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Madhouse Entrepreneurs

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Private Madhouses in England, 1640–1815

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective ((MHHP))

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Abstract

Here, Smith considers the business aspects of madhouse proprietorship and the measures that contributed towards individuals achieving success in an increasingly competitive market. Proprietors competed on levels of charges, connected to the nature of service provided and the social class related expectations of their patients. They would highlight their houses’ particular attributes, in regard to location, facilities, comfort and treatment orientation. It is shown that a majority of provincial madhouse proprietors were medical men, whilst in London lay men and women predominated. Smith concludes that, whether they were professionally qualified or otherwise, favourable business outcomes were linked to factors like family connections, inheritance, communication skills and most particularly to the construction of a favourable reputation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Roy Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency (London: Athlone, 1987), pp. 164–6; Charlotte MacKenzie, Psychiatry for the Rich: A History of Ticehurst Private Asylum (London and New York, 1992; 2013 edition), pp. 1–2, 7–23; Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull, Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England (University of California Press, Berkeley and London, 2001), pp. 145–60.

  2. 2.

    Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine, Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry 1535–1860 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 105. This and all subsequent calculations are taken from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 18/12/19.

  3. 3.

    J.M. Blatchly, ‘John Ashburne (1607–1661), Church of England Clergyman and Madhouse Keeper’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/view/article/74381, accessed 7/12/18.

  4. 4.

    William G. Hall (ed.), ‘The Casebook of John Westover of Wedmore, Surgeon, 1686–1700’ (1999; unpublished, copy in Wellcome Library, London), Introduction, i, ix, 1 October 1686, 6 December 1698; S.H.A. Hervey, The Wedmore Chronicle, Vol. 2, 1888 to 1898 (Wedmore: W. Pole, 1898), pp. 90–1.

  5. 5.

    Hall, ‘The Casebook of John Westover’, 1 April 1692, 20 March 1694, 8 July 1699.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., 20 December 1691, 18 December 1694. In July 1692, Westover received eight bushels of malt in part payment for ‘tabling’ John Edwards. In February 1697 he received ‘fower hundred of Chease’ towards ‘the half yeares tabling’ of Edwards.

  7. 7.

    National Archives (TNA), C 217/55/1/32, 24 August 1720, Affidavit of Priscilla Shotgrave.

  8. 8.

    R.A. Houston, ‘Institutional Care of the Insane and Idiots in Scotland Before 1820’, Part 2, History of Psychiatry 12 (2), 2001, 177–97 (p. 180). In 1754, Elianor Wright sued Bailie’s nephew for the recovery of £881, which had remained unpaid. He claimed that his uncle had been grossly overcharged and even that he died two years earlier than stated by the Wrights.

  9. 9.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 363; TNA, C 211/9/F21, 18 March 1740.

  10. 10.

    Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, D LONS L 4/4/4, 11 August 1750. James Monro was the physician receiving the fees.

  11. 11.

    Berkshire Record Office, D/EX/266/2/2, pp. 16–17.

  12. 12.

    Richard Russel, A Letter to Mr Thomas Bigg, Late Surgeon of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Occasioned by his Having Written a Defamatory Letter to Dr Addington Against Dr Russel of Reading (London: W. Russel, 1751), p. 45.

  13. 13.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X125/13, 10 March 1760–31 October 1780, accessed 18/12/19.

  14. 14.

    Magdalen College Archives, MC: PR 30/1/C/2/6, fo. 9, 17 November 1795, Bird to Routh.

  15. 15.

    Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, D SEN/5/5/1/8/12, 1 April 1790, Chew to Senhouse; 20 April, 1793, Chew to Senhouse.

  16. 16.

    Warwickshire County Record Office (CRO), CR 556/691, 26 January 1795, Burman to Greenway. Cited in W.L. Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy: A Study of Private Madhouses in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 125.

  17. 17.

    Anne Stott, Hannah More: The First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 56.

  18. 18.

    Royal Bank of Scotland Archives, GM/1390/5, 4 July 1787, Mottershaw to Mitton. Cited in Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p. 124.

  19. 19.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 425–6.

  20. 20.

    Magdalen College Archives, MC: PR 30/1/C2/6, fo. 14, ‘Terms of Admission of Insane Patients, or Lunatics, under the Care of DR. ARNOLD, at Leicester.’; BPP 1816, Vol. VI, p. 45.

