Bay Harbour: February 22, 2023

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<strong>Bay</strong> <strong>Harbour</strong> News Wednesday <strong>February</strong> <strong>22</strong> <strong>2023</strong><br />

14<br />

TREASURES FROM THE PAST<br />

The leprosy colony on Quail Island<br />

BETWEEN 1906 and 1927,<br />

Ōtamahua Quail Island in the<br />

middle of Whakaraupō Lyttelton<br />

<strong>Harbour</strong> was host to the South<br />

Island’s only leprosy colony with<br />

14 men incarcerated there.<br />

Leprosy (or Hansen’s disease,<br />

after the Norwegian doctor who<br />

discovered its bacterial source<br />

in 1873) is a disease known to<br />

humankind for many thousands<br />

of years.<br />

Prior to advances in modern<br />

medicine it was widely misunderstood<br />

to be highly infectious,<br />

and in many cultures sufferers<br />

were ostracised. This was, in<br />

part, because it can result in<br />

disfiguring skin lesions and even<br />

loss of extremities due to injuries<br />

and infections. Infected people<br />

suffer nerve damage, a consequent<br />

lack of sensation, a decline<br />

in muscle strength, and some go<br />

blind. Public fear was exacerbated<br />

by racial prejudice.<br />

In early 20th century New<br />

Zealand, health authorities<br />

took a similar approach to<br />

other Western countries in the<br />

management of the disease by<br />

embracing isolation practices.<br />

In 1906, the first man diagnosed<br />

with leprosy in Ōtautahi<br />

Christchurch and held in isolation<br />

on the island was Will<br />

Vallane; although provided with<br />

meals by a matron resident on<br />

the island, he spent 18 months<br />

primarily alone with his eyesight<br />

and mobility failing. Initially<br />

housed in the barn-like old quarantine<br />

barracks, a purpose-built<br />

cottage was constructed a year<br />

after his arrival, more suitable<br />

for a sole occupant. In 1908, he<br />

was joined by a second sufferer<br />

and a third in 1909.<br />

More small cottages were built<br />

as the population continued to<br />

grow. Although the bay (now<br />

called Skiers <strong>Bay</strong>) could be<br />

delightful in summer, it lost the<br />

sun behind a ridge as early as<br />

2pm in winter.<br />

The men had regular visits<br />

from Lyttelton’s popular and<br />

compassionate Dr Upham,<br />

gardened and swam if health<br />

permitted, listened to the radio<br />

and kept pets (notably canaries,<br />

a parrot and the wild island rabbits,<br />

which they tamed). There<br />

were occasional church services,<br />

family visits and humanitarian<br />

delegations, with visitors keeping<br />

at least six feet away from the<br />

men; white picket fences surrounding<br />

the cottages marked<br />

the dividing line between the<br />

two groups. But their main<br />

support was each other, although<br />

the tensions arising from their<br />

situation sometimes threatened<br />

that vital camaraderie.<br />

There is no doubt that the<br />

enforced isolation weighed upon<br />

the men, especially for those<br />

whose health was declining.<br />

A few men were released as<br />

cured; George Philips, who was<br />

declared free of the disease but<br />

required to wait 18 months for<br />

clearance before release, could<br />

not tolerate that extra time. He<br />

absconded via Moepuku Point,<br />

arriving at Orton Bradley’s<br />

house in Te Wharau Charteris<br />

<strong>Bay</strong> so convincingly dressed<br />

as a clergyman that he was<br />

able to make a telephone call<br />

and was last seen heading to<br />

Christchurch in a taxi cab, where<br />

PHOTO: SARAH LAMONT<br />

he changed his name and disappeared<br />

from public scrutiny.<br />

There were two leprosy<br />

deaths on the island. The most<br />

well-known was a 25-year-old<br />

Samoan-born man, Ivon Crispen<br />

Skelton, who died on October<br />

20, 1923, and was buried on the<br />

headland facing Aua King Billy<br />

Island with Reverend A.J. Petrie<br />

of Holy Trinity presiding.<br />

Apparently forgotten by history,<br />

there was also 55-year-old<br />

Te Iringa from Kirikau Pā on the<br />

Whanganui River, whose death<br />

and burial in 19<strong>22</strong> were recorded<br />

in The Press at the time; Father<br />

Patrick Cooney of St Joseph’s<br />

Catholic Church conducted his<br />

service.<br />

Skelton’s grave was originally<br />

surrounded by a picket fence<br />

and was the subject of an<br />

archaeological dig in 2015.<br />

Surprisingly, no remains were<br />

found; it is postulated his grave<br />

near the cliff edge was washed<br />

away in a storm. His resting<br />

place is now commemorated by<br />

a simple wooden cross, though<br />

Te Iringa’s gravesite is not<br />

Eight patients on a balcony in Quail Island’s leprosy colony.<br />

Unnamed man (left), Ivon Skelton, Will Vallance, Ah Yip, Jim<br />

Lord, George Phillips, Ah Pat and one other, unidentified.<br />

Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum ref.14907.1<br />

https://www.teuaka.org.nz/online-collection/1135818<br />

documented or marked.<br />

In 1925 the eight remaining<br />

men were moved to Makogai<br />

Island in Samoa, joining 300<br />

other sufferers and benefitting<br />

from a greater sense of<br />

community. Five of them were<br />

never to leave, including the<br />

original sole resident of Quail<br />

Island, Will Vallane. He died on<br />

Makogai in 1937 in his early 60s,<br />

having spent over 30 years in<br />

isolation.<br />

The tragedy of the long human<br />

history of leprosy is that it, in<br />

fact, has low pathogenicity with<br />

95 per cent of people exposed to<br />

the bacterium not going on to<br />

develop the condition.<br />

Advances in Western medicine<br />

in the 1940s mean that leprosy<br />

is curable if diagnosed early and<br />

treated with multidrug therapy.<br />

Nevertheless, it is still a serious<br />

disease in parts of the Americas,<br />

Africa and the Western Pacific,<br />

associated with poverty, lack of<br />

access to medical intervention<br />

and continuing misunderstanding.<br />

With the wisdom of hindsight,<br />

the Quail Island men could have<br />

been saved from two difficult<br />

decades of isolation.<br />

The leprosy settlement on Quail Island. Te Ūaka The<br />

Lyttelton Museum ref.7977.1<br />

https://www.teuaka.org.nz/online-collection/1128143<br />

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