This is the sixth installment in our on-going series about Robert Austin Shearn - A Criminal in the Family.
In Part One - Troubled: A Criminal in the Family we provided a short introduction to Robert Austin Shearn (1877-1940). He lived a troubled life and got into quite a bit of mischief. In that post, I wrote that Robert’s mother, Arabella Cowley, was Robert’s father, Charles Hall Shearn’s, first wife. She was Charles’ second wife. His first wife, Matilda Hart, gave Charles two sons, Charles James Hall Shearn (1858-1933) and James Parfitt Shearn (1862-1877).* Matilda died in early 1875. Charles and Arabella married on 27 April 1876.
For Part Two - 1877: A Fateful Year we looked in-depth at the year 1877 when Robert was born, his mother died, and his brother died.
For Part Three - British Army Service we examined Robert's British Army Service record.
For Part Four - Leaving the UK we discussed Robert’s relationships with his father and his deceased mother’s family, his aunts and uncles as well as the passenger list for the ship that he left the U.K. on, the Ophir.
For Part Five - Timeline we presented a timeline of events in Robert’s life primarily concerned with his life in Australia and New Zealand.
Part Six - Melbourne to Adelaide and Incarceration in the Parkside Lunatic Asylum
In this sixth installment we investigate Robert’s movement from Melbourne, Victoria to Adelaide, South Australia and his subsequent stint in the Parkside Lunatic Asylum.
By November 1898 Robert was found at Melbourne, Victoria (VIC) in Australia. He was boarding the ship Adelaide I destined for Port Adelaide, Albany, and Fremantle, South Australia (SA). He was 21 years old traveling in steerage under the name of A. McFarlane. It is uncertain where he went when he landed, but it is quite certain where he ended up with five years, Parkside Lunatic Asylum in Renmark, SA near Adelaide.
Parkside Lunatic Asylum was open from 1870 until 1913. It housed the criminally insane as well as general psychiatric patients (https://www.ahpi.esrc.unimelb.edu.au/biogs/E000506b.htm). It appears that Robert Shearn was admitted after being picked up by the police. It is unclear if there was a call for the police or what may have prompted the police to investigate. But the Police Gazettes says that Robert Austin Shearn was picked up by S.C. Schmidt. Shearn was picked up “as a pauper lunatic” at Renmark and ”sent to the asylum.” It appears he was held without trial or was awaiting trial? “Pauper lunatic” meant that the patient, or inmate, had a mental condition, or what was classified as such, posed a possible danger to the public, and (with the pauper designation) was unable to pay for his stay. For the pauper that meant he had little to no say about his treatment.
The pauper lunatic label was a legal technicality, but it was likely to be detrimental to patients. Its stigma probably contributed to deterring people from seeking help, resulting in “serious and even disastrous delay.” (Journal of Mental Science 1914, 60: 667-74) In the words of one senior psychiatrist: “classified alike with the others who cannot pay their maintenance and are dependent on the rates, they are stamped as paupers; and I think all these things help to push the unfortunate lunatic further down, and bring contempt on mental hospitals as a whole” (https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/history-archives-and-library-blog/2022/02/23/pauper-lunatics).
It is difficult to say at this point if this label as a “pauper lunatic” followed Robert around Australia and caused him harm or stigma. Of course, as we have seen from the outline of his life, he was repeatedly committing crimes and spending much of his time in and out of prison and various asylums. Perhaps he had a mental or emotional issue that may have been treatable today. In that case, he may have lived a very different life.
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