HISTORICAL records giving a fascinating insight into life in a 19th century mental hospital have been saved thanks to a £10,000 grant.
Patients’ casebooks from the former Roundway County Lunatic Asylum in Devizes, which date back to the Victorian era, reveal the extent to which society’s view of mental illness has changed in the last 100 years.
Many of the set of 40 casebooks were falling apart and archivists at the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office feared they could be lost to future generations.
But thanks to a grant of £10,000 made by the British Library and Wellcome Fund, these important documents can now be restored, allowing historians to unlock their secrets.
During the 19th century, people with learning difficulties, epileptics, women with illegitimate children and pensioners suffering from dementia were often incarcerated in asylums alongside patients with depression, schizophrenia and a range of other conditions.
Wiltshire’s county asylum, which opened in 1852, was later renamed the Roundway Hospital and continued to operate as a psychiatric unit right up until the mid-1990s, when part of the site was turned into housing.
John d’Arcy, principal archivist at Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this grant, which covers all the costs of conservation and will ensure these fascinating documents remain intact for the benefit of present and future generations.
“The casebooks are very special as they give a detailed and intimate description of the patients’ lives and medical histories. “Researchers and historians will be able to gain valuable insights into how the Victorians saw mental illness.
“Many of the patients treated at Roundway during the Victorian era would not be viewed as mentally ill today and no doubt the way society views mental illness will continue to change over the next 100 years.”
Asylums were notoriously harsh places during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most infamous was Bedlam, the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, which gained an unenviable reputation for the severity of its treatment of the mentally ill.
Public torture was commonplace at Bedlam and touring its crowded cells became a ghoulish, but fashionable pursuit among trendy Londoners.
Conditions in Wiltshire’s asylum at Roundway, which was opened for patients too poor to afford care in private hospitals, was better than many institutions during the 19th century and inspectors were generally impressed when they visited.
Patients elsewhere were not so lucky and, without the use of modern drugs, physical restraint using a variety of bizarre contraptions was widespread.
Inmates might be held in a ‘tranquillizer chair’, which employed a combination of straps, handcuffs and other restraints to ensure patients were kept subdued.
Treatments aimed at shocking patients out of their illnesses, such as the ‘plunge bath’, were also commonly used. Unsuspecting patients would be asked by staff to walk across the floor, which would then be opened underneath them, plunging them into a bath of icy water.
ENDS
CASE STUDIES
(1) John Farr, a young man of 22, survived for less than a month after being admitted to Roundway from the workhouse in Swindon on October 17, 1881, although what caused his death has not been recorded.
Doctors described his condition as “congenital idiocy”, referring to his occupation as “idiot”.
Medical staff described his behaviour with a mixture of fear and disgust. In their notes, they said: “He a day or two since threw a knife at the wards man. The patients in the ward are very much afraid of him. He tears all his clothes and is generally half naked. Disgusting in his behaviour in every way.”
Outlining his mental state, they added: “Congenital idiocy, having little power of thought or understanding. His habits are dirty and depraved, having no sense of proper decency.”
He died just three weeks later, on November 6.
(2) Dementia sufferer John Brewer, a widowed labourer from Devizes, was admitted on March 19, 1881 following a suicide attempt.
Staff at the asylum outlined Mr Brewer’s previous case history in their records. The entry reveals: “On the morning of the 19th, he attempted to strangle himself with his leather brace by making a slipknot and tying one end to the head of his bedstead.”
Medics diagnosed Mr Brewer with senile dementia, describing him as “Confused and irrational in his mind and appears to have but little thought or expression”.
He died from a brain haemorrhage the following January.
(3) Cloth mill worker Luke Farley, 53, from Chippenham, was admitted on November 25, 1881 after threatening to kill himself and his wife.
Doctors diagnosed him as suffering from “mania”. Their notes reveal: “He is restless and talkative. Converses in a rambling and childish manner without proper reflection. His demeanour is flighty and nervous and he passes sleepless nights. He is possessed of the delusion that he is instigated by unseen persons to acts of violence.”
He died a year later on December 25, 1882, from “epileptic convulsions”. |
You are here: Wiltshire Council > 
Back to top