Mark Stevens - Life in the Victorian Asylum: The World of Nineteenth Century Mental Health Care

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In the labourer and artificer class the lunatic is so far fortunate that, living from hand to mouth under the sweat of his brow, the outbreak of insanity generally pauperises him at once and throws the responsibility of his care and treatment upon the public authorities. The law of the land is admirably designed for his protection and welfare, and, if it be really carried out, the care and proper treatment of the pauper lunatic will be all that humanity and science can desire. He will be placed forthwith in one of the county asylums, a class of institutions of which our own profession and the community at large have every reason to be abundantly proud, and he will there receive care and treatment which his superiors in rank and wealth may well regard with jealous envy.

Excerpt from A Manual of Psychological Medicine,
by John Charles Bucknill and Daniel Hack Tuke, 1879.

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword History
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Mark Stevens 2014

ISBN 978 1 78159 373 8

The right of Mark Stevens to be identified as the Author of this
Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library

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Contents

This book would not exist without the archives of Fair Mile Hospital, Cholsey (formerly known, and referred to in this book as the Moulsford Asylum). Thanks are due to John Man of the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust for his work in rescuing much of the archive before it could be dispersed or destroyed. Thanks are then due to Sue Crossley at The Wellcome Trust for her help in securing a grant to list and repair the archive.

In terms of publishing this book, a vast array of thanks must go to Jen Newby at Pen and Sword. Jen is always patiently solving my problems and generally being decent to me; one day I hope to repay the compliment. I must also thank my family again for putting up with the hours of extra work that writing a book entails. It is an indulgence and I always try to remember that.

I also need to thank everyone I meet at my talks who is curious of mind. You have asked questions that kept me working to understand what life was like for the patients and staff of Victorian asylums. This is like having an army of additional editors. Then there are a number of people in Cholsey who keep the memories of Fair Mile alive. I would like to single out Bill Nicholls and Ian Wheeler for their efforts.

The acknowledgements in Broadmoor Revealed ended with an appreciation of everyone who had been touched by a Broadmoor story. I would like to reiterate that, then add in all those people who were touched by Fair Mile and the other Victorian asylums up and down the country. Whatever your experiences, you will never be forgotten.

I had always intended my first book, Broadmoor Revealed, to be the starting point in a longer journey around Britains Victorian asylums. However, it was written as a tour of some interesting cases rather than as the history of a subject, and of necessity it sketched over the mental health landscape in which Broadmoor was created. I meant to return to that landscape and provide a fuller description of it, and I wanted to do so with reference not only to Broadmoor but also to a community mental health hospital.

Life in the Victorian Asylum fulfils that aim; it defines the intricate worlds of Broadmoor and the other public asylums constructed in Britain during the nineteenth century. It unravels the knots of Victorian thinking about mental health care, explaining what asylum life was meant to achieve for patients. It does so in two parts. The first of these is an imitation of a modern treatment guide, such as might be written by a patient liaison service today for prospective clients. I have called that part a patients handbook, and it adopts a Victorian tone and perspective, but it also acknowledges the new patient as a human being and attempts to address the sort of queries and concerns someone might have on entering an asylum.

The second part of Life in the Victorian Asylum is a discussion of the patient experience in the mid to late nineteenth century, as seen through early twenty-first century eyes. It includes a real-life history of Berkshires own public asylum Moulsford and a note about how Broadmoor, the nations criminal asylum, differed from other institutions. There is also a discussion about how time has weathered the beliefs and wisdoms of the Victorian age. Finally, it examines the legacy that Victorian health care has left behind it, and how the memories of the asylum are kept alive today.

Inevitably, a detailed description of asylum life should have a high human content. As permanent as the fixtures and fittings that adorned the wards, a constant stream of patients and staff flowed through the long corridors and occupied the chairs and benches in the day-rooms and airing courts. I hope that this book is more than just a physical description of a building and a routine, and that within each chapter you can sense the ghosts of those people for whom the asylum became at first a domicile and then a final resting place.

So many thousands of men, women and children passed through the doors of Victorian asylums and spent the rest of their lives removed from friends and family. It was an existence based on the idea of sanctuary within a refuge which, for many, became a terminus.

This book is for all those patients who never made it home.

Mark Stevens
Reading, January 2014

The Victorian Asylum Patients Handbook

Dear New Patient,

Welcome to the Victorian asylum. We trust that your stay with us will be an improving one. We recognise that going into hospital can be a troubling experience, both for you and for your friends or family. It is our job to make this experience a calming and beneficial one. We want to assure you that we, the asylum staff, will dedicate ourselves to your well-being. We shall try to make you feel as comfortable as possible, while we endeavour to attend to all your medical needs.

As a first step, this book will help you to make sense of your new surroundings. It is designed to act as a manual, answering questions you may have about your treatment, care and opportunities and describing the buildings, facilities and staff. In short, we hope to prepare you for life inside the dormitories and wards in which our patients find themselves at rest.

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