The surrey county lunatic asylum-an overview of some of the first admissions in 1863-1867
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
In the 19th Century in much of Western Europe and North America the number and size of asylums increased hugely. In London, there was a wave of new asylums built in response to the 1808 County Asylums Act and the 1845 Lunacy Act, which required publicly funded care for those deemed mentally unwell. One such asylum was the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum which was built on the grounds which now house Springfield University Hospital in South West London.
This paper describes the admission records from Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, between 1863-1867, from information stored in the London Metropolitan Archives.
Although the terminology is different from that of today’s, the picture the records paint is of an institution aiming at recovery rather than long-term incarceration which can be how asylums are now remembered. This more nuanced view is starting to be discussed more in public conversations about the topic. The optimism this may imbue is tempered by the shocking number of patients who died within the institution.
Article Details
Copyright (c) 2022 Azeez R, et al.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Shorter E., A History of Psychiatry: from the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac. United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 1997
Rogers A., Pilgrim D., Mental Health Policy in Britain. Second Edition. Hampshire: Palgrave; 2001
Patch LI, The Surrey County Lunatic Asylum (Springfield): Early Years in the Development of an Institution. Bri J Psychiatry [Online]. 1991:159;69-77. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/159/1/69
Busfield J., The Female Malady? Men, Women and Madness in Nineteenth Century Britain. Sociology [Online] 1994:28;259-277. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42855327
https://files.digital.nhs.uk/00/66FBD2/ment-heal-act-stat-eng-2018-19-summ-rep.pdf
Hill SA, Laugharne R., Mania, dementia and melancholia in the 1870s: admissions to a Cornwall asylum. J Royal Society Med.[Online] 2003:96;361- 363. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539549/
horter history of psychiatry page 62
Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie in 1893.
Shorter E., A History of Psychiatry: from the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac. United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 1997
Wright D, Digby A, (ed), From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical perspectives on people with learning disabilities [Online] New York: Routledge; 1996. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UcBr3g6yniIC&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=from+idiocy+to+mental+deficiency&source=bl&ots=ihN6ByU_PR&sig=fUtEdGcJa1bR5LpiFC0EIvVWX0I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZwTvVPvUJdDraMHYgZgL&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBw-v=onepage&q#v=onepage&q=fromidiocytomentaldeficiency&f=false
Patch LI, The Surrey County Lunatic Asylum (Springfield): Early Years in the Development of an Institution. Bri J Psychiatry [Online] 1991;159;69-77. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/159/1/69
Shorter E. A History of Psychiatry: from the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac. United States: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 1997
Gross RA, A brief history of epilepsy and its therapy in the western hemisphere. Epilepsy research [Online] 1992;12:65-74. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/092012119290028R
Syphilis in the causation of insanity. British Medical Journal. [Online] 1914; 1(2773):434. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2300771/
Hill S. A., Laugharne R., Mania, dementia and melancholia in the 1870s: admissions to a Cornwall asylum. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2003:96;361- 363.
Wright D., Getting out of the Asylum: Understanding the Confinement of the Insane in the Nineteenth Century. The Society for the Social History of Medicine [Online] 1997; 10 (1): 137-155. http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/1/137.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
https://www.england.nhs.uk/urgent-emergency-care/reducing-length-of-stay/
Wise S., Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England. London: The Bodley Head; 2012
Wright D., Getting out of the Asylum: Understanding the Confinement of the Insane in the Nineteenth Century. The Society for the Social History of Medicine [Online] 1997; 10 (1): 137-155. http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/1/137.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
Springfield a short history. Patch, Ian Lodge; Springfield hospital. 1985. Available at heritage service and Putney library store.
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum