11.1  
Journals link Search link Partners link Information link
2009
Previous
Next
Health and History

Table of Contents
List journal issues
Home
Get a printer-friendly version of this page
 
 
 

Working in the Asylum: Attendants to the Insane*

Lee-Ann Monk


Contemporary representations of nineteenth-century attendants were often negative, finding fault with both their character and conduct. Historians were inclined initially to agree, concluding that attendants were 'recruited from the dregs of society' and that asylum work was 'an occupation of last resort.' Other scholars argue that such conclusions rely too much on contemporary depictions. Taking Victoria as a case study, this article explores who attendants were and why they chose to do asylum work. Many of the attendants employed in Victoria's asylums were ordinary working people, recruited for their skills and experience, and for whom attending held considerable attractions. For some, indeed, attending became their life's work and an occupation whose reputation they felt was worth defending.


In 1885 a royal commission investigating the care of the insane in Victoria asked George Tucker, a private asylum proprietor recently returned from an extensive overseas tour of institutions for the mentally disordered, for his impressions of the colony's two metropolitan asylums. Tucker condemned the institutions as 'a disgrace.' Among the many deficiencies he identified were the attendants, who appeared to him to be 'slovenly in their persons and rough in appearance.' He attributed much of the blame for the appalling condition of the asylums to their neglect of duty, also implying that they might well mistreat patients if not prevented from doing so.1 It was not the first time that Victoria's attendants had been found deficient. Thirty-three years earlier, a public inquiry into the colony's first asylum characterised its attendants as immoral drunkards, at whose hands the patients suffered 'all the coercion and punishment usually had recourse to in Madhouses.'2 In the decades between these two public inquiries, asylum advocates came to similar conclusions about attendants more than once.3 1
      While attendants were the subject of considerable interest in the nineteenth century, both in Australia and overseas, they remained for some time 'a hidden dimension' in the history of the asylum in Australia and internationally.4 When historians did turn their gaze on the people who worked in asylums they, like many contemporaries, found them very much wanting. In Museums of Madness, his groundbreaking study of English asylums, Andrew Scull concluded that attendants were 'recruited from the dregs of society' and were 'men and women who, in return for long hours spent in close, defiling contact with the insane, received suitably low status and financial rewards,' a view other historians also shared.5 2
      Other scholars have since questioned this characterisation of asylum work and workers, suggesting that historians have been too quick to accept contemporary condemnations of attendants and their occupation.6 Detailed archival studies suggest that local circumstances, the wages and conditions of work in particular asylums, and the preferences of asylum officials influenced the character and calibre of asylum staff.7 Asylum work, these studies suggest, was not necessarily 'an occupation of last resort'8 and nor did all attendants conform 'to the image of the unskilled, insensitive, morally depraved drudge who figures so prominently in the asylum exposés of the period.'9 3
      The initial neglect of attendants in the history of the asylum is surprising, given the contemporary emphasis on their importance.10 In 1857, for example, Victoria's Chief Medical Officer declared that it was:

impossible to estimate too highly the good that results from the efforts of an intelligent and good-tempered attendant, who interests himself in the welfare of the lunatics, and exerts himself to amuse them. It is in this respect, more than any other, that the immense improvement which has taken place in the treatment of lunatics in Europe is manifest and it is principally through the means of intelligent attendants that a moral control is obtained over the lunatics, which does away in a great measure with the necessity for physical restraint.11
Given their acknowledged significance, it is important to know more about attendants. Taking Victoria as a case study, this article asks who attendants were and why they may have chosen to do asylum work. Were attendants in Victoria 'the unemployed of other professions,' as one mad-doctor characterised attendants in Britain?12 Was the nature of asylum work such that only those who could find no other employment would consent to do it?		 4
      Victoria opened the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum, its first asylum for the insane, in October 1848.13 Three men and a single woman appeared in the original establishment as male and female 'keepers': George Fisher, William Bryan, and D.W. O'Donovan each received forty pounds per annum, Elizabeth Fisher twenty-five pounds.14 Surviving records reveal little more about these first asylum workers and not much more about the people employed in the two decades that followed, other than that attendants in these years came from the working classes and initially included some ex-convicts. 5
      The development of the asylum in Victoria replicated patterns elsewhere, with institutions for the insane rapidly increasing in size and number as the number of patients increased.15 In 1867 Victoria opened two new public asylums in the country towns of Ararat and Beechworth. A second metropolitan asylum followed four years later, located in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. In 1877 an asylum for 'idiots and imbeciles' was established in an industrial school in the town of Ballarat. Two years later, when the Industrial Schools Department reclaimed the buildings, the institution moved to Sunbury, northwest of Melbourne.16 The new asylums and continuing increase of patients saw the number of attendants increase significantly. Before the new institutions opened, asylum attendants numbered 51, comprised of 34 men and 17 women.17 By 1885, 270 attendants—154 men and 116 women—worked in the colony's five asylums.18 6
      Men and women were typically recruited to the asylums in their twenties and thirties; the median appointment age of attendants working in the asylums on 30 January 1885 was twenty-seven, with little difference between the sexes or the various institutions (the median for men was also twenty-seven and for women twenty-six. It was highest at the Yarra Bend, the oldest of Victoria's asylums and lowest at Sunbury, the newest).19 As historian John Walton noted of similar findings in his study of the Lancaster Asylum: 'It is difficult to imagine an age structure of this kind emerging spontaneously from the local labour market.' It is more likely, as Walton suggests was the case at Lancaster, that it reflected the influence on asylum managers of the ideas of such overseas experts as Dr John Conolly, who advocated that attendants should not be more than thirty years old, and preferably not more than twenty-five, at recruitment.20 For a few, like Ellen Murphy, who before her application to be an attendant in 1883 had been 'chiefly engaged in household and other duties,' asylum work may have been their first experience of paid employment.21 However, as the median suggests, for most people this was not the case.22 7
      Among women who sought asylum work between 1867 and 1883 and whose applications provide information about their previous employment, about a third had worked in domestic service, variously described as general servants, housekeepers, house and parlour maids, laundresses, cooks, and nurses in private families.23 In contrast, only one man gave domestic service as his prior occupation.24 While these proportions probably reflect the importance of domestic service as an occupation for women, asylum officials may have considered experience in service an advantage because much asylum work was, in fact, domestic in character. Attendants were responsible for the personal care of patients, assisting them to bathe and dress and supervising them at meals, and for the work that maintained their domestic world. Accordingly, attendants spent much of their day in a round of domestic chores: cleaning and airing wards, scouring dishes, scrubbing floors, washing windows, and so on.25 8
      Almost a quarter of applicants had worked in other types of institutions, including benevolent asylums, industrial schools, and prisons, or in what might be termed 'disciplinary' occupations.26 William French, for example, claimed that his long service in the Irish Constabulary, during which he came into contact with cases of lunacy 'in its most violent and uncontrollable forms,' made him 'useful and suitable' for the position of attendant.27 One or two applicants had worked as hospital nurses or wardsmen.28 Institutional experience was more common among women (a little less than a fifth of men compared to almost a third of women), perhaps reflecting women's concentration in a smaller range of occupations. Again, officials may have considered experience in such institutions desirable for the potential skills it developed in managing people. Managing patients was a significant element of asylum work. Regulations governing the institutions required attendants to:

