Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:23:52.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Workhouse or asylum: the nineteenth century battle for the care of the pauper insane

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

E. D. Myers
E. D. Myers*
Affiliation:
Department of Postgraduate Medicine and Biological Sciences, University of Keele, North Staffordshire Hospital Thornburrow Drive, Hartshill Stoke-on-Trent ST4 7QB
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Throughout the 19th century some 20–25% of all known pauper lunatics in England and Wales were accommodated in workhouses. Early on, the lunacy commissioners considered that all pauper lunatics should be admitted to asylums and were highly critical of the conditions under which they were kept in workhouses. As the century progressed the lunacy commissioners were forced to compromise because of the lack of space in asylums and diminishing confidence in the results of asylum treatment. By the end of the century the lunacy commissioners were reconciled to the accommodation of feeble-minded, imbecile, idiot, chronic psychotic and demented paupers in workhouses, but held to the view that the acute pauper insane should be admitted to asylums.

Type
History of Psychiatry
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 22 , Issue 9 , September 1998 , pp. 575 - 577
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

References

Arlidge, J. T. (1859) On the State of Lunacy and the Legal Provision for the Insane, p. 102. London: Churchill.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. (1870) Presidential address. Journal of Mental Science, 17, 315–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucknill, J. C. (1880) The Care of the Insane and their Legal Control p. 114. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Commissioners in Lunacy (1859) Supplement to the Twelfth Report of The Commissioners in Lunacy, p. 36. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Commissioners in Lunacy (1864) Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, p. 77. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Commissioners in Lunacy (1891) Forty-Fifth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, p. 81. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Commissioners in Lunacy (1910) Sixty-Fourth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, p. 64. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hodgkinson, R. G. (1966) Provision for pauper lunatics 1834–1871. Medical History, 10, 138–154.Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1993) Asylums and After, pp. 89–91 London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Maudsley, H. (1871) Presidential address. Journal of Mental Science, 17, 311–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy (1844) Report of the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy, p.98. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.