People Australia

Bea Miles, c.1960

Randwick City Library, P00066

The extensive literature about the life of the Sydney identity and passionate patriot Bee Miles (also known as Beatrice or Bea) includes an Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) entry, chapters in two books about Australian ‘ratbags’, and a meticulous 2023 biography by Rose Ellis. I discovered Bee’s Callan Park case notes, which were long thought to be missing, in the New South Wales (NSW) state records in 2024. Previous accounts of Bee’s experiences at Callan Park were necessarily based on her diary notes and manuscripts, newspaper articles, and records from other mental institutions. In conjunction with recent detailed studies of Callan Park at the period, these notes give a different viewpoint to her dramatic claims of chaos, maltreatment and staff misconduct at NSW mental hospitals.

Ellis and other sources claim that Bee's conduct before her first committal, and for the remainder of her life, was exacerbated by the long-term after-effects of an attack of then pandemic encephalitis lethargica (EL) in early 1920, which had ended her university studies. The surviving evidence from Callan Park casts some doubt on this diagnosis. Bee's often offensive and eccentric behaviour, already prognosticated by her earlier troubles at home, was possibly due to other causes.

Bee’s uncontrollable conduct at home and in public, and violent battles with her abusive father, William Miles, a wealthy political activist with far-right views, resulted in her referral by him to the mental hospital system in late 1923. She was duly admitted to the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane in December. William told the admitting doctors that Bee’s condition had been aggravated by the EL attack. Bee’s ADB entry suggests that she did not return to mental health care after her discharge from Gladesville in 1925. But Ellis notes that she was transferred directly to Callan Park in February that year, and spent 20 months there, apart from a short interlude at Kenmore in Goulburn, and multiple brief escapes, including one where she made it to Brisbane and then Toowoomba.

In Brisbane Bee approached five doctors who all found her to be sane, though eccentric. After her departure from Bayview private mental hospital in Sydney in late 1927, she became notorious for often violent and outrageous conduct in public places, with special animosity directed at police and other public authorities. Bee refused to pay taxi drivers, often wrenching off a door when they forcibly ejected her. Bee’s provocative behavior resulted in short periods in mental institutions and gaol over the 1930s. She was admitted again to Callan Park in 1959 and discharged after two months.

Bee's mental and physical conditions were examined at admission to Callan Park. Her condition on transfer from Gladesville was ‘unimproved’. Doctors were evidently aware of Bee’s notoriety at Gladesville, placing her in the refractory ward, Ward 4. Her medical notes were much fuller and more detailed than for the general run of patients and some were typed. This special focus was reserved for well-known public figures, such as the aggravating William Chidley, would-be sex reformer, or patients with influential connections. Most patients had brief and often sparse hand-written case notes. Bee’s lengthy notes record that she was diagnosed with 'hypomania', a less severe form of mania, and displayed 'depressive insanity’. Newspaper articles published well after her 1927 truancy from Bayview were also added to her file.

As at Gladesville, Bee was 'aggressive and irresponsible', 'childish', and given to fits of crying or screaming when she did not get her way. Her records of seclusion or restraint are missing. Nevertheless, Bee displayed a keen intelligence which disconcerted nurses. Gladesville doctors thought that EL was the main cause of her insanity, but at Callan Park a 'psychopathic constitution' is instead listed as the primary cause, with EL a secondary cause. Bee's physical condition was 'fair', apart from weak reflexes, and many scratches and abrasions, presumably resulting from her Gladesville fights. After admission to Callan Park, she continued to be the instigator of violence and disorder, especially targeting frail and defenceless fellow inmates, and more vulnerable members of staff.

Bee's physical condition had declined since her time at Gladesville, where she had been in top physical condition, and was to deteriorate further. From June 1925, she had several attacks of Bright's Disease, a potentially fatal kidney complaint, with typical symptoms such as albuminuria. Bee recalls an officially undocumented rectal prolapse around this period which had required six weeks treatment in the hospital ward. She was to die of rectal cancer in 1973. Bee was nevertheless well enough to spend the night with a male visitor while on leave by October. He might have been W. H. Cazaly, technical writer and sub-editor for The Triad arts magazine. He had visited Bee in hospital and accompanied her on day leave in October. The visitors’ log listed others from the arts scene, such as the novelist Camden Morrisby. In April 1926, Bee contracted Vincent's angina, a type of tonsilitis and pharyngitis caused by poor oral hygiene or smoking. This condition can be disfiguring or fatal.

In keeping with Bee’s ‘style’ when dealing with authority, her writings on treatment at Callan Park tend to be exaggerated and some are implausible. She claimed late in life that one patient was restrained by a straitjacket every day for three years, and that up to 100 patients a week were kept in single rooms or in physical restraint every week. Implausibly, another patient was ‘tied to a seat’ for three months. While isolation was often used to restrain difficult or dangerous patients (such as Bee), physical restraint or confinement in single rooms was labour-intensive, and thus reluctantly resorted to, given constant understaffing of the hospitals. Each incident of physical restriction had to be authorised by doctors and reported to head office. Only strait jackets, camisoles, or muffs, were authorised. Incidents of unapproved restraint, such as a patient being ‘tied to a seat’ (by rope or chains?) for long periods, would likely have resulted in dismissal.  

