Gender and Class in English Asylums, 1890 1914
Also by Louise Hide POINTS OF VIEW: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs (with lead author, John Falconer)
Gender and Class in English Asylums, 1890 1914 Louise Hide Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK palgrave macmillan
Louise Hide 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-32142-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-45802-8 ISBN 978-1-137-32143-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137321435 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
For Sarah
Contents List of Figures List of Tables Preface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations viii ix x xii Introduction 1 1 The Making of the Patient Population 14 2 Medical Officers 40 3 Attendants and Nurses 65 4 The Asylum Regime 91 5 From Asylum to Mental Hospital 121 6 Ward Life 146 Conclusion 171 Notes 181 Sources and Select Bibliography 215 Index 235 vii
List of Figures 1.1 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex. George T. Hine, Architect. The Builder, 23 November 1889 24 1.2 Showing the rise in the number of reported pauper lunatics, idiots and persons of unsound mind from 1871 to 1921 in England and Wales 26 1.3 Showing the rise in the number of reported private lunatics, idiots and persons of unsound mind from 1871 to 1921 in England and Wales 27 3.1 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: a nurses day-room (?). Photograph by the London & County Photographic Co. [1893?] 66 3.2 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: thirty-four nurses. Photograph by the London & County Photographic Co. [1893?] 79 4.1 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: ground floor plan from Burdett, Hospitals and Asylums of the World, vol. ii 94 4.2 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: a dining room (?). Photograph by the London & County Photographic Co. [1893?] 98 4.3 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: a linen room. Photograph by the London & County Photographic Co. [1893?] 106 4.4 Claybury Asylum, Woodford, Essex: a kitchen. Photograph by the London & County Photographic Co. [1893?] 111 5.1 Ward in Hospital Villa. Heath Asylum, Bexley, c. 1900 in the Royal College of Psychiatrists 126 viii
List of Tables 1.1 Ratio per 10,000 of male and female private and pauper lunatics, idiots and persons of unsound mind to the population of England and Wales from 1871 to 1911 28 1.2 Percentage in which intemperance in drink was the assigned cause in admissions to county and borough asylums, registered hospitals, naval and military hospitals, state asylums and licensed houses from 1881 to 1909 13 in England and Wales 35 1.3 Number of general paralytics admitted into county and borough asylums, registered hospitals, naval and military hospitals, state asylums and licensed houses in the respective years and the percentage of the whole number of patients admitted during the same period 36 1.4 Percentage of admissions in England and Wales to which hereditary causes were the assigned causes of insanity from 1881 to 1909 13 38 ix
Preface and Acknowledgements The seeds of this book were sown when I was around 12 years old. My father worked in what was formerly a large county asylum in Suffolk and we lived in a house in the grounds. At the time, I had what felt like the complete run of the hospital. There was one ward I would frequently visit, a back ward where my grandmother was a patient. Often, as I approached, I could hear her cries as they reverberated around the labyrinthine corridors with their battered walls and scuffed lino floors. Twelve is an impressionable age and I carried these memories into adulthood, even making an unsuccessful attempt at training to become a psychiatric nurse. I was 19 and far too immature for the task. Yet during my training in the late 1970s, I met patients who had spent 50 or 60 years in the hospital. I still recall them, vividly. Then, as now, I wondered what had brought them into the institution in the first place. And why they had stayed so long. This became the subject of my doctoral thesis, which forms the foundation of this book. Producing it has taken close to ten years, over which time I have received unwavering support from friends, colleagues, archives and health authorities. These include the tireless staff at the London Metropolitan Archives and the Redbridge Museum and Local Studies and Archives; Julie Lucas and Diane Parsons at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, and Kim Nugent at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. Jonathan Andrews, Pamela Dale, Hilary Marland and Pamela Michael all read various drafts of my thesis and provided invaluable feedback and encouragement. Jane Hamlett, Lesley Hoskins, Rebecca Preston, Carmen Mangion, Geertje Boschma and Leslie Topp read and commented on certain chapters. More recently, Palgrave Macmillan s anonymous readers and Len Smith have been exceptionally helpful during the latter phase of turning the thesis into a book. Friend, neighbour and scholar Anne Murcott has supplied me with endless cups of coffee as well as indefatigable editorial help. And Joanna Bourke, my PhD supervisor, colleague and friend at Birkbeck has been nothing short of an inspiration from beginning to end. But in a league of her own is my partner Sarah Weir who has also lived, breathed, been on holiday with and given up weekends for this book over ten years, x
Preface and Acknowledgements xi patiently providing boundless support and space in which to write it. Yes, it is done! Finally, I want to return to my early experiences in a psychiatric hospital and evoke the memories of the people there. It is of their lives that I write. Real lives experienced by real people.
List of Abbreviations AMO AWA GPI LCC MPA NAWU RBNA Assistant Medical Officer Asylum Workers Association General Paralysis of the Insane London County Council Medico-Psychological Association National Asylum Workers Union Royal British Nurses Association xii