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Name
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Channel Island Leprosarium
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Type of carceral site
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Lock Hospital; Other
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Dates of use
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1931 – 1955
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Quote
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Contagion's Kiss reveals the strength of the human spirit inspired by true and rich accounts of three locals, stigmatised and abandoned in isolation at the Channel Island Leprosarium between 1931-1955. Their fates were sealed in an extreme, and segregated environment, separated from their families with no means to escape the Island or Government policy.
Description of physical theatre.
"Contagion's Kiss." Business Unusual Theatre, https://businessunusual.com.au/project/contagions-kiss/. Accessed 16 May 2026.
Cathart, Sarah, director. Contagion's Kiss. By Sarah Cathart and Nicola Fearn, performances by Samantha Chalmers, Nicola Fearn and Conor Fox, Business Unusual Theatre and Brown's Mart Productions, 4-16 June 2013, Brown's Mart Theatre, Darwin.
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I was sent over to the Channel Island Leprosarium. It was 8 March 1948. Melba stayed in Alice Springs. I didn't know how long I would be at Channel Island, maybe forever. [...] Another couple of years on Channel Island and the government decided they were going to shift the leprosarium over to East Arm on the mainland. That was 1954. They had a few problems on Channel Island because they had to cart water over there to the island on barges and there was no proper sewerage there either.
Autobiography.
Gibbs, Jimmy. Son of Jimmy. Historical Society of the Northern Territory, 1995, p. 94.
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The island has one 'hospital', a dilapidated building totally unsuited for tropics. It is not even fitted with fly-wire for protection […] This hospital is built within a few yards of the communal kitchen. This, too, is not protected from flies … And there are millions of sandflies, blow flies, march flies, and house flies round the buildings. Dormitories have been built a few yards away for the single patients. Most of the married black couples live in Government-built corrugated iron huts. These are most unsuitable for the tropics. In summer they are like ovens.'
Newspaper article.
Dr. Alec Mooney qtd. in "Darwin's Leper Station 'Ghastly,'" The Mail [Adelaide], Sat 15 Jan 1949, p. 2. Trove.
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Authority
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Quarantine Act 1908 (Cth)
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Archives and sources
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"Channel Island Leprosarium." Find & Connect, Australian Government, 2011, https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/entity/channel-island-leprosarium/.
Lemke, Laetitia. "Treated like lepers. Honouring the dead and Darwin's leprosy island." ABC NEWS, Sun 24 Jul 2016, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-24/channel-island-leper-colony-call-to-honour-sufferers/7648752.
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Contact
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Niamh
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identifier
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SITE-CIL
