Most conversant with the districts covered by WikiNorthia will be vaguely conscious of Larundel and its many decades as a mental institution, but few will be aware that it took eleven years from plans being announced to it operating in its proposed role.
Approval was given in January, 1938 for a new mental hospital at Strathallan, close to the existing facility at Mont Park with plans to accommodate 500 patients from the old Kew Mental Hospital and with the potential to expand to 1,000 to cover future admissions. The cost, along with two smaller country institutions to accommodate together 300 patients was estimated at £350,000 which the Government considered would largely be covered by the sale of the existing hospital and grounds at Kew.
Remarkably, with the intervention of the Second World War and its aftermath, it wasn’t until November, 1949 that patients from Kew were finally moved in!
The site with 260 beds was noted as nearing completion in mid-1940 (although without electricity or sewerage) when tenders were issued for two new wards, but was still empty when in October, 1942 the Victorian Mental Hygiene Department acceded to a request from the Federal Government to turn the site, now called “Larundel”, over to the R.A.A.F. for use as a Training Depot for the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (W.A.A.A.F.), the formation of which had been approved by the War Cabinet in January, 1941 with its establishment on 15 April designed to allow the release of equivalent numbers of men for more active duties.
No. 1 W.A.A.A.F. Training Depot had originally been housed in Mayfield Avenue, Malvern before moving to Geelong Grammar, back to Malvern and then to St. Catherine’s Girl’s School in Toorak, but this was deemed unsuitable in the long term as its limited accommodation forced many of the women to board in private homes.
Monday, 18 January, 1943 saw the “big shift” – the number of women involved was not noted, but newspapers went to some pains to note that the Commanding Officer’s dog and two stray cats which had been adopted as mascots at St. Catherine’s happily made themselves a new home at Larundel!
Under the command of Squadron-Officer Patricia de G. Burnard, the transfer was accomplished within a few days. The new centre provided accommodation for almost 700 recruits, the villa block complex described as “like a small city” with a post-office, canteen, dental surgery, sick bay, tailor’s shop, gymnasium and lecture rooms and run almost entirely by women, the only male personnel being two members of the RAAF military police (later replaced by specially chosen Non-Commissioned Officers of the Women’s Auxiliary), a dental surgeon and two dental mechanics.
The Depot’s Medical Officer Flight-Lieutenant Simpson was female and it was noted that Corporal Hilda Paxman, the woman in charge of the kitchen had previous run a guest house of her own before enlisting “so there is little she does not know about feeding large numbers of people. She has also learnt to be an expert butcher – huge joints of meat are sent in, and she has the job of cutting them up ready to cook“.
Although in a more remote situation than St Catherine’s, the girls at Larundel were quoted as saying they were compensated by their bright modern surroundings, fresh country air, rolling paddocks and blue hills – the only minor complaint was that the complex was so new there had been no time to establish gardens, a task that the women readily took to hand after their arrival.
No.1 W.A.A.A.F. Training Depot was formally disbanded on 19 October, 1945 and the Federal Government handed back the facility in December after an estimated 5,000 women had been trained there, but rather than returning its proposed role as a mental institution, Larundel from early 1946 housed over 100 homeless families during a chronic housing shortage caused by a flood of European immigrants and servicemen returning from the war. Buildings were partitioned off and family apartments created, with two rooms set aside for Bundoora State School No. 4631 which operated from 1947 to 1949.
(The Netherlands Indies Welfare Organisation for Evacuees also wanted to use Larundel to house refugees from the Dutch East Indies, but this was quickly rejected with shipping and evacuation from the war-torn area proving difficult).
It wasn’t until November, 1949 that the last families were re-located and patients from Kew were finally moved in, a trickle of 30 at first, but eventually up to 750 patients being accommodated.
Our header image shows a group from No. W.A.A.A.F. Training Depot at Larundel marching at Preston Park on 6 November, 1943 as part of the Carnival held in aid of the Private Bruce Kingsbury V.C. Memorial Fund organized by the local Jika Cricket Association.
At the time of the Carnival, there was a short-lived move to have the Cramer Street grounds re-named “Kingsbury Park”, but Preston City Council subsequently decided to honour his name at a new housing development in the northernmost section of the city. The distribution of the funds previously raised remains unknown – there was no memorial erected, although there is a commemorative plaque at his state school in Windsor.
More images of Larundel at the Australian War Memorial
