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Alma Collins: 'Mental Patient'


Kew Asylum in 1894, known as the Kew Mental Hospital during Alma Collins' time. Later it would be known as Willsmere, and today is a residential apartment complex.

My recent research into the Collins family has revealed them to be a somewhat troubled bunch. I've already written about matriarch Anne's drink-induced death and her son Thomas' dodgy cattle deal with William Atkin. As far as I can tell, daughter Lydia turned out ok - just as well given she is my direct ancestor! And while youngest son Alfred Charles Collins seems to have led an uneventful life as a butcher in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, life would not be easy for many of his children. Firstly I should mention the sadness that Alfred and wife Annie must have endured in losing three of their first four children in infancy. Alfred Charles Collins (named after his father) died at 5 months in 1894, while a second son Alfred and twin daughter Ruby died within a day of being born in 1896. In between was born Alma Florence Collins in 1895.

While Alma Collins lived a life of 79 years, initially I had wondered why I could not find her in electoral roll records after 1921, at which point she was aged 26 and living with her parents in Fitzroy North. This was not because she had married, but rather that on 24 May 1922 she was admitted to the 'Mont Park Hospital for the Insane'. When I chased up her death certificate from 1974, it revealed that she had died at Willsmere Hospital in Kew, known in previous years as the Kew Mental Hospital. Anyone that died in a mental institution in those days would be the subject of a death inquest, and the records show that she had been admitted to Kew in November 1944 from Beechworth, which was the location of another large asylum. So it is apparent that for the last 50-plus years of her life, Alma called these institutions her home, and is notable in my research as being the first person I found to have endured this fate.

Only a few weeks ago, in November 2019, I toured 'Aradale', the former mental asylum in Ararat which was commissioned at the same time as Kew and Beechworth Asylums (and well worth a tour). So it was quite a coincidence that I should make this discovery soon after.
While the records show that Alma was a diagnosed schizophrenic, her death occurred simply from a case of bronchopneumonia. But there was something else curious about Alma that I have yet to get to the bottom of. Several years ago, after finding details of Alma's cremation at Springvale online, I visited the cemetery and discovered that the plaque at her wall niche is labelled 'Alma Florence Parkinson'. Had she married after all? A search of several sources of marriage records turned up nothing. Now that I have her death certificate, it provides no insight. She is named as Alma Florence Collins, and listed as never married, with no children. The inquest record too only refers to her as Alma Florence Collins. Perhaps, I wonder, in her unstable mental state, did she claim to be married? Did she 'marry' someone within the institution?

The mystery deepens further. Searching Public Records, I found a probate file for 'Alma Florence Parkinson, also known as Alma Florence Collins'. In this record, a Marjorie Noel Capuano applies for a grant of 'letters of administration', claiming to be her daughter! Was her birth name Parkinson? I couldn't find a birth record, and nor could I find a marriage record of a 'Marjorie Noel' marrying a Capuano. After a search of cemetery websites I did find a Marjorie Capuano that died in 1997, cremated at Springvale, with a birthdate of  4 April 1922. If this is her, then it is intriguing that this date was just weeks before Alma was first admitted to Mont Park. There is much more to this story, I wonder if it can be uncovered.

Epilogue
Alma would not be the only Collins to end up at the Kew Mental Hospital. Her younger brother Alfred Charles Collins (yes, after the two earlier deaths of infant Alfreds the parents would go with the name a third time!) would also finish his days there. But his story is for the next post: mental illness was not the only misfortune to plague the children of Alfred and Annie Collins.

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