  21. 21.

    Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter, George III and the Mad Business (London: Allen Lane, 1969), p. 71.

  22. 22.

    Joan Lane, A Social History of Medicine: Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750–1950 (London and New York: Routledge), p. 102; Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archives, DR 18/5/5107, 18 May 1774; DR 18/5/5126, 15 September 1774; DR 671/36—in August 1774 a large additional payment of £400 was made for ‘Extra Expences respecting Hounds &c &c’.

  23. 23.

    Hervey, The Wedmore Chronicle, p. 120.

  24. 24.

    Hall, ‘The Casebook of John Westover’, 24 February 1699.

  25. 25.

    London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), St Botolph’s Bishopsgate, Churchwarden’s Accounts, P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/020, p. 221, 21 July, 3 September 1699, 6 May 1700; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/024, p. 224; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/025, 30 April 1705; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/026, 25 June, 27 September 1705; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/027, 28 October 1706; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/034, p. 277, 23 January 1719.

  26. 26.

    LMA, St Dionis Backchurch—Minutes of Parish Vestries, 1712–59, 21 December 1714, London Lives, GLDBMV305010039; Churchwardens and Overseers Accounts, 1689–1720, London Lives, GLDBAC300000541, GLDBAC300000553, GLDBAC300000573 (www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, March 2018, accessed 7/12/18).

  27. 27.

    LMA, St Dionis Backchurch, Churchwardens’ Vouchers/Receipts, 1706–60, 18 June 1723, London Lives, GLDBPP307020135 (www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, March 2018, accessed 7/12/18).

  28. 28.

    LMA, St Andrew Undershaft, Workhouse Account Books, P69/AND/B/048/MS 04120/001-8, 4 November 1747.

  29. 29.

    Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, 206/93, 28 March 1763, Jeffery to Brewer.

  30. 30.

    Hampshire Archives, 3M82W/PO24/2, Kinchin to Pyott.

  31. 31.

    Chester Chronicle or Commercial Intelligencer, 20 February 1778.

  32. 32.

    Birmingham Archives, GP/B/2/1/1, Birmingham Board of Guardians Minutes, 16 August 1784, 20 June 1785.

  33. 33.

    British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1814/15, Vol. IV, Select Committee (SC) on Madhouses, pp. 18, 80, 114, 173, 191; BPP 1816, Vol. VI, SC on Madhouses, p. 74.

  34. 34.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, pp. 22, 50.

  35. 35.

    Hampshire Archives, 42M75/PO12/1, 17 January 1815, Finch to Bartlett, Lymington; 42M75/PO12/4, 14 September 1815, Finch to Bartlett.

  36. 36.

    BPP 1816, Vol. VI, p. 51.

  37. 37.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, p. 122.

  38. 38.

    Northampton Mercury, 4 September 1813; Oxford Journal, 11 September 1813.

  39. 39.

    Chris Philo, A Geographical History of Institutional Provision for the Insane From Medieval Times to the 1860s in England and Wales: The Space Reserved for Insanity (Lampeter and New York: Edwin Mellen, 2004), pp. 343–6.

  40. 40.

    David Irish, Levamen Infirmi: Or, Cordial Counsel to the Sick and Diseased (London: For the Author, 1700), p. 53.

  41. 41.

    Thomas Fallowes, The Best Method for the Cure of Lunaticks. With Some Account of the Incomparable Oleum Cephalicum Used in the Same, Prepared and Administered by Tho. Fallowes, M.D. At His House in Lambeth-Marsh (London, 1705), pp. 20–2.

  42. 42.

    Tatler, 24 June 1710.

  43. 43.

    Daily Courant, 21 July 1713; Guardian, 13 August 1813.

  44. 44.

    Daily Advertiser, 21 September 1744.

  45. 45.

    Daily Advertiser, 12 February 1783.

  46. 46.

    Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 25 March 1802.

  47. 47.

    Stamford Mercury, 4 March 1803; Chester Chronicle, 4 March 1803.

  48. 48.

    Gloucester Journal, 19, 26 November 1781.

  49. 49.

    Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 1 June 1801.

  50. 50.

    Hampshire Chronicle, 13 April, 6 July 1807; Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 13 July–24 August 1807.

  51. 51.

    Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 22 June–3 August 1807; Morning Post, 18 July, 7 August 1807.

  52. 52.

    Hampshire Telegraph, 16 May 1814.

