History Description
Peel Island was known variously to Aboriginal groups as Turkroor, Dairkooreeba, Chercrooba. The island was charted by Matthew Flinders in 1799. In 1873 the island was proclaimed a reserve for quarantine purposes. A quarantine station was established on the south east corner of the island and was in regular use throughout the 1870s and 1880s as the colony received a constant stream of immigrant ships. With a decline in immigration in the 1890s and an improvement in public health, the quarantine station fell into disuse. Between 1910 and 1916 the buildings were use as an inebriates' home.
In 1906 an area of 160 acres on the north west corner was gazetted as a reserve for lazaret.
The first case of leprosy in Queensland was discovered in 1855. Little interest was shown in the disease until the 1880s when there was a notable increase in the incidence of the disease. The diagnosis of the first European with leprosy prompted the implementation of the Leprosy Act of 1892. Two lazarets were established, one on Stradbroke Island for white patients, the other on Friday Island in the Torres Straits for non-Europeans. Both lazarets experienced considerably difficulties and in the early 1900s, the government decided to close these institutions and establish a multi-racial lazaret on Peel Island.
The new lazaret, opened in 1907, was designed and organised on the principle of isolation. Patients were housed in individual huts grouped in three separate compounds - male, female and 'coloured'. The huts for white patients were small single roomed, timber buildings, while the huts for the coloured patients were more rudimentary structures of bush timber clad with tea tree bark. Other buildings on the site included bath houses, kitchens, dining rooms, and staff accommodation. In 1908 a church was built by the coloured patients near their compound.
Additional huts were erected as more patients were sent to the island. In the coloured compound, the durability of the bark cladding was short-lived, and in 1909 the huts were reclad with corrugated galvanised iron. During the 1920s major improvements were undertaken, including the construction of a surgery, nurses quarters and new store. Kitchenettes were added to the female huts to enable the female patients to prepare their own meals. Four timber huts were erected in the coloured compound.
The lazaret opened with 70 patients, and reached a peak of 84 soon afterwards. For many patients, being sent to Peel Island was a life sentence. More than 180 patients died on the island and were buried in the cemetery. For other patients the disease did go into remission, and after a series of negative tests were discharged.
The patients were left to devise their own means of occupying each day. Some patients had boats and were allowed to fish off the island. Other patients had gardens, poultry and goats. Some patients were employed doing work on the lazaret as labourers, carpenters and seamstresses.
During the 1930s plans were made to establish a separate lazaret for the coloured patients and in 1940 the coloured patients were transferred to a new lazaret established on Fantome Island near Townsville.
In 1947 patients began being treated with the drug Promin, and the success of the treatment soon became apparent. More and more patients began to be discharged and by the late 1950s, there were less than ten patients. In 1959 the lazaret was closed and the patients transferred to the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
With the closure of the lazaret, various schemes for redeveloping the island were proposed. The lazaret buildings were offered for sale, but only a small number were removed from the island. In 1968 the Church of England Grammar School obtained a thirty year lease over part of the former lazaret. Peel Island was declared an Environmental Park in 1989 and the day to day management of the island has been the responsibility of the Redlands Shire Council.

Peel Island is unique in Australia as the only lazaret designed on the isolation method that survives substantially intact.