Templeton Hospital was the site of the first 'psychoapaedic' or psychiatric institution for children established in New Zealand, which opened outside the Canterbury township of Templeton in 1929 and closed in 2000.
History Templeton Hospital was an administrative offshoot of Sunnyside Mental Hospital which was the first hospital for the mentally ill in Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand, and ran from 1863 to 2001. Sunnnyside was separated administratively from Templeton Hospital in 1960. In 1917, 338 acres of land was purchased on Kirk's Road in Templeton by the Government for 'mental hospital purposes'. 'Templeton Hospital Farm' was built by 1919, when it was inspected by Dr. Hay, the 'Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals'. On this site in 1929, New Zealand's first psychopaedic institution, known as Templeton Farm Mental Deficiency Colony was established. Its ethos was informed by the eugenics movement of the period, as reflected in the 1928 Mental Defectives Amendment Act which arose from the earlier 1911 Mental Defectives Act. The institution was set up under the authority of Scottish eugenicist Dr Theodore Gray who was then the Director-General of the Mental Hospitals Department. 'To protect white racial fitness [Grey] wanted segregated farm colonies for those with intellectual disability or mental illness, registration, screening and sterilisation. The first residents were boys but soon girls were sent there too, although sexes were segregated inside the institution. Dr. Gray personally signed some of the admission forms.' Templeton Hospital became a specialised state institution, for the [long term] care, control and vocational training of children with intellectual disabilities, who has previously been cared for in psychiatric hospitals. These children were also known by the official terms ‘feebleminded’ 'idiot' and 'imbecile. 'This category generally included children with intellectual disabilities, neurodiversity, and conditions like epilepsy. It also often included children who were simply from poor families and were having trouble at school.' Parents were told that their intellectually disabled children would be 'happier with their own kind', but in line with eugenic theory, segregation from society to prevent their reproduction was the primary motivation. This meant that infants and children were committed to Templeton Hospital as permanent residents, many living there for their entire lives. Disability researcher Hilary Stace 'estimates that by the 1970s, two percent of New Zealand's population was institutionalised.' “Templeton at its height had hundreds of young people, and then of course they never left...that pattern was repeated around the country". From eight initial admissions, the number of residents peaked at 654 in 1974, and fell to 480 by 1994. The concept of a 'farm colony' arose from the Victorian notion that hard outdoor work could both restore mental health and subsidise the costs of state institutional care through agricultural production. 'The Templeton Farm comprised nine hundred and eighty acres, of which seven hundred acres was used for livestock (cows, pigs and sheep) and mixed cropping activities': produce was supplied to Templeton Hospital as well as other institutions. In 1935 the farm component of the institution was known as Jenkins Farm, which adjoined the hospital: both were run together. Once they reached adolescence, able male residents worked on the farm and/or in the large garden area, cutting lawns and hedges, grubbing gorse and weeds, growing and digging potatoes as well as cleaning water races. Able female residents worked in the laundry, kitchens and in other domestic roles. '[I]n 1967, the Templeton Farm Colony was dis-established with the transfer of eight hundred acres to the Agriculture Department, to be used as a crown agriculture research station. The Templeton Farm Colony's loss of the farm acreage and its related farming activities, (which left the hospital and school as its major assets) meant that it increasingly became referred to as the Templeton Hospital and Training School.'
Buildings and amenities The first villa at Templeton Hospital was commissioned in 1927, and the second in 1929. Two additional villas were completed before the two built in 1935 by Christchurch contractor Charles Luney, one for adult males and one for 'juveniles.' These were constructed from timber, and each accommodated four dormitories, each for twelve residents, in addition to a day room, a dining room, a kitchen block and staff quarters. The villas multiplied over time and were known by names of trees: Maple, Briar, Kauri, Hinau, Rimu, Totara, Manuka, Cedar, Kowhai, Pine, Tawa, Puriri, Poplar, Nikau, Miro, Rata and Beech. The site was closed in 2000, and the villas bulldozed down shortly afterward. In 1935, a staff tennis court was constructed as well as a new water tower and workshops for the residents, to be taught 'congenial trades'. These included 'the production and/or repair of furniture, venetian blinds, livestock covers, wooden toys, foot-wear and leather-craft accessories.' In 1966, a chapel was built on the site, designed by architect George Lucking and constructed in the modernist style of exposed concrete block and rough-sawn timber. It is known as the Templeton Chapel of the Holy Family. A large wooden board along the right side of the chapel contains lists of hundreds of former residents of Templeton Hospital who died there, dating from 1930 to 2020, printed in gold lettering. The chapel was donated by the Crown to the Holy Family Community Trust in September 2001. On 24 May 2017 the chapel's architect posthumously received the 2017 Enduring Architecture Award from the Canterbury Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. The Templeton Hospital site is now known as 'Innovation Park', containing several agriculturally-related businesses in both new and re-purposed Templeton Hospital buildings. As of January 2025, along with the Chapel of the Holy Family, the original water tower and the staff tennis court also remain.
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