The New Poor Law and the county pauper lunatic asylum - The Devon experience 1834-1884

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 335-355

  Forsythe, Bill ^a   Melling, Joseph ^a   Adair, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EXETER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Asylums; Devon; Insanity; Local government; Magistrates; Poor Law

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; GOVERNMENT; HISTORY; MEDICOLEGAL ASPECT; MENTAL HOSPITAL; POVERTY; SOCIAL WELFARE; UNITED KINGDOM;

GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HOSPITALS, PSYCHIATRIC; LEGISLATION, MEDICAL; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; POVERTY; SOCIAL WELFARE;

EID: 0030323990     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/9.3.335     Document Type: Review

References (107)

1. A. T. Scull, 'Museums of Madness Revisited', Social History of Medicine, 6 (1993), 3-24.
2. Scull, 'Museums', p. 11;
3. A. Scull, The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700-1900 (New Haven, 1993).
4. Scull, Most Solitary of Afflictions, pp. 335-6.
5. Scull, Most Solitary of Afflictions, pp. 338-9.
6. M. W. Flinn, 'Medical Services under the New Poor Law', in D. Fraser (ed.) The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1979), pp. 45-66;
7. R. G. Hodgkinson, The Origins of the National Health Service: The Medical Services of the New Poor Law (London, 1967);
8. J. Walton, 'The Treatment of Pauper Lunatics in Victorian England: The Case of Lancaster Asylum', in A. T. Scull (ed.) Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 166-97;
9. J. Saunders, 'Institutionalised Offenders: A Study of the Victorian Institution and its Inmates with Special Reference to Late Nineteenth-Century Warwickshire', (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Warwick, 1987);
10. P. Bartlett, 'The Poor Law of Lunacy: The Administration of Pauper Lunatics in Mid-nineteenth Century England with Special Emphasis on Leicestershire and Rutland', (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1993).
11. Bartlett, 'The Poor Law of Lunacy', pp. 6-7, 18;
12. see also F. Driver, Power and Pauperism: The Workhouse System, 1834-1884 (Cambridge, 1993).
13. A. Suzuki, 'The Politics and Ideology of Non-restraint: The Case of the Hanwell Asylum', Medical History, 39 (1995), pp. 2, 6-7.
14. Suzuki, 'Politics and Ideology', pp. 7-8, 16-17.
15. G. E. Langley, 'Sir John Charles Bucknill 1817-1897: Our Founder', British Journal of Psychiatry, 137 (1980), pp. 105-10.
16. L. Brizendine, 'British Psychiatric Reform 1830-1860: A Socio-Historical study of Devon County Lunatic Asylum and John Charles Bucknill', (unpublished D. Med. thesis, Yale University, 1981), pp. 35-8 and passim.
17. Devon Record Office (hereafter DRO), Devon County Lunatic Asylum Visitors' Minutes DRO DQS 147/1, 27 Oct. 1845.
18. J. C. Bucknill and D. H. Tuke, A Manual of Psychological Medicine (Philadelphia, 1858), p. 503, quoting the Lunacy Commissioners' comments on Exminster.
19. Bucknill and Tuke, A Manual, pp. 342, 347, 362, 434, 444-7.
20. Bucknill and Tuke, A Manual, pp. 328, 454-5, 458-63, 486.
21. Report of Select Committee of House of Commons to Enquire into the Care and Treatment of Lunatics (P.P., 1859, Session 2 VII) pp. 90, 93.
22. Seventh Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P, 1852-3, XLIX) pp. 55-6.
23. Forty-seventh Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (C242, 1893-4) p. 172.
24. Scull, Most Solitary of Afflictions, pp. 352-5.
25. S. and B. Webb, English Poor Law Policy (London, 1913), pp. 8, 49;
26. M. A. Crowther, The Workhouse System 1834-1939 (Georgia, 1981), p. 54;
27. F. Driver, Power and Pauperism, p. 72.
28. J. Saunders, 'Quarantining the Weak Minded: Psychiatric Definition of Degeneracy and the late Victorian Asylum', in W. F. Bynum, R. Porter and M. Shepherd (eds.) Anatomy of Madness, Volume three (London, 1988) pp. 273-96;
29. J. D. Mellett, The Prerogative of Asylumdom: Social, Cultural and Administrative Aspects of the Treatment of the Insane in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1982), pp. 135-7.
