Last
week, I gave a twenty minute presentation at the ‘Voices of Madness’ conference
at the University of Huddersfield for fellow academics, based on my PhD
research over the last few years on the Garlands Lunatic Asylum Carlisle.
The
first two examples I recounted were those transferred several times from the
family home to the asylum and back again. To begin with I told the story of
Jacob C, whom I have mentioned in my previous blog post, therefore I will not
repeat his story this time. Next, was Thomas S, who was admitted to Garlands by
his family when his condition became erratic and unmanageable; and was admitted
on seven separate occasions between 1878 and 1905.
His
intermittent bouts of insanity were caused by religious mania and the fact that
he was always deemed to be ‘weak-minded’.
His mother Ann was his main carer, as his father had died shortly after
Thomas was born in 1861. His siblings do not seemed to have been involved
either, as when Ann died in 1903 Thomas ended up in the workhouse shortly
before his final admission to Garlands. On his first admission on 8 June 1878,
Thomas was aged just 17, described as an errand boy who was smart and active
from Penrith. The trigger for his admission was his noisy and out-of-character
behaviour. He suddenly became very religious, and refused to sleep or eat. He
also began having fleeting delusions of a religious nature. It was these
delusions which were a common factor of his bouts of insanity on each occasion
he was admitted to the asylum. For instance, on his second visit in August 1889
he was described as thinking he was Christ; he had began preaching to the
neighbours; and he thought he was the saviour and was going to pull down the
walls. This behaviour clearly upset his mother enough to seek the assistance of
the asylum doctors, and on his third admission in 1895 she was noted as stating
that he was unmanageable and that she will not stay in the house alone with
him. On each of the seven occasions Thomas came to the Garlands Asylum, he was
discharged recovered back to the home he shared with his mother after three to
four months. His final admission however, in September 1905, lasted until his
death in the asylum on 28 November 1928.
| . |
As
well as the asylum, the workhouse remained an important receptacle for the care
of the mentally unsound, and provided those without any family support of their
own with a place of care. Similar to when in the family home, the trigger for a
patient’s removal to the asylum was the display of particularly unruly and
unmanageable behaviour in the wards of the workhouse. This transfer of care was
present in the next two examples. The first, Sarah M, was admitted to Garlands
in May 1890, aged 26, and was transferred directly from the workhouse at
Brampton.
She
was suffering from mania, and was becoming unmanageable due to her constant
delusions that her food had been poisoned. Sarah had been in the workhouse
since the death of her mother in 1884, who she had lived with and had been her
sole carer. Her father was described as having ‘a violent temper’ in her case
notes, and this seems to explain why in the 1871 and 1881 census’ her father
Patrick was not living with her and her mother Mary in the family home. Sarah
had two brothers and one sister living at the time of her first admission to
the Garlands, but they seemed to have distanced themselves from her and her
unruly behaviour, as the stigma of an insane relative was a great source of shame.[1]
Sarah remained in the Garlands for five years, during which time she showed no
signs of recovery. On 5 July 1895 she was deemed harmless enough to be
transferred back to Brampton workhouse to receive care in its infirmary. This
often happened when the asylum experienced periods of overcrowding, and to
relieve pressure those deemed ‘harmless’ to themselves and others were
transferred to workhouses to carry on their treatment. The effect of this shift
may have freed up spare beds in the asylum wards in the short-term, but in the
long-term it had a detrimental effect on the health of the transferred
patients. Sarah was returned back to Garlands in July 1897 for her obscene
behaviour, running about the wards with her ‘clothes tied up to her waist’.[2]
What is interesting to note in her case record from 1897, is that she is stated
to have no known relatives, whereas on her first admission in 1890 it mentioned
both her mother and her father. This suggests that her family further alienated
Sarah from their lives as the poor law authorities were not aware of her living
siblings; and we can firmly assume that they were not in contact with each
other through letters or visits. Her second stay in the Garlands did not last
as long as her first, as she was again discharged back to the care of Brampton
Workhouse on 25 Aug 1898. This time Sarah remained in the workhouse for a
substantially longer period, but still suffering from the mania she was first
troubled with in 1889. On 27 January 1913 Sarah was admitted to Garlands for
the final time, once again being transferred from Brampton workhouse, aged 50.