My research suggests that Callan Park still retained some elements of moral management principles well into the 1920s, the ideals on which it had been founded in the late 1870s. These policies deprecated punishment and physical restraint, and aimed to return the patient to society. Management preferred cheaper chemical restraints such as chloral hydrate (popularly known as ‘Mickey Finn’), which were also required to be approved by doctors or senior staff, and logged. These drugs were often prescribed, but study of prescriptions for other patients suggests that they were not in ‘tremendous doses’ as Bee claims. We do not know how often, or when, or the amount. Bee’s prescription records have apparently not survived. She also claimed to have been given a highly sedative mixture of belladonna, chloral hydrate, and hyoscine, but somehow still managed to be frenetically active or restless at times.

Bee alleged that she and other patients were brutalised by nurses. At the 1923 Royal Commission into Lunacy Administration, some ex-patients testified to harsh treatment. Retaliation or rough handling by nurses might be understandable, given Bee’s tendency to fight or harass staff, but there were constraints on cruelty or incompetence. Official Visitors, some of whom were female, interviewed patients, and visiting clergy, relatives or friends might also report mistreatment to management. Newspapers eager to report scandals, such as Smith’s Weekly, read all over Australia, might receive smuggled letters. Although nurses or attendants might escape punishment for isolated incidents, the Inspector-General of the Insane’s annual reports indicate that misconduct often resulted in dismissal. I am sceptical about some of the testimony of the Inspector-General, then Eric Sinclair, at the 1923 Royal Commission. He alleged, implausibly, that all acts of ‘roughness’ were allegedly due to inexperience by novice staff, and were promptly discovered. Bee’s picture of chaos and disorder, which she herself had often instigated, seems overblown.       

Around this time, many physicians believed that EL, which had perhaps a 50 per cent fatality rate, was associated with the 1918-1919 ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic. This is no longer the prevailing view. Typical symptoms of EL include high fever, double vision, sensivity to light, and sleep difficulties. Autopsies conducted by the Austro-Hungarian neurologist Constantin Economo in 1917 showed that it was associated with damage to specific areas of the brain. Longer-term sequelae could include mental slowness, catatonic states, Parkinsonism, movement disorders, and memory loss. These disorders typically reduced life expectancy, especially Parkinson’s disease, which had no effective treatments until the 1960s.

Evidence that Bee had an attack of EL in 1920 is inconclusive at best. Its diagnosis is still difficult, because it is known for its wide variety of symptoms associated with other neurological conditions. Bee claimed to have typical symptoms such as sleep and eye disorders, and was formally diagnosed at the time. But there is no mention of other frequent signs, such as high fever. Only a small minority completely recovered from acute EL. In later years, when Bee was a focus of attention in mental hospitals, there is no evidence of common sequelae such as physical impairment, memory loss, or mental slowness, although Callan Park doctors did record that she had weak reflexes at admission. Bee wore an eyeshade in public, suggesting sensitivity to light. Taxi drivers, police, and bus and tram conductors observed that Bee was strong and agile, and she could still take off taxi doors and outrun conductors after she became obese in her 40s. She also had an excellent memory, was a prodigious reader, and busked Shakespeare recitals. Finally, Bee had a reasonably long lifespan for the period, dying at the age of 71.

Select Bibliography
Roth, David T., “Life, Death and Deliverance at Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, 1877 to 1923”, (PhD Thesis, Australian National University, 2020).

Case Papers, Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, NRS-4986-1, Item 14/10067, NSW State Records, Sydney

“Madhouse Mystery of Beautiful Sydney Girl. Five Doctors Declare Her Sane”, Smith’s Weekly (Sydney, Australia) 19 March 1927, 1. (cutting held on Callan Park file).

“Girl Student’s Pranks”, Observer (Adelaide, South Australia) May 11, 1930, 59. (cutting held on Callan Park file).

“The University. Matriculation. Examinations Results”, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1920, 14. (Bee passed).

Maurice Dunleavy, “Writers World the Worth and Rarity of a Genuine Ratbag”, Canberra Times (Canberra, ACT), 12 May 1979, 16.

Chapter 1, “Beatrice Miles,” in Dunstan, Keith, Ratbags (Sydney: Golden Press, 1979).

Edwards, Graham, and Robert Kaplan, "The Enigma of Bee Miles: Asylum, Anguish, and Encephalitis Lethargica" Health and History 20, no. 1 (2018): 93-119.

Ellis, Rose, Bee Miles: Australia's famous bohemian rebel, and the untold story behind the legend (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2023).

Chapter 6, “Bea, Bee or Beatrice Miles,” in Holden, Robert, Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A Swag of Aussie Eccentrics (Sydney: ABC Books, 2005).

Moxon, Edward H., Rozelle Hospital: The History of Callan Park Mental Hospital and Estate, the Jewel of the West (Bloomington, Indiana, United States: Xlibris Corporation, 2024).

New South Wales Government, Report of the Royal Commission on Lunacy Law and Administration with Notes of Evidence and Appendices (Sydney: Alfred Kent, Government Printer, 1923).

Parsons, Allan C., "Post-encephalitis and its Problems", Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21, no. 8 (1928): 1307-1318.

Roth, David T., "Chemical Restraint at Callan Park Hospital for the Insane in Sydney, New South Wales, 1877 to 1920", Health and History 20, no. 1 (2018): 1-27.

Roth, David T.,  "In Defence of William Chidley", History Australia 19, no. 3 (2022): 450-467.

Sacks, Oliver, Awakenings (New York: Penguin Random House, 1999).