Nelson Catholic school's punishments too severe for Victorian New Zealand

An inquiry in 1900 found that the punishments used at the Stoke orphanage in Nelson were too severe. Photo / Tyree Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum

Two Catholic Marist brothers were subjected to prolonged prosecutions after a government-appointed inquiry into a Nelson orphanage found evidence of the pair's alleged crimes against boys.

"The supplejack has been freely used, and in some cases with great severity," according to a Press Association report in the Herald of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the orphanage in 1900.

"Violence was also used by two of the brothers."

School punishments were much harsher in Victorian New Zealand than they are today, but even by the standards of the time, the orphanage was found to have gone too far.

The commission's findings led the Auckland Weekly News to liken the orphanage to "Dotheboys' Hall", a school of hard knocks in the Charles Dickens novel Nicholas Nickleby.

The orphanage was built in 1886 at the foot of the hills behind Stoke, now a large suburb in the south of Nelson City. With additions it grew to accommodate around 250 boys in the 1890s.

Cuffs, blows and kicks were inflicted on the boys by the members of the French religious order that ran the orphanage, formally known as the Stoke Industrial School.

Brother Wybertus, of the Stoke orphanage, was found not guilty on several charges and the rest were dropped. Photo / Tyree Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum

Brother Kilian's and Brother Wybertus' participation in the institution's violence had shown they were unsuited for their position, the commissioners found. Both had been removed from the orphanage.

"Cell punishment at Stoke has been much in excess of that authorised at the Government schools, and more than should be allowed," the Evening Post said in its report of the inquiry's findings.

In the two preceding years, 16 boys had been confined in cells for between four days and three months.

"In some of these cases, the commissioners say, the confinement has been continuous for an unreasonable period, and has been solitary, except that the boy has been taken out for church service, and visited by a brother four times a day."

The cells themselves were not faulted, although they were too isolated.

The washroom at the Stoke orphanage in Nelson. Photo / Tyree Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum

Former inmates spoke of a cell under a staircase, but didn't think any boy had been confined there in the preceding five years.

"The charge of flogging on the bare body, within five years of the date of the commission, has not been proved," the Herald said, "and the commissioners are satisfied that there has been no case of flogging for more than 4-½ years".

Hitting boys on the hand with a supplejack - a length of forest vine - had been replaced by the strap.

A former inmate told the commissioners that he knew of boys being locked up and saw Kilian strike a Māori boy with his fist.

The inquiry has been cited by an international expert on clerical abuse as a reason for the incidence of abuse possibly being lower in New Zealand than Australia.

Emeritus Professor Desmond Cahill, of RMIT University in Melbourne, told the Herald last year - in an article about the late Father Michael Shirres, who had confessed his abuse to one of his victims - that the Stoke inquiry "may have had a salutary and mitigating impact for several generations".

The Stoke inquiry's beginnings were Nelson's unease about the orphanage, which came to a head in 1900, according to Dawn Smith, writing in the Journal of the Nelson and Marlborough Historical Societies.

Two boys had run away to Moutere and started working on farms. One wrote to a friend at the orphanage, resulting in the arrest of both absconders and their appearance before a magistrate who ordered their return to the institution for punishment. One of the boys expressed a preference for a police whipping, an option open to the magistrate.

"Punishment at the orphanage was by supplejack on the hand and solitary confinement for the number of days absent," Smith said.

The Nelson Evening Mail of June 1, 1900 told of a "surprise visit" to the orphanage by members of the Nelson Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. They saw "two small cells", one in the tower, the other on the ground floor. One boy had been in each, "shut up for about a week".

The next day's Mail contained a forceful reply from orphanage director, Brother Loetus, who said: "The members of the board do not find fault with the cells but with the principle of solitary confinement, and they advocated a good flogging instead."

"... it can scarcely be called solitary confinement, as one of the cells is separated from the Bro. Superior's room by a single wooden partition, and the other from the Brothers' dormitory by a similar partition. Both cells are lightsome, clean and airy …"

The boys in the cells - who at the time were the two absconders - studied assigned lessons there, and worked outside for part of the day, weather permitting.

Wybertus, 46 at the time, known as Edouard Forrier before he joined the Marist Brothers, was Belgian and had been with the organisation for 26 years. He was charged with five counts of common assault and five of indecent assault.

Kilian - James Solan - faced six of common assault.

The cases dragged through the courts for months but ended in not-guilty verdicts or charges being withdrawn.

It was all a plot stirred up the haters of Catholicism, thundered the Catholic paper the Tablet.

The Free Lance said Wybertus and Kilian attracted such strong public support that most of their legal bills were covered by a public appeal.

The commission's findings did prompt changes, however.

Premier Richard Seddon promised reforms that would bring the orphanage's punishments into line with state schools. The orphanage's food was to be improved, warmer winter clothing would be provided, and two married women would be employed whose husbands worked at the orphanage farm, farm training for the boys would be improved, mustard-and-water medicine would be scrapped, a punishment record book would be kept, and a doctor would visit regularly.

Dawn Smith said the Marist Brothers were forced out soon after the inquiry by a new law prohibiting control of private industrial schools by overseas organisations.

The building was destroyed in 1903 by a fire which claimed the life of 8-year-old William Wilson. A new building at the site was opened in 1905. In 1910 it was sold to the Government and the institution closed in 1919. In 1920 it was sold for use as a mental hospital.