endeavour to employ and amuse the patients as much as possible, to prevent violence; soothe the temper of such as are likely to be irritated; speak mildly, never in an angry tone; and if they have occasion to interfere, their manner should be gentle and calm, but determined, and without hurry.29
A testimonial from the matron of the Sunbury Industrial School on behalf of Mary Jane Wilson emphasised these kinds of abilities, declaring that she found Wilson 'valuable among these girls as she is very trustworthy, discreet and patient and able to teach each their work in all its branches.'30 More mundanely, people with such experience were already accustomed to the rules and routines of 'institutional life.'31		 9
      In the 1850s asylum advocates complained that none of the people willing to work as attendants was qualified to do so and furthermore, they failed to remain in asylum employment for more than a short time.32 One proposed solution was to procure experienced attendants from England, though there was some anxiety that wages in Victoria were 'perhaps too low to obtain first-class attendants from home, considering the inducements the colony holds out for skilled men to follow their own trade.'33 While attempts to recruit from home apparently met with little success,34 there were attendants in Victoria's asylums in the 1850s with considerable English experience. One, a Mrs Esther Gilbee, had been employed for nineteen years at a 'very large asylum for ladies' owned by the highly respected Dr Alexander Robert Sutherland, also the physician at London's St Luke's Hospital. She began work at the Yarra Bend in 1853 and stayed two-and-a-half years.35 Another, Samuel Wainwright, who worked at the Yarra Bend for six months in 1856, claimed ten years experience at the famous Bethlehem [sic] Asylum.36 10
      About a sixth of applicants between 1867 and 1883 had worked previously as attendants, among them people with considerable experience in asylums at 'home' and such applicants continued to be sought after. A Mr and Mrs Horne, for example, previously employed for three years at Picton Heath Asylum, were recommended 'for early appointment' by the inspector.37 The number of applicants with previous asylum experience was considerably higher among women: while about 8 percent of male applicants had previous asylum experience, almost three times as many women had worked in an asylum. Interestingly, after 1867 the majority of women had gained their experience in colonial institutions, predominantly in Victoria. While this may be a result of the development of colonial asylums, it also reflects men and women's different patterns of employment. Women tended to remain in asylum employment for shorter periods before resigning, so potentially creating a bigger pool of women with previous asylum experience. Some women did choose to return to asylum work.38 Bridget McNamara, who had worked at the Yarra Bend for six years before resigning to marry, sought reinstatement when the 'untimely death' of her police constable husband left her 'wholly unprovided for with an infant child.' Given her proven abilities and the 'exceptional' character of her situation, the inspector recommended her re-employment at her former salary.39 11
      Adding the number of applicants with previous asylum experience to those who had worked in other institutions produces a total that comprises roughly two-fifths of all applicants. More than a quarter of men fell into this category; among women, applicants with institutional experience represented slightly more than half. Moreover, about another 10 percent of applicants were already working in the asylums in other capacities, as carters, hall porters, messengers and laundresses. These figures suggest that a considerable number of attendants recruited to Victoria's asylums after 1867, particularly among women, had at least some prior experience of institutional work. They also suggest that asylum officials attempted, with some success, to recruit individuals whose previous experience and skills suited asylum employment. While the chief secretary held the formal power of appointment as ministerial head of the department, in practice asylum officials assessed candidates for fitness. So, for example, a notation in the correspondence relating to Elizabeth Toomar's 1873 application records that she was 'Referred to Dr Robertson for usual report.' Two days later, Robertson reported 'I have seen Elizabeth Toomar and consider her suitable for the position of warder.'40 12
      In June 1870 the inspector asserted the desirability of appointing men 'accustomed to outdoor employment such as gardening, farm labouring etc' to positions in the asylum;41 a little less than a fifth of male applicants fell into this category. Such men were useful in establishing asylum gardens and working on the institutions' farms and might supervise patients in these labours.42 Tradesmen comprised about another 10 percent of male applicants. In 1871, Dr Dick noted that a tailor 'would be a useful addition' to the Beechworth staff. Three years later, Kew's acting superintendent recommended that all future attendants appointed to Kew should be either musicians or 'tradesmen who could take the positions of Artizan Warders as Workshops not [sic] yet been erected.'43 Officials were quick to recommend or promote men and women with musical ability. In 1874, Inspector Paley recommended the permanent appointment of Richard Gales, a boot maker who was also 'a Violin player by profession[,] a member of the Musical Association and ... able to write and teach others to read the same.' Paley made the recommendation,

