View source for Baillie Henderson Hospital

===Early Years===
Toowoomba, one hundred and twenty miles by road from Brisbane, had been linked by rail with Brisbane in 1867 and was known as the gateway to the west and south. The town, with a population of about ten thousand people, was the center of a developing agricultural and industrial region. It was becoming quite a cultural and educational center with its Austral Hall and schools. At two thousand feet, its climate was cool and fresh, giving it the reputation of being a healthy place. Brisbane people came for holidays, mothers came from the west to have their babies, and men came to trade horses and property. The many wide verandah’d hotels did as good a trade in family accommodation as in alcohol. The Toowoomba Base Hospital was proving an important treatment center for the Downs and country areas. Toowoomba seemed ideal for an asylum outstation.

Planning a public facility in Queensland took a long time last century as decisions were made by the British Parliament. All correspondence was with the Colonial Secretary in London and had to go by sea. After some initial exploratory work at the Australian end correspondence which began in 1877 led to approval in 1878 to build on one hundred and seventy-five acres (71 hectares) near Toowoomba. The cost of the land was £2,800.

In 1885 the Colonial Architect, J.J. Clark, drew a sketch plan of the land and even then recommended the purchase of more land. A plan for the asylum was ready by December.

The Department of Public Works and Mines called tenders on 29th July, 1886 for the contract to erect “a Lunatic Asylum at Toowoomba". The plans, drawn up by the Government Architect were for buildings similar to those built in England at the time with verandas added for Australian conditions. Plans for the first stage could be examined at the Toowoomba Court House where a deposit of one hundred pounds had to be lodged with each tender. The price accepted for the first section of four buildings was £28,750.

This was made by Mr. James Renwick, whose deposit was lodged with the Bank of New South Wales as a fixed deposit. The work was supervised by George Conolly as Colonial Architect. The land purchased for the asylum adjoined the Police Paddock, where there were some initial problems when Mr. Renwick's employees camped on the paddock. Permission was sought and refused to quarry and make bricks there.

The main buildings were brick and it is probable that the bricks for the first wards came to Australia as ballast in the holds of ships. Some bricks, dated 1842, can be seen built into walls. By mid 1887 most of the bricks were being made at Murphy's Creek. The brick walls stood on concrete foundations and the roofs were of corrugated iron. Tenders for a residence for the medical superintendent were called in the Queensland Gazette early in 1889 requiring a £30 deposit. This contract also went to Mr. Renwick. In the middle of the year, tenders were called for the building of an assistant medical superintendent's residence. The Gazette invited contractors to supply ironmongery, drapery, stationery, furniture, china, and glass in 1890.

Long lists of requirements were made. These were for carpenter's tools, general ironmongery including horse combs, a large bell to weigh 20lbs. and swing on an iron frame, stone breakers and grubbing axes. Numbers of hurricane hand lamps, a large fuel stove, heavy pots and pans, earthenware and enamel cups, saucers and plates and cutlery were itemized. Details of furniture and bedding were specified. Amongst the desks one was to be a cedar table six feet by three feet six inches with the best blue carriage cloth top, five inch turned legs, two drawers and the best lever locks polished. The iron bedsteads were to be as made at Woogaroo. The first mattresses were to be hair mattresses with sturdy tick.

Mr. Keogh's tender from Ipswich for furniture was accepted in June 1889. The present charming Willowburn Railway Station was just a stop along the line where a siding known as Asylum Siding was built for unloading materials for the new asylum. The contractor had to pay half the cost. For many years, goods and people came “up the line" from Brisbane or Goodna to this siding, to be met by horse or hand carts for heavy items or an escort to accompany them as they walked up the slope to the asylum.

The buildings, once built, stood empty for some time after they were finished, to the annoyance of the administrators in Brisbane who were trying to cope with increasing admissions. The delay was due to the lack of a reliable water supply. From the beginning there had been problems between the Department and the local Council over providing water. At first, water was carted daily from a well near the present K.R.Darling Downs Factory. 

Very soon this supply was inadequate. By September 1889, arrangements had been made to pump water from a better well in the Toowoomba Railway yard. In April, 1890 William and John Erskine tendered £332.10s to sink and slab a well in the Lunatic Asylum Reserve. In June that year the Toowoomba Foundry Company Ltd. sent a sketch of a windmill suggesting one should be installed for pumping water. The delay was exacerbated by many of the pipes arriving broken from Sydney on the "Barcoo" due to severe weather on the voyage. Eventually enough water could then be pumped to a reservoir on the hill for distribution to all buildings. Water was needed for general household, farming and gardening work but not for sewerage as earth closets were used.

Finally the authorities decided buildings, equipment and staff were ready for inmates to be admitted. There were the four main brick buildings, exercise yards with ten foot high hardwood fencing, furniture and equipment for a modern asylum and staff appointed for maintenance of the property and others ready at to accompany the first inmates.

It is clear from the records that Doctors Scholes and Hogg selected the first patients from for transfer to Toowoomba according to the following criteria: Good physical health, links with Toowoomba or the area beyond, and some ability to work. The first ten, who arrived on 17th May, 1890, were women capable of working in the kitchen and laundry. Many of the larger group of men and women who came three days later were soon at work chopping and carting wood, building paths and fences, working in wards, sewing and doing kitchen and laundry work. 

The patients travelled by train with their attendants. The male attendants were recruited from the prison service and they wore blue serge suits with metal buttons and wide brimmed hats. In summer they wore a khaki uniform, also with metal buttons. The female attendants were untrained. They wore blue serge dresses with white cuffs and collars and white aprons. All trooped up from the Asylum Siding to be greeted by Dr. Hogg and Mr. Burn. Together they laid the foundation of the community that became home to generations of patients and staff.

At the turn of the century, the young hospital impressed rail travellers as their trains chugged up the Range. Its massive buildings stood out starkly and were described in the Darling Downs Advertiser and Gazette as "The Lion of Toowoomba … set in a noble park over Gowrie Creek." The land around was being developed like a country property with plenty of well controlled, if sometimes reluctant labour. Dr. Nicoll was very conscious of the practical problems of country living and their effects on health and behaviour. Some such problems were overcrowding which provoked disturbances in wards and dining areas; flies causing ophthalmia; drought with its subsequent water shortages restricting bathing, laundry and cleaning; and heatwaves leading to sunstroke.