  53. 53.

    Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 1, 8 May 1815.

  54. 54.

    Oxford Journal, 2 October 1813.

  55. 55.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77–8, 81; Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, pp. 142–5.

  56. 56.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 200–1; A Full and True Account of the Whole Tryal, Examination and Conviction of Dr James Newton, Who Keeps the Mad House at Islinstton, For Violently Keeping and Misusing of William Rogers (London: J. Benson, 1715); British Weekly Mercury, 4 June 1715. However, according to ODNB, both Newton’s were physicians—Anita McConnell, ‘Newton, James (1664–1750), Physician and Botanist’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/view/article/20060, accessed 12/7/16.

  57. 57.

    LMA, P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/023, 1702/3, p. 206, P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/034, 1719–20, p. 277; Westminster Archives, F4003, 13 April 1738–27 May 1739.

  58. 58.

    Universal London Morning Advertiser, 8 August 1743; Gloucester Journal, 18 January 1736; Chester Chronicle, 20 February 1778.

  59. 59.

    Ian Mortimer, The Dying and the Doctors: The Medical Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England (Woodbridge: Royal Historical Society, Boydell Press, 2009), pp. 69–72, 96–9.

  60. 60.

    H. Temple Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum at Fishponds, Bristol 1740–1859’ (University of Bristol, M.Sc. Dissertation, 1973), pp. 21–4, 62; Gloucester Journal, 12 December 1738, 2 December 1740, 29 December 1779.

  61. 61.

    Shirley Burgoyne Black, An 18th Century Mad-Doctor: William Perfect of West Malling (Sevenoaks: Darenth Valley Publications, 1995), p. 64; Kent History Centre, Q/AIp/1, 3 May 1783.

  62. 62.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 199, 214.

  63. 63.

    TNA, PROB 11/500/939, 3 April 1708.

  64. 64.

    Tatler, 24 June 1710; Post Man and the Historical Account, 15 February 1709, 11 December 1718.

  65. 65.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 293, 297; Melanie Barber, ‘Directory of Medical Licences Issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury 1536–1775 in Lambeth Palace Library’ (London: unpublished, Lambeth Palace Library, 1997), pp. 49–50.

  66. 66.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 198–201; Flying Post or the Post Master, 21 September 1700; Post Man and the Historical Account, 13 October 1702.

  67. 67.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 23 May 1700.

  68. 68.

    Fog’s Weekly Journal, 14 June 1729.

  69. 69.

    Barber, ‘Directory of Medical Licences’, p. 324; J. Hallet (ed.), The Life of the Reverend Mr Geo. Trosse, Late Minister of the Gospel in the City of Exon (London: Joseph Bliss, 1714), pp. 54–6; Isaac Gilling, The Life of the Reverend George Trosse, Late Minister of the Gospel in Exon (London: John Clark, 1715), pp. 15–16. Trosse named the ‘Gentlewoman of the House’ as Mrs Gollop.

  70. 70.

    Hervey, The Wedmore Chronicle, pp. 86–7.

  71. 71.

    Blatchly, ODNB. Ashburne is not recorded as holding a medical licence from the Archbishop.

  72. 72.

    Irish, Levamen Infirmi, p. 38. Hunter and Macalpine regarded his qualifications as dubious—Three Hundred Years, pp. 279–81.

  73. 73.

    Stamford Mercury, 26 December 1717.

  74. 74.

    Lewis Southcomb, Peace of Mind and Health of Body United (London: M. Cooper, 1750).

  75. 75.

    Royal College of Physicians Archives (RCP), MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  76. 76.

    RCP, MS 2104, 1783, 1791; Chelmsford Chronicle, 8 October 1784.

  77. 77.

    MS 2104, 1800.

  78. 78.

    MS 2104, 1807–9.

  79. 79.

    MS 2104, 1813–5; Morning Post, 4 July 1814; BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, p. 17.

  80. 80.

    MS 2104, 1815; BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, p. 165. It was noted in Chap. 4 that the London surgeon Elias Tardy opened his madhouse at Enfield in 1813.

  81. 81.

    See Chap. 4.

  82. 82.

    See Chaps. 3 and 4. Francis Willis’s son Dr Robert Darling Willis also participated in these networks—for example, Case of Dorothea Fellowes, Huntingdonshire Archives, R32/7, 25, 26, 27, 29 August, 9, 10, 11 September 1791.