not because of his qualities as a tradesman but because his services are really necessary to strengthen the Asylum Band and to abolish the necessity of employing extra help on certain occasions when concerts and other amusements are provided for the patients.44
Annie Hughes was similarly employed because of her ability as a pianist and her willingness to 'assist either in amusing the patients or at Sunday Services in the choir.'45		 13
      Asylum officials also attempted to ensure that potential staff possessed the necessary qualities to restrain patients, both psychologically and physically, rejecting candidates who did not appear to have sufficient strength and 'presence' to do so.46 In recommending Catherine Downey for appointment in November 1869, for example, the inspector noted that she had 'good references, is able to read and write and is about 22 years of age.' He worried, however, that she was 'of short stature and does not appear to have much physical strength,' concluding that 'she might perhaps be appointed for a month on probation.'47 When Alice Phillips applied eleven years later, the medical officer judged her 'too young and not sufficiently robust' and advised her to apply again the following year.48 14
      Some applicants were certainly out of work when they sought employment in the asylums. For them, attending may well have been 'an occupation of last resort.' In 1869, domestic servant Catherine Strahan wrote to query the progress of her application, explaining that: 'Being out of a situation at present I am anxious to receive an answer and hope you will appoint me.' The testimonials of other applicants in service indicate employers leaving the colony.49 There was certainly desperation in Mary Kent's application:

I have heard there are at present two vacancies for attendants at the Asylum for Insane so as I am most anxious to obtain some employment in order to earn a living I thought of appealing to you Sir and soliciting your influence on my behalf. I am a young person solely dependent on my own exertions and should you consider my application you will confer a boon on one you will find much in need of it. I have been so frequently disappointed seeking situations that I feel often disposed to despond.50
Kent's letter was signed by an Isabella McGachie, the principal of a School for Young Ladies, suggesting that Kent may have been a young, middle-class woman fallen on hard times. Others, like Michael Magee, one of several 'reduced turnkeys' from the Beechworth Gaol, applied to the asylums when the institutions they worked in decreased their staff or were 'broken up.' Magee was the only one among his fellows willing to take a position as an attendant, the others preferring to wait on the chance of employment in other 'Gaol Establishments,' seemingly because the gaols paid better than the asylums.51 Similarly, several women applied to the asylums when the industrial schools they worked in closed or cut staff.52		 15
      However, while circumstance may have forced some individuals to apply for asylum work, others apparently sought it in preference to their current occupations. Margaret Collins applied from Beechworth in 1870, explaining that she was presently 'in a situation in a private family, but would prefer an appointment.'53 In 1873 William Clapperton was working in an industrial school in Sunbury but was keen to secure an asylum post. He had worked for some time at the Yarra Bend 'as a Supernumerary Warder, and gratuitously gave his Service for about three months in the hope of a Vacancy occurring which would admit' his appointment to the permanent staff.54 Those who sought promotion to the attendant staff from other posts within the asylums certainly seemed to consider attending a better option than their existing employments and must have had some sense of what it entailed. Asylum carter John Cassidy wrote in his application for promotion that he had 'observed the various duties that attendants have to perform in order to qualify myself for such employment besides I have been in charge of patients connected with the Farm Work.'55 16
      Most applicants were able to provide references from previous employers, clergy or other local worthies—bank managers, local councillors, and business owners—attesting to their respectability, sobriety, civility, and good conduct.56 While not always a guarantee of character, the ability to produce such testimonials suggests most applicants came from the ranks of ordinary working people rather than 'the lowest strata of society.'57 17
      The historians who concluded that attendants came 'from the dregs of society' did so partly based on their assumptions about the nature of asylum work as 'an occupation of last resort.' Asylum employment certainly did have its drawbacks. In 1860, the surgeon-superintendent of the Yarra Bend, Dr Robert Bowie, conceded that the life of the attendants was 'a very hard one.'58 The responsibility of ensuring the 'safe custody and proper treatment' of the insane required attendants to spend long hours within the institutions' walls, watching over often-disturbed people.59 Attendants routinely worked twelve- to fourteen-hour days for much of the century60 and ratios of one attendant to ten or twelve patients were common and might at times be higher.61 Moreover, attendants risked potential injury if the physical restraint of 'violent or refractory' patients became necessary.62 18
      In the first fifteen years of the Yarra Bend's existence, the regulations governing the institution made no provision for routine leave; instead, leave was an 'indulgence' granted at the discretion of the superintendent.63 Initially wages were apparently lower than those paid to people in analogous occupations such as constables and turnkeys but in 1852, the male staff successfully petitioned for a substantial increase, using the shortage of male labour and high wages caused by the gold rush as leverage.64 19
      These conditions may explain the inability to retain staff in the 1850s. In 1857, contemporaries calculated the average length of employment of attendants for the preceding five years at roughly six months for men and nine months for women.65 Neither Esther Gilbee nor Samuel Wainwright, who had both worked for many years in English asylums, remained long at the Yarra Bend, perhaps confirming that asylum wages in Victoria were too low to retain experienced attendants from England (although Gilbee's two-and-a-half years at the Yarra Bend was well above the average). 20
      Conditions gradually improved, however. In 1857, in response to the difficulty of retaining staff, the government adopted a scheme intended, in the words of the chief medical officer, Dr McCrea, 'to add to the permanency of their situations in the asylum,' introducing an incremental wage scale in which attendant men's pay commenced at £85 per annum and gradually increased to a maximum of £120. Women's wages began at £36 and increased to £50 per year. McCrea believed the new wage scale formed 'an inducement to them to stop [stay],' adding that 'if there were promised, in addition to that, some thing on retirement, to those people who should be brought from home, I think that would be effectual.'66 After 1863, leave was gradually liberalised, with attendants granted at least some regular time away from the institution.67 21
      In 1867 a new Lunacy Statute made provision for superannuation, prescribing that attendants retire at age sixty on an annual pension calculated as a fraction of their 'average remuneration' multiplied by their years of service.68 It also provided gratuities for retirement through incapacity. Should the attendant die before the gratuity was paid, the act allowed discretionary payment to the attendant's widow, children or 'other relations.'69 In 1871, attendant John Fitzgerald benefited from this condition, receiving a gratuity of approximately £90 after he was forced to retire due to ill health. Fitzgerald had earlier taken advantage of the sick leave allowed to attendants, the amount of salary payable at the chief secretary's discretion.70 22
      All these changes likely increased the appeal of asylum employment for many nineteenth-century workers, particularly those accustomed to the uncertainties of seasonal or casual work. The Inspector of Asylums, Dr Paley, perhaps summarised the attractions of asylum work best in 1883. 'Asylum employment,' he explained,