She was to remain in the asylum until her death in 1930. Sarah’s case is not
unique, it is one of many I have come across which portray the transitory
nature of asylum provision in the latter half of the nineteenth century. We can
never know for sure if Sarah’s condition was curable had she remained in the
care of the asylum for a longer, sustained period, rather than being
continually transferred to and from the workhouse. Sarah even came to prefer
the asylum to her life on the outside, as stated in her case notes in October
1891; ‘[she] has no interest in her former life, [and is] contented and happy
to remain here’.[3]
Thus, the asylum provided a familial context to those who otherwise lacked this
supportive framework.
The final example is Matthew G,
admitted to Garlands for the first time on 20 September 1901, aged 66.
He
was transferred from Fusehill workhouse in Carlisle to the asylum, where he had
been suffering with mania for six weeks. Like Sarah, Matthew was listed as
having no known relatives, and he was noted as being single. However, Matthew
offers us a somewhat different set of circumstances, as he migrated to Carlisle
from Ireland where he was born. Irish migrants posed a problem for poor law
authorities in this period. Migrants who had settled in a county were not
liable to be paid for by the authorities of the poor law unions in which they
now resided. The cost of maintenance of a pauper in either the workhouse or the
asylum whilst receiving treatment for their mental affliction was paid for by
the poor law union from which they were born. In the case of a patient who was
born in Ireland, such as Matthew, the costs for their care and maintenance
could not be recovered from their home country, as they had a different system
of relief. ‘Alien patients’, as such cases came to be known as, were viewed
with contempt as they became a burden on the poor law rates. The close
proximity of the Garlands Asylum to Ireland, and the attraction of casual
labourers to the coastal towns of Cumberland, meant that the ‘problem’ of alien
patients was a persistent one during this period. A high number had migrated to
England to escape the famine of the late 1840s and since then had been employed
in seasonal, low-skilled jobs, finding it hard to support themselves and their
families. In the 1889 Garlands annual report Dr Campbell, the medical
superintendent, explained the problem of alien patients in monetary terms:
…up to the end
of 1889…£15,761 has been expended here on Irish and Scotch patients who had no
settlement in England…the Irish lunatic is more noisy, dirty, troublesome, and
quarrelsome than the English or Scotch, he is more treacherous, and owing to
this, more dangerous, and the more miserable his previous outside surroundings
were the more critical and complaining is he about the food, clothing and
bedding in the asylum…[4]
Matthew
was viewed as a typical ‘alien’ patient and it is clear that with no family of
his own he came to rely on the workhouse and the asylum when his health began
to deteriorate towards the end of his life. Matthew was in the Garlands on two
separate occasions, being discharged unrecovered back to Fusehill workhouse in
the interim. On his second admission in October 1902 it was stated that in
addition to his failing memory, he had become violent, had struck other
inmates, and began experiencing delusions that there was a conspiracy against
him. He continued his abusive behaviour in Garlands, and seemed to live up to
the perceived reputation of the typical Irish lunatic. In his case notes
throughout his second bout of treatment he was repeatedly described as
‘quarrelsome’, and received several bruises through fighting with other
inmates. Matthew died in Garlands in November 1904, aged 69, of tuberculosis
with no listed next of kin. From the cases of Sarah and Matthew, it is evident
that those who lacked a family support came to rely on the poor law authorities
for help, and remained life-long receivers of its provision, albeit in a number
of different institutions, and for a number of different reasons.
These
are just a small number of cases which I have come across in my PhD research
into the Garlands Lunatic Asylum, Carlisle, which portray the transitory nature
of mental health care in the latter half of the nineteenth century. My PhD aims
to tell as many stories of the patients who underwent treatment at the Garlands
during the latter half of the nineteenth-century. Please feel free to contact
me (caradobbing@gmail.com) if you require assistance in finding your ancestors
who were in the Garlands during this period, or if you have any interesting
family tales.
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