Replica Leper’s Cottage, Quail Island, Lyttelton Harbour: Picturing Canterbury

Date: 31 March 2013

Entry in the 2014 Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt by Jane Rodgers.

Quail Island was proclaimed a quarantine station on 11 February 1875. The first leprosy patient was Willa Vallane, who was confined to the island in 1906. A second was admitted in 1908, with a third in 1909. By 1925 there were eight patients in residence (a ninth, George Philips, made an escape after having being certified as cured). In that year the eight patients were relocated from Quail Island to a new "leper colony" on Makogai Island in the Pacific.

Do you have any photographs of Quail Island? If so, feel free to contribute to our collection.

Kete Christchurch is a collection of photographs and stories about Christchurch and Canterbury, past and present. Anyone can join and contribute.

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