove Family material.
This rare item has extremely high interpretive potential and can be used to discuss themes including the development of the Western Australian health system, community response to infectious diseases, the development of the Shenton Park hospital site. It has aesthetic appeal and the provenance is strong as it was received as part of a collection of Lovegrove Family material.
Royal Perth Hospital Museum
Royal Perth Hospital Museum
The photograph depicts a collection of six tents in bushland with a small sign on a post in the centre reading:
'Smallpox'
Scan this QR code to open this page on your phone ->