30. Crowther, Workhouse System, p. 51.
31. After 1853 this physician was more commonly a Poor Law Medical Officer.
32. Brizendine, 'British Psychiatric Reform', pp. 58, 67.
33. M. J. Peterson, The Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London (Berkeley, 1978), p. 111.
34. DRO, St Thomas Board of Guardians (hereafter S.T.) Minutes, 29 March 1888.
35. Report of Select Committee to Enquire into the Operation of Acts of Parliament and Regulations for . . . Lunatics (P.P., 1859, III) p. 55;
36. Brizendine, 'British Psychiatric Reform', p. 61.
37. S. M. Allen, Devon Mental Hospital, 1845-1945 (1945), pp. 13-14.
38. DRO, Exeter Corporation of the Poor (hereafter ECP), Minutes, 5 Dec. 1846; W. Forsythe, 'Paupers and Policy Makers in Exeter, 1830-1860', Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 117 (1985), pp. 151-60.
39. DRO, Exeter Corporation of the Poor, Minutes, 17 July 1849, 20 Aug. 1850, 5 Nov. 1850, 1 Nov. 1853.
40. ECP, Minutes, 24 Nov. 1859, 8 Sept. 1863, 26 Jan. 1864. The filtering proposal was quickly rules out of order by the Poor Law Board in London and rescinded by Exeter Corporation.
41. ECP, Minutes, 25 July 1865.
42. ECP, Minutes, 8 Oct. 1867.
43. Thirty-second Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1878, XXXIX) pp. 64-5.
44. Bartlett, 'The Poor Law of Lunacy', p. 6.
45. The data provided for the proportion of paupers who were classified as lunatic paupers is only available for 1871, 1874 and 1876, whilst figures for the proportion of the Union population who were paupers is available for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1874 and 1876.
46. A Spearman rank order correlation was applied to test the relationship between the percentage of paupers recorded in the Unions and the percentage identified as lunatics, allowing for the possibility that larger pauper hosts would generally tend to have lower proportions of lunatics in their ranks. The results did not justify any claim for a linear relationship, though a very weak correlation between larger numbers of paupers and lower ratios of pauper lunatics may exist. Statistical z-stat tests on lunatics in the general population of the Unions confirm the sharp contrasts in identified pauper lunatics between Axminster, Okehampton, and St Thomas. We are grateful to Robert Turner for his assistance with these statistical assessments.
47. The data presented here covers the period 1864-80. As indicated earlier, the earlier data are taken from that compiled by the Lunacy Commission for this purpose.
48. Brizendine, 'British Psychiatric Reform', p. 23.
49. Dictionary of National Biography, 'Lord Devon was for many years the most influential man in his county and was generally known as "The Good Earl"'.
50. S. T. Guardians, Minutes, 7 Oct. 1836-28 Oct. 1836.
51. Trewman's Exeter Flying Post (hereafter Trewman's), 20 May 1830 p. 1 col. b; DRO, Circular Against Exeter Asylum 1835 1292 M/Printed/Misc/14.
52. Trewman's, 17 Oct. 1839 p. 3 col. d.
53. Trewman's, 17 Oct. 1839 p. 3 col. d;
54. Trewman's, 21 Oct. 1840 p. 3 col. b.
55. Trewman's, 8 April 1841 p. 3 col. c.
56. Trewman's, 30 June 1842 p. 3 cols. a-b.
57. DRO, Devon Quarter Sessions, Minutes 1/29 Michaelmas Sessions 1846.
58. DRO, Axminster Guardians (hereafter A.G.), Minutes, 3 Nov. 1836.
59. A.G., Minutes, 6 June 1868.
60. A.G., Minutes, 3 Jan. 1845, 9, 25 Feb. 1859.
61. R. Lethbridge, 'The Bideford and Okehampton Railway of 1831' Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 34 (1902), pp. 168-200.
62. DRO, Papers of Calmady Pollexfen Hamlyn DRO 1292/M undated/unsigned note (in bundle marked undated/unsigned): 'I have very often, since I saw you, turned over in my mind your favourite proposition, that the County of Devon throws open the doors of Quarter Sessions to the public.'; c.f. M. Nolan to C. P. Hamlyn, 5 July 1822, on the abuse of parish funds. A nice contrast to the filial relationship between the Courtenays can be found in the Hamlyn papers where Calmady's ten-year-old son was encouraged to calculate life interest rates in letters to his father. See 1837 bundle (No Date) Osbert Calmady Hamlyn to C. P. Hamlyn.
