Dr Brothers was a very well known Dr at Lachlan Park/ Willlow Court. He was once the Medical Superintendent to Lachlan Park and resided with his family in Frescati.
The Hospital even named the Royal Derwent Social Center after him. I remember a picture of him hanging opposite the entrance to the Theater.
In 1927, Dr Brothers took up his residency in at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where he remained until 1936. He then crossed back to his much-loved state of Tasmania taking up the position of Medical Superintendent to Lachlan Park Mental Hospital.
Dr Brothers became the Director of Mental Hygiene in Tasmania in 1946 and was also Honorary Psychiatrist to the Royal Hobart and Launceston General Hospitals. During this time he studied and became an expert on Huntington’s Chorea, particularly in the state of Tasmania.
He was also the Honorary Psychiatrist to the Royal Hobart Hospital and the Launceston General Hospital. He ran an excellent service, knew everyone, was advisor, confidant and friend to Government, doctors and patients and was in touch with all the psychiatric developments, for which he was very largely responsible throughout the State. During the Second World War he was a psychiatric specialist with the rank of major.
Dr Charles Brothers was a foundation member of the Australasian Association of Psychiatrists (AAP) and was elected President in 1949, a fitting tribute for the doctor and Director of Mental Hygiene who had made an exceptional contribution to Australian psychiatry at the time.
With a keen interest in antiques and history he began collecting psychiatric paraphernalia, including artefacts, records, photographs, and interviews. Through word of mouth the collection greatly expanded as institutions began sending Charles their old artefacts directly. The collection reached over 700 objects and was housed in the Charles Brothers Museum at the Mental Health Library.
When that Museum closed in 1987, the collection was dispersed among a number of organizations – the artifacts were transferred to Museum of Victoria, the Public records Office of Victoria (PROV) took on the collection’s clinical files, and the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) holds most of the photographs. For your interest, a full list of artifacts in the Museum Victoria collection can be found in Behind Closed Doors: A catalogue of artefacts from Victorian Psychiatric Institutions held at the Museum of Victoria.
” I wonder if any artifacts ins the Behind closed doors collection was once used at Lachlan Park?”
“The Muesuem of Victoria could not confirm nor deny the rumors that this ECT Machine could have been the machine Dr Brothers brought with him from Kew Asylum? “
Charles Ronald David Brothers died suddenly at his home in Melbourne on October 3rd, “1963, at the age of 58 years after suffering ill health for some years.
Nick Jarvis