is constant with good behaviour. The male warders have hitherto been paid at the rate of from £52 to £120 a year. The salaries of the women warders commence at £26 and reaching [sic] £50. Beyond the salaries Warders are provided with good quarters, rations, fuel, light, washing and medical attention, advantages which might fairly be valued at £1 a week. In the case of illness or injuries they have sick leave and gratuities and after they obtain the age of sixty years they retire upon a pension.... A working man in this colony, the class from which our Warders are mainly drawn, get, say £2 a week, and his employment is uncertain. His wages are stationary and he has no reserve to fall back on in the event of sickness or broken time.71
Paley added that 'asylum appointments at this minimum salary are eagerly sought for by numerous applicants. Instances have occurred where men getting £2 a week have gladly entered the asylum service at minimum pay.' Surviving correspondence confirms that the steady nature of asylum employment did attract some people. In 1874 farm worker John Moore sought to expedite a promised appointment, explaining that he was in need of it because he had a family to support and was 'not in a permanent billet.'72 Eight years later, another John Fitzgerald explained that he was unable to get 'regular work' despite his best efforts and had an invalid father depending on him.73 Domestic servant Julia Murphy sought an asylum post so that she might help her widowed sister's 'little family.' She could not do so, she wrote, 'while I change from place to place.'74		 23
      Changes to the conditions of asylum work could make it less attractive, however. An 1869 decision to lower the minimum wage for women attendants from £36 to £26, for example, saw the number of women applying for asylum work plummet and vacancies go unfilled.75 Alice Mayhew refused an attendant's appointment at Beechworth because she had been 'given to understand the salary was much higher.'76 The inspector reported that several other women declined positions in 'the Country Asylums ... on similar grounds' and recommended the reinstatement of the £36 minimum wage, to bring asylum wages into line with those of domestic servants in the country districts, which ranged 'from £30 to £40 per annum.'77 The government accepted his advice and the crisis gradually eased over the next two years. 24
      Historian David Wright concluded from his study of male attendants at two English asylums that attendants were 'ordinary Victorians making occupational choices based on rational decision making of the available alternatives.'78 The response to the reduction in the women's minimum wage suggests that many people who sought work in Victoria's asylums also did so quite rationally, based on the options available to them, rather than because they had no alternative. Some applications make this kind of decision making quite clear. John McRae, for example, had worked as a wardsman at the Ararat Hospital for two years before applying to the Asylum in 1873. The Hospital's resident surgeon attested that McRae was 'very attentive and kind to patients under his charge and never fails to carry out intelligently any instructions he receives.' He was 'sorry to lose his services' but was resigned to do so because 'the Asylum appointment is a better paid one than he at present holds.'79 The crash in applications following the reduction in the women's wage seems to confirm the conclusion of other historians that local labour conditions partly dictated who was available to work in the asylums.80 25
      Not all applicants sought work in the asylums for economic reasons, however. Maintaining family and other relationships motivated some people to seek employment. Mary Jane Lindsay wanted an appointment 'very much because her brother' had applied for an asylum position while Johanna O'Neill desired fervently to 'get with Miss Young who is almost a stranger here,' having nursed with her at the Alfred Hospital.81 Minnie O'Connor sought a post at Kew, explaining that 'having a sister there as Warderess for the last six or seven years I would deem it a great favor [sic] if you would accede to my request as I am anxious to be with my sister.'82 Charles Phillips, an attendant at Beechworth, sought a similar situation for his daughter.83 26
      Similarly, women like Margaret Collins, who preferred attending to domestic service, may have done so for social reasons. While attendants, like servants, spent much of their day occupied in domestic chores, asylum work may have offered women attendants more status and independence than service in a private household.84 In 1876, John Stanley James, a journalist who wrote under the nom de plume of The Vagabond, took employment as an attendant at Kew Asylum, subsequently publishing an account of his experiences. He concluded that the appeal of the occupation for the institution's women attendants was not the £26 minimum salary:

The great attraction of the post is that they can always obtain a day, and often a night, off in the week. They are 'young ladies,' and not servants, and are accosted with the title 'Miss.' When they come into town, they enjoy themselves at the theatres &c.; and should any 'gentleman friend' find out a connection with Kew, the young lady claims to be either the matron or the teacher.85
Despite the mocking tone, his observations suggest that such social freedoms may have made asylum employment more attractive to some women than service, despite the possible stigma he suggests was also associated with it. Certainly, it seems that once employed in the asylums, women felt no desire to enter or return to domestic service. In 1873 the inspector told a royal commission enquiring into the public service that despite the women's minimum wage being lower than that paid to servants they 'never leave the asylum to go back to domestic service.' Margaret Boland, representing the women attendants before the commission, testified that while a few women had left the asylum many continued in employment for long periods: 'some of them have been seventeen or eighteen years. I know of one there sixteen years.' Women transferred to the country asylums, she said, for the higher wages, but she had known only one woman to leave the asylum to enter domestic service and 'she was at the asylum only a few days.' Boland did not think she could 'better' herself outside the asylum. She could not 'get £50 a year in domestic service': 'I would have to wait some time for it.'86		 27
      As Margaret Boland's evidence suggests, the incremental wage did encourage people to continue in the occupation. In the decades following its introduction, there was a gradual increase in the time men and women spent in asylum employment. Where the median length of service was measured in mere months in the 1850s, by 1886 it had increased to 10.4 years for men and 5.25 for women.87 The incremental wage encouraged attendants to remain by rewarding long service and was certainly valued by them: when changes to the structure of the staff threatened to slow or stop their increments in the 1870s, male attendants were quick to protest, declaring the alteration would 'prevent many of them from rising to the position they anticipated by virtue of long service.'88 The creation of the post of head warder in 1863 created a career structure for men,89 while the position of matron offered similar opportunities for women. By the 1880s, there were men in the asylums, such as the Yarra Bend's head warder, John Cane, with a quarter of a century's service.90 28
      For some asylum workers, then, attending became their life's work and one in which they took considerable pride. One man for whom attending became a career was Henry Richard Rae. Rae immigrated to the colony in the early 1850s and worked for two years as a teacher before engaging as an attendant in 1857. He continued to work in the asylums until at least 1871, rising to the position of head warder at the Collingwood Lunatic Asylum.91 Rae clearly valued the reputation of his occupation. When the Argus newspaper published the highly critical comments about the Yarra Bend attendants in the chief medical officer's annual report in July 1860, he was quick to respond, immediately writing a letter to the newspaper's editor in which he strenuously objected to the remarks.92 Twenty-five years later, the male attendants at Kew took similar exception when reports of Tucker's allegations before the royal commission appeared in the press, holding an 'indignation meeting' and sending a telegram to the chief secretary in which they declared Tucker's remarks 'false and slanderous.' Once before the commission, their representatives objected vigorously to the 'vague charges continually made against the general body of warders through the press, as to their inefficiency, cruelty &c.'93 29
      When historians first came to consider who attendants were, they concluded from contemporary accounts that they were 'recruited from the lowest strata of society.'94 If asylum workers were, in fact, often 'respectable' working people in search of secure employment, as the evidence suggests, why did contemporaries persist in portraying attendants so negatively? In Victoria, negative characterisations of asylum workers were often made during hearings and in the subsequent reports of public inquiries, which were then published in the press, as were Tucker's remarks to the royal commission in 1885. Such inquiries were often a response to allegations of mistreatment or public disquiet about the poor condition of the asylums. In the subsequent search for answers, attendants could provide a convenient scapegoat for any perceived deficiencies in or failures of care. Perhaps paradoxically, the contemporary emphasis on the importance of the 'good' attendant meant that it made sense to attribute any shortfalls to actual asylum workers.95 30
      Attendants were not the only institutional workers in Victoria to draw such condemnation. In 1876, for example, the sensationalist newspaper Police News reported on allegations of 'cruelties practised on lunatics' at an inquiry into the management of the Kew Asylum. Such abuses, it declared, were likely to occur wherever 'the hapless inmates are also helpless.' Indeed, it suggested that 'equal, if not greater atrocities, are perpetrated upon unfortunate prisoners.'96 To find that attendants were often respectable, working people who sought employment in the colony's asylums because of the benefits it offered is not to discount that there was some foundation to such depictions and that those same men and women were at times neglectful of or violent toward the patients in their care. However, it does rule out resort to explanations that rely on simple stereotypes to explain that behaviour. 31
      While asylum work in Victoria was not without its drawbacks, it was steady, year-round employment that rewarded constant service, as well as providing benefits such as board and lodging, and some protection against age and incapacity. For many nineteenth-century workers these were significant advantages. The men and women who sought work in the asylums did so for a range of reasons, among them the desire to improve their economic situation, maintain family or other relationships, or because asylum work offered more independence than the available alternatives. While some people seemed to have few options, others appeared to find asylum work more congenial than their present situations. Many attendants, particularly among women, possessed useful skills and experience in other institutions. Moreover, because the wage structure encouraged long service, attendants became increasingly experienced over time. For some, attending was their life's work and an occupation whose public reputation they felt was worth defending. Their influence on the institution of the asylum and the relations within it deserve further consideration.

La Trobe University / University of Melbourne
 32


Notes

*  This article draws from Lee-Ann Monk, Attending Madness: At Work in the Australian Colonial Asylum (Amsterdam–New York, NY: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008). With the kind permission of Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam. http://www.rodopi.nl.

1.  "Royal Commission on Asylums for the Insane and Inebriate," Papers Presented to Parliament, Victorian Parliament, vol. 2, 1886 (hereafter Royal Commission, 1884–6), Minutes of Evidence, Q.10831–43, 464; Q.10850, 465; Q.10856–8, 466–7; Q.10860, 467.

2.  "Report from the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum, together with Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Appendix, 1852," Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Victorian Parliament, vol. 2, 1852–3, Report, iii–vi.

3.  For example "Report from the Select Committee upon the Lunatic Asylum, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Appendices," Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, Victorian Parliament, vol. 1, 1857–8 (hereafter Yarra Bend Inquiry 1857–8), Minutes of Evidence, passim; "Report from the Board Appointed to Inquire into Matters Relating to the Kew Lunatic Asylum, together with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix," Parliamentary Papers, Victorian Parliament, vol. 3, 1876, Report, 65–8, 86–90, passim.

4.  Anne Digby, Madness, Morality and Medicine: A Study of the York Retreat, 1796–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 140; Stephen Garton, "Asylum Histories: Reconsidering Australia's Lunatic Past," in "Madness" in Australia: Histories, Heritage and the Asylum, edited by Catharine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2003), 21; Leonard D. Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody": Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England (London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1999), 131.

5.  Andrew Scull, Museums of Madness: The Social Organization of Insanity in Nineteenth-century England (London: Allen Lane, 1979) 182, 183. Scull held to this conclusion in the revision of his book The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain 1700–1900 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993) 263, 264. Other scholars who came to similar conclusions about the generally low calibre of attendants include Mick Carpenter, "Asylum Nursing Before 1914: A Chapter in the History of Labour," in Rewriting Nursing History, edited by Celia Davies (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 132–5; D.J. Mellett, The Prerogative of Asylumdom: Social, Cultural and Administrative Aspects of the Institutional Treatment of the Insane in Nineteenth-Century Britain (New York: Garland 1982), 42–3; Robert Dingwall, Anne Marie Rafferty, and Charles Webster, An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing (London: Routledge, 1988), 127; Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, Moments of Unreason: The Practice of Canadian Psychiatry and the Homewood Retreat, 1883–1923 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1989), 107–12; Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830–1980 (London: Virago, 1991), 103; Kathleen Jones, Asylums and After: A Revised History of the Mental Health Services from the Early 18th Century to the 1990s (London: Athlone Press, 1993), 70, 96–7, 101, 118–19; Peter Nolan, A History of Mental Health Nursing (Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes, 1998), 47–8.

