Clockwise from top left: The house in an Auckland Star article from 1930. Mr and Mrs Auty from an article in the Central Leader in 1973. The house in 1973 from the same article, with the lower balcony covered in.
history
A new life for Penman House The Unitec Research Office and Postgraduate Centre recently moved into Penman House on Carrington Road, a building with a long and interesting history.
Penman House, located just off the corner of Woodward and Carrington Roads in Mt Albert, and right next to Unitec’s gate four, was built in the early 1900s - largely by staff and patients from what was then known as the Avondale Mental Asylum, and previously the Whau Lunatic Asylum. First used by Medical Superintendent Dr Henry Meredith Buchanan as a residence, it was decided in 1930 that with 15 rooms, the residence was too large, for that purpose. After some local community debate, it was converted into an additional neuropathic unit for female patients. The first patients were admitted between 28 August and 31 December 1931. Between 1933 and 1937, highly regarded New Zealand journalist, novelist and poet Robin Hyde (1906-1939) voluntarily lived at ‘The Lodge’, as it was then named, after she attempted suicide in June that year. A collection of her poems, Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde, edited by Michele Leggott, contains poems written during her time there. According to researcher Alison Hunt’s 2005 paper on Hyde, “Buchanan’s handwritten notes record his positive first impressions of Hyde, impressions that I believe were a determining factor in the nature of the mental health treatment afforded to Hyde from 1933 to 1937. That treatment had a profound influence on Hyde’s development as a writer.” According to Hunt, Hyde’s 1934 unpublished autobiography was written at The Lodge, after being asked to write it by her primary doctor, Gilbert Tothill. She addresses Tothill throughout the document, and describes her room at the Lodge as “a pleasant, quiet room”. Hunt says The Lodge was situated around 800 metres from the main Auckland Hospital building, and was described by
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