63. Trewman's, 22 Oct. 1835 p. 4 cols. b-c.
64. Trewman's, 21 March 1839 p. 4 col. b;
65. Trewman's, 8 April 1840 p. 3 col. a.
66. DRO, Okehampton Guardians (hereafter O.G.), Minutes, 28 April 1836, 25 July 1836, 8 Aug. 1836.
67. O.G., Minutes, 13 Feb. 1837.
68. O.G., Minutes, 21 Nov. 1836.
69. O.G., Minutes, 4 April 1846.
70. O.G., Minutes, 10 Oct. 1846.
71. O.G., Minutes, 15 April 1848.
72. O.G., Minutes, 17 March 1866.
73. S.T., Minutes, 22 July 1838.
74. S.T., Minutes, 11 June 1845.
75. A.G., Minutes, 20 March 1846, 10, 30 Dec. 1869.
76. Lunacy Commission Special Report (P.P., 1847-8, XXXII) pp. 99-100.
77. O.G., Minutes, 19 Dec. 1846.
78. O.G., Minutes, 25 April 1846, 9, 1 May 1847.
79. O.G., Minutes, 24 May 1851.
80. O.G., Minutes, 20 Feb. 1864, for case of George Blee of Chagford.
81. A.G., Minutes, 28 Nov. 1851.
82. A.G., Minutes, 17 March 1865, 7 Aug. 1873, 11 Nov. 1875.
83. A.G., Minutes, 11 Aug. 1881.
84. S.T., Minutes, 22 Dec. 1865.
85. S.T., Minutes, 27 Feb. 1885; W. L. Parry Jones, The Trade in Lunacy (London, 1972), p. 284.
86. A.G., Minutes, 11 Nov. 1875.
87. DRO, Exe Vale Collection, Exminster Admissions Books DRO 3769a/ H9 case 4393.
88. O.G., Minutes, 27 Dec. 1845.
89. A.G., Minutes, 28 June 1850.
90. S.T., Minutes, 20 Jan. 1837, 3 April 1846, 28 Nov. 1856.
91. S.T., General Committee Minutes, 1836-42, 4 June 1839; A.G., Minutes, 21 Nov. 1839. It is clear that in the late 1830s the lunatic inmates of St Thomas and Axminster workhouses were reported to be causing great distress to other workhouse inmates by their use of threatening and obscene language, whilst the records of St Thomas for 1841 document the difficulties of protecting idiots and lunatics against the violence and abuse of other workhouse occupants. See S.T. General Committee, Minutes, 17 Aug. 1841.
92. A.T. Scull, Museums of Madness (London, 1979), pp. 212-13;
93. see also Mellett, Prerogative of Asylumdom, p. 167.
94. B. Crossley, Lunacy in Lancashire: A Case Study of Prestwich Hospital, 1850-1948 (Gaskell, 1990);
95. I. Lodge Patch, 'The Surrey County Lunatic Asylum', British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (1991), pp. 69-77;
96. Walton, 'Pauper Lunatics in Victorian England' in Scull (ed.) Mad Doctors, Madhouses and Madmen, pp. 166-97.
97. Lunacy Commission, Thirty-eight Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1884, XL) pp. 73-4;
98. Thirty-ninth Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1884-85, XXXVI) p. 93;
99. Forty-first Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1887, XXXIX) p. 184;
100. Forty-second Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1888, LII) p. 177.
101. Twenty-second Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1867-8, XXXI) pp. 64-5;
102. Twenty-sixth Annual Report of Lunacy Commission (P.P., 1872, XXVII) p. 131; DRO, Devon Quarter Sessions, Asylum Visitors' Minutes (hereafter A.V. Minutes), DRO 147/2, 17 April 1869, 22 May 1869, 11 Jan. 1870, 12 Aug. 1870, 10 Jan. 1871.
103. A.V. Minutes DRO 147/2, 10 Feb. 1874.
104. Saunders, 'Institutionalised Offenders';
105. Bartlett, 'The Poor Law of Lunacy'; and the essays by J. Walton are among the most obvious exceptions. See also the forthcoming work of D. Wright, University of Nottingham, on the parallel experience of idiot child care at the Earlswood Asylum.
106. Suzuki, 'Politics and Ideology', pp. 15-17. Whilst recognizing some important parallels with the Hanwell Asylum, we find little evidence at Exminster of the frictions between lay and medical control which Suzuki portrays at Hanwell and a more complex and nuanced relationship between magistrates, Poor Law Guardians and Whig politicians such as Russell appears to have existed in the Devon case.
107. Even the most famous of Bucknill's therapeutic excursions, sending thirty females to an Exmouth villa, was precipitated by the unexpected arrival of forty Plymouth inmates from Plympton House without accommodation available. Devon Quarter Sessions, Minutes, DRO 1/31, Epiphany Session, 1857, p. 254.