6.  David Wright, "The Dregs of Society? Occupational Patterns of Male Asylum Attendants in Victorian England," International History of Nursing Journal 1, no. 4 (Summer 1996), 5–8.

7.  David Wright, "Asylum Nursing and Institutional Service: A Case Study of the South of England, 1861–1881," Nursing History Review 7 (1999): 154; Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 133. Examples of studies which draw such conclusions include John Walton, "The Treatment of Pauper Lunatics in England: The Case of Lancaster Asylum, 1816–1870," in Madhouses, Mad-doctors and Madmen, edited by Andrew Scull (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 169–70, 179–82, 190–1; Digby, 140–56; Nancy Tomes, A Generous Confidence: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the Art of Asylum Keeping, 1840–1883 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 181–3; N. Hervey, "A Slavish Bowing Down: The Lunacy Commission and the Psychiatric Profession 1845–60," in The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry: Vol. II: Institutions and Society, edited by W.F. Bynum, Roy Porter, and Michael Shepherd (London: Tavistock, 1985), 111–12; L.D. Smith, "Behind Closed Doors: Lunatic Asylum Keepers, 1800–1860," Social History of Medicine 1, no. 3 (December 1988): 302–12; Evelyn A. Shlomowitz, "Nurses and Attendants in South Australian Lunatic Asylums, 1858–1884," Australian Social Work 47, no. 4 (December 1994): 46; James E. Moran, "The Keepers of the Insane: The Role of Attendants at the Toronto Provincial Asylum 1875–1905," Histoire Sociale/Social History XXVII, no. 55 (May 1995): 59–61; Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 133–5, 143–4; Lee-Ann Monk, Attending Madness: At Work in the Australian Colonial Asylum (Amsterdam – New York, NY: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008).

8.  Carpenter, quoted in Wright, "Dregs of Society?", 7.

9.  Tomes, 182–3.

10.  Wright, "Dregs of Society?", 6.

11.  "The Lunatic Asylum," Argus (Melbourne), 21 March 1857, 4–5.

12.  W.A.F. Browne, What Asylums Were, Are and Ought to Be in The Asylum as Utopia: W.A.F. Browne and the Mid–Nineteenth Century Consolidation of Psychiatry, edited by Andrew Scull (London and New York: Tavistock/Routledge, 1991), 150–1.

13.  "The Lunatics," Argus (Melbourne), 6 October 1848, 2.

14.  Letter, PROV (Public Records Office Victoria), VA 473 Superintendent, Port Phillip District, VPRS 19 Inward Registered Correspondence, Unit 109, File 48/1780, 8 August 1848.

15.  David Wright, "Getting Out of the Asylum: Understanding the Confinement of the Insane in the Nineteenth Century," Social History of Medicine 10, no. 1 (1997): 1–2; C.R.D. Brothers, Early Victorian Psychiatry, 1835–1905: An Account of the Care of the Mentally Ill in Victoria (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1961), passim.

16.  Charles Fox, "'Forehead Low, Aspect Idiotic': Intellectual Disability in Victorian Asylums, 1870–1887," in Coleborne and MacKinnon, 146; Brothers, 85–90, 97–8.

17.  Analysis of PROV, VA 2863 Hospitals for the Insane Branch, VPRS 7519 Staff Registers, Unit 1, 1864–1887.

18.  "Return" in supplement to Victoria Government Gazette of 30 January 1885, no 12, Victoria Government Gazette, 31 January 1885, 383–5.

19. Ibid.

20.  Walton, 181–2; John Conolly, The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane, with an introduction by Richard Hunter and Ida MacAlpine (1847; London, Dawsons, 1968), 110–11; Yarra Bend Inquiry, 1857–8, Minutes of Evidence, Q.728–30, 30.

21.  Papers relating to the appointment and resignation of Ellen Murphy, PROV, VA 475 Chief Secretary's Department, VPRS 3991 Inward Registered Correspondence II, Unit 1421, File 83/Z20862, 7 February 1883; see also papers relating to the appointment of Mary King, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1336, File 80/R10753.

22.  The following analysis of prior occupational experience is based on surviving applications for asylum employment between 1867 and 1883. I have counted only applications that provide detail of previous employment.

23.  Letter, Catherine Strahan, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 415, File 69/J7261, 28 July 1869; testimonial, Margaret Strahan, Unit 477, File 70/V1763, 14 February 1870, and letter, Margaret Collins, File 70/W2607, 7 February 1870; application and testimonials, Mary Fox, Unit 612, File 72/B468, 29 June 1871; testimonials, Ellen Lynn and testimonials, Mary Holland, Unit 677, File 73/C2268, n.d.; application and testimonials, Elizabeth McGuigan, Unit 679, File 73/D7227, 16 September 1872; testimonial, Mary Ahern, Unit 681, File 73/C9304, 29 March 1873; application and testimonials, Honora Carroll, Unit 684, File 73/C15345, November 1873; letter and testimonials, Ellen Conolly, Unit 756, File 74/E10920, n.d.; letter, Julia Murphy, Unit 757, File 74/F11498, 28 March 1874; testimonials, Bessie Riordan, Unit 888, File 76/K3678, n.d.; testimonial, Margaret Kenny, Unit 1242, File 81/V5151, n.d.; letter, Kate O'Brien, Unit 1428, File 83/Y2508, n.d.

24.  Testimonials, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 547, File 71/Z10226, 16 August 1858, January and May 1861, June 1869.

25.  Regulations for the Guidance of the Officers, Attendants and Servants of the Lunatic Asylum Port Phillip, PROV, VPRS 19, Unit 130, File 50/77, "The Attendants," n.p. and "The Patients," n.p.; Hospitals for the Insane: Regulations, Regulations for the Guidance of Attendants in the Asylums for the Insane, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 752, File 72/E2729, clauses 28, 30, 32, 33, 6–7.

