Connections and divergences: lunatic asylums in New Zealand and the homelands before 1910.

This article argues for the blending of local, national, and transnational perspectives to explore comparative issues relating to asylum developments and provisions in New Zealand. It also aims to highlight some issues preoccupying authorities of the time and in doing so focuses on three key areas that generated comparative comment among medical officials in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: asylum provision and funding, statistics, and forms of committal. These areas were of concern due to claims that insane patients were deliberately being shipped to New Zealand: that the colony had high admission and recovery rates; and that asylums in the colony were overcrowded. The findings presented here suggest that not only were certain aspects of New Zealand's asylum provision and population distinctive from the homelands, but there were also differences between asylums in the colony.