26.  Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 135.

27.  Letter, William French, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 677, File 73/D2726, 20 October 1869.

28.  Papers relating to appointments including Johanna O'Neill, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 677, File 73/C2268; testimonials for John McRae, Unit 682, File 73/D12497, 29 April 1873; letter, Unit 1239, File 81/U1566, n.d.

29.  Regulations for the Guidance of Attendants in the Asylums for the Insane, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 752, File 72/E2729, clause 13, 6.

30.  Testimonial, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 751, File 74/C1390, n.d.

31.  Wright, "Asylum Nursing and Institutional Service," 160.

32.  Yarra Bend Inquiry 1857–8, Minutes of Evidence, Q.991–3, Q.985–86, 40; "The Lunatic Asylum," Argus (Melbourne), 21 March 1857, 4–5.

33.  Yarra Bend Inquiry 1857–8, Q.154, 7, Q.189, 8, Q.989, 40.

34. Ibid., Q.133–7, 6.

35. Ibid., Q.1732–6, 63–4. She explained that 'The present Dr Sutherland is the son of the one I first served' and the dates indicate that she worked first under Dr Alexander Robert Sutherland. His son was Dr Alexander John Sutherland, who succeeded his father at St Luke's in 1841; Victoria Salaries. Abstracts and Acquittances of the Individuals Employed at the Lunatic Asylum Yarra Bend, PROV, VA 856 Colonial Secretary's Office, VPRS 1189 Inward Registered Correspondence 1, Unit 132, File 53/12106 (folder "Surgeon-Superintendent Yarra Bend"), 31 October 1853.

36.  "Progress Report from the Select Committee upon the Lunatic Asylum, together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendices," Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, Victorian Parliament, vol. 2, 1860–1 (hereafter Yarra Bend Inquiry 1859–61; there are two sets of Minutes attached to this Report and each is paginated separately; they are differentiated here as Appendix C and Minutes of Evidence, 1860–1), Appendix C: Evidence from the Select Committees on the Lunatic Asylum during sessions 1858–9 and 1859–60, Q. 1104–6, 45 and Q.1197, 48.

37.  Testimonials and letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1239, File 81/U1566, 12 January 1880; for other applicants with asylum experience see letter, Unit 612, File 72/B468, 25 May 1871; testimonials Adam McKay, Unit 614, File 72/B6191, 5 May 1854; letter, Unit 1431, File 83/Z10159, n.d..

38.  Men and women's different patterns of work are reflected in their length of service. An analysis of Staff Register, PROV, VPRS 7519, Unit 1, 1864–1887 shows that by 1886 the median length of service was 10.4 years for men and 5.25 for women.

39.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 549, File 71/Y15598, 14 November 1871; see also papers relating to the appointment of Mary McCarthy, Unit 683, File 73/C14021, 28 October 1870; letter, Unit 1240, File 81/V2254; papers relating to the appointment of Mary Jane Hopper, Unit 1346, File 82/W11494; papers re Catherine Turner's reappointment, Unit 1420, File 83/Y86, 3 January 1883; letter, Unit 1421, File, 83/Z1776, n.d..

40.  Papers relating to the appointment of female attendant Elizabeth Toomar, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 680, File 73/C[?]8747. An official proforma attached to PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1239, File 81/U1566, sent to all applicants explained that if they desired to have their applications 'further entertained' they were to call on a nominated official, who would 'report as to your fitness.'

41.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 480, File 70/U6424, 6 June 1870.

42.  Letters, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 614, File 72/B6191, 4 September 1871 and 7 December 1871.

43.  Papers relating to the appointment of W. Schlechtweg, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 547, File 71/Z10226; letter, Unit 757, File 74/E10975, 28 April 1874.

44.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 757, File 74/E12013, 21 September 1874 and application, 8 June 1874; letter, Robertson, Unit 613, 72/A4452, 21 November 1871; Papers relating to the appointment of John Dougherty, letter, Unit 757, File 74/E10974, May 1874; letter, Robertson, Unit 757, File 74/E10975, 28 April 1874.

45.  Letter, Robertson, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 681, File 73/D9996, 2 August 1873.

46.  Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 137.

47.  Notation, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 477, File 70/V399, 29 November 1869.

48.  Proforma, papers relating to the appointment of Alice Phillips, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1422, File 83/Y3612, 1 October 1980.

49.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 415, File 69/J7261, 7 August 1869.

50.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 888, File 76/K4110, n.d..

51.  File re employment of Michael Magee as an attendant, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 480, File 70/W6242, 3 May 1870. That the gaols paid better is suggested in Unit 612, File 72/B473, in which attendant Dowling applied to be reinstated as a turnkey in the Gaols Department because the wages were much higher.

52.  Papers relating to the appointment of Ellen Henry, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 683, File 73/D14661, 12 November 1873; papers relating to the appointment of Jane Matthews and Catherine Paterson, Unit 684, File 73/D15653, 2 December 1873; papers relating to the appointment of Mary Barrett, Unit 751, File 75/C516 and letter, File 74/[?]1390, 19 January 1874; letter, Unit 753, File 74/E3563, 10 December 1873.

53.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 477, File 70/W2607, 7 February 1870.

54.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 676, File 73/C317, 7 January 1873.

55.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 614, File 72/B6191, 4 September 1871; see also letter from Timothy Coakley, Unit 612, File 72/A107, n.d..

56.  For example, testimonial, Mary Jane Lindsay, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 414, File 69/U1892, 21 February 1868; testimonial, Jane Beacon, Unit 477, File 70/V1760, n.d.; testimonials, Jane Miller, Unit 545, File 71/Z4167, 20 January 1871 and 4 April 1871; papers re appointments etc, Unit 612, File 72/B468; testimonials, Eliza Anne Doyle, Unit 679, File 73/D7028, 4 June 1873; letter, John Race, Unit 1238, File 81/U1271, n.d.

57.  Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 131.

58.  Yarra Bend Inquiry, 1859–61, Minutes of Evidence, 1860–1, Q.1631–3, 67.

59.  "Lunatic Asylum," Argus (Melbourne), 29 February 1848, 2; Smith, "Behind Closed Doors," 313.

60.  Regulations, PROV, VPRS 19, Unit 130, File 50/77, "The Patients", I and IV, n.p.; Regulations for the Guidance of Attendants in the Asylums for the Insane, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 752, File 74/E2729, clause 6, 6 and clause 34, 7; "The Vagabond" (John Stanley James), "Our Lunatic Asylums. Record of the Experiences of a Month in Kew and Yarra Bend," The Vagabond Papers: Sketches of Melbourne Life in Light and Shade, First Series (Melbourne: George Robertson, 1877), 82, 91.

61.  Yarra Bend Inquiry, 1857–8, Minutes of Evidence, Q.1520–2, 59; Q.1800–1, 66; "Vagabond", 115.

62.  Regulations, PROV, VPRS 19, Unit 130, File 50/77, "The Attendants", VIII, n.p.; Regulations for the Guidance of Attendants in the Asylums for the Insane, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 752, File 74/E2729, clause 13, 6; "Vagabond", 104–5, 142.

63.  Regulations, PROV, VPRS 19, Unit 130, File 50/77, "The Attendants", I and II, n.p..

64.  Petition, PROV, VPRS 1189, Unit 21, File 52/1981 (folder 7 "Lunatic Asylum: General Administration"), 7 June 1852.

65.  Yarra Bend Inquiry, 1857–8, Appendix E. "STATEMENT Showing the Average Period of Employment of Servants, at the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum, from the 1st January, 1853, to the 31st December, 1857."

66. Ibid., Minutes of Evidence, Q.989–95, 40.

67.  Regulations, Rules for Leave of Absence from Duty, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 613, File 72/B4783, 11 May 1863; petition, Unit 548, File 71/Y14222, November 1871; scale of leave attached to letter, Unit 82, File 85/D647, 20 January 1881.

68. Lunacy Statute 1867, sections 184 and 186; see also Inspector Lunatic Asylums forwarding Memorial from Attendants Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum on the Subject of their Superannuation Allowances, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 759, File 74/E15653, 16 December 1874.

69.  Lunacy Statute, section 185.

70.  Papers relating to the granting of a gratuity to attendant John Fitzgerald on his retirement from service, due to ill-health, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 547, File 71/Z10253, August 1871; Inspector Lunatic Asylums requesting authority to engage a temporary attendant in place of attendant Smith on sick leave, Unit 477, File 70/V27, 30 December 1869.

71.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1424, File 83/Y5557, 5 June 1883. See Jenny Lee and Charles Fahey, "A Boom for Whom? Some Developments in the Australian Labour Market, 1870–1891," Labour History, no. 50 (1986), 1–27.

72.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 758, File 74/E13367, 1 May 1874.

73.  Papers relating to the appointment of John Fitzgerald, VPRS 3991, Unit 1342, File 82/X7539, 12 August 1882.

74.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 757, File 74/F11498, 28 March 1874.

75.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 415, File 69/J7261, n.d.

76.  Letter (Mayhew), PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 479, File 70/W8437, 29 August 1869.

77.  Letter (Paley), PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 479, File 70/W8437, 26 August 1869.

78.  Wright, "Dregs of Society?", 17.

79.  Testimonials, John McRae, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 682, File 73/D12497, 29 April 1873.

80.  Walton, 180.

81.  Testimonial, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 414, File 69/U1892, 21 February 1868; Papers relating to appointments including Johanna O'Neill, Unit 677, File 73/C2268.

82.  Letter, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 1238, File 81/U1265, 20 March 1879.

83.  Letter, Unit 1422, File 83/Y3612, 23 May 1882.

84.  Keith McClelland, "Masculinity and the 'Representative Artisan' in Britain, 1850–1880," in Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, edited by Michael Roper and John Tosh (London: Routledge, 1991), 83.

85.  "The Vagabond," 158.

86.  "Report of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the State of the Public Service and Working of the Civil Service Act ... together with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices," Parliamentary Papers, Victorian Parliament, vol. 2, 1873, Minutes of Evidence, Q.941–46, 32; Q.9970–7, 362–3.

87.  Analysis of PROV, VPRS 7519 Staff Register, Unit 1, 1864–1887.

88.  Memorial, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 756, File 74/E9845, 7 July 1874.

89.  Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 144.

90.  "Return" in Supplement to the Victoria Government Gazette of 30 January 1885, no. 12, Victoria Government Gazette, 31 January 1885, 380.

91.  Application for post of Head Steward, PROV, VPRS 3991, Unit 546, File 71/Z8459, 18 October 1867. According to Brothers, 81–2, the government acquired the Collingwood Stockade in 1865 to help ease difficulties of accommodation at the Yarra Bend. It was subsequently renamed the Carlton Receiving House.

92.  Henry Richard Rae, "The Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum. To the Editor of the Argus," Argus (Melbourne), 17 July 1860, 6.

93.  Inspector Lunatic Asylums, telegram, PROV, VA 475 Chief Secretary's Department, VPRS 3992 Inward Registered Correspondence III, Unit 122, File 85/C8259, 12 August 1885; Royal Commission, 1884–6, Minutes of Evidence, Q.12585, 536–7.

94.  Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 131; Wright, "Dregs of Society?", 7–8.

95.  Richard Russell, "The Lunacy Profession and its Staff in the Second Half of the Nineteenth–Century with Special Reference to the West Riding Lunatic Asylum," in The Anatomy of Madness: Vol. III: The Asylum and its Psychiatry, edited by W.F. Bynum, Roy Porter, and Michael Shepherd (London: Routledge, 1988), 310–11; Smith, "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody," 132; Peter McCandless, "Curative Asylum, Custodial Hospital: The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum and State Hospital, 1828–1920," in The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800–1965, edited by Roy Porter and David Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 182.

96.  "The Kew Asylum Disclosures: Cruelties Practised on Lunatics," Police News, 18 March 1876, n.p.

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.

 



2009 Previous Table of Contents Next