  83. 83.

    John Monro allegedly received ‘near twenty guineas every week’ (almost £2,500 at current values) from Michael Duffield, for attending his two Chelsea madhouses—Alexander Cruden, The Adventures of Alexander the Corrector (London: For the Author, 1754), p. 18. Robert Darling Willis received payment from Thomas Warburton for attending Whitmore House, Hoxton, from 1790 onwards—BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, SC on the State of Madhouses, p. 191.

  84. 84.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker of the Mind, pp. 117–31, 153–5, 160–70.

  85. 85.

    Evidence for the activities of Hale and Monro is found among several Chancery affidavits in TNA, C217/55. See also Hertfordshire Archives, Radcliffe Papers, D/ER C107/9, 13 November 1731, John Radcliffe to Ralph Radcliffe; D/ER C118/2, 7 September 1731, Shipton to Radcliffe; D/ER C54, 12 October 1731, Duffield to Radcliffe.

  86. 86.

    Anne Digby, Making a Medical Living: Doctors and Patients in the English Market for Medicine, 1720–1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 20, 29, 40, 137–8, 187–91, 199.

  87. 87.

    Lancashire Archives, De Trafford Papers, DDTR/5/5, Box 48, 22 December 1750; Leeds Intelligencer, 21 July 1800.

  88. 88.

    L.D. Smith, ‘Eighteenth-Century Madhouse Practice: the Prouds of Bilston’, History of Psychiatry 3, 1992, 45–52, p. 50.

  89. 89.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77, 116.

  90. 90.

    Peter Carpenter, ‘Thomas Arnold: a Provincial Psychiatrist in Georgian England’, Medical History 33, 1989, 199–216, pp. 200–1.

  91. 91.

    Temple Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 62–6.

  92. 92.

    Surrey History Centre, QS 5/5/3, 3 October 1775, 8 October 1799.

  93. 93.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77, 132–3.

  94. 94.

    Specific references for the establishment of these madhouses are provided in Chaps. 2, 3 and 4.

  95. 95.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, p. 166.

  96. 96.

    Morning Post, 9 June 1803; Gary Moyle, ‘Madhouses of Hertfordshire 1735–1903’, in Stephen King and Gillian Gear (eds), A Caring County? Social Welfare in Hertfordshire From 1600 (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2013), 69–98, p. 77. Jacob was previously manager at Dr Thomas Monro’s Brooke House.

  97. 97.

    Staffordshire Advertiser, 5 November 1808; Derby Mercury, 18 October 1810.

  98. 98.

    Liverpool Mercury, 27 November 1812.

  99. 99.

    University of York, Borthwick Institute, RET/8/2/3.

  100. 100.

    Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette, 3 December 1814; Leeds Mercury, 18 November 1815.

  101. 101.

    William Pargeter, Observations on Maniacal Disorders (Reading: For the Author, 1792), pp. 124–5; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 81–2.

  102. 102.

    Pargeter, Observations on Maniacal Disorders, p. 129.

  103. 103.

    Benjamin Faulkner, Observations on the General and Improper Treatment of Insanity: With a Plan for the More Speedy and Effective Recovery of Insane Persons (London: H. Reynell, 1790); Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 525–7; Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, pp. 144–5; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker of the Mind, p. 154; Mackenzie, Psychiatry for the Rich, pp. 10, 16.

  104. 104.

    Faulkner, Observations on the General and Improper Treatment, pp. 4–5.

  105. 105.

    Ibid., pp. 11–4. Faulkner was presumably referring to the Monros and Samuel Foart Simmons.

  106. 106.

    Ibid., pp. 19–24.

  107. 107.

    The Examiner, 2 May 1813. The recently deceased Dr Simmons and the erstwhile ‘keeper’ of his madhouse, Mrs Holmes, were named.

  108. 108.

    Gilling, The Life of the Reverend George Trosse, pp. 13–6.

  109. 109.

    Edward Trevor, A Breif Account of the Severe Usage of Sir John Trevor to His Eldest Son (n.d., c1700).

  110. 110.

    Andrew Mason, ‘The Reverend John Ashburne (c1611–61) and the Origins of the Private Madhouse System’, History of Psychiatry 5, 1994, 321–45.

  111. 111.

    Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, Land Tax Assessments, L/MBG/C/1; L/MBG/C/1/3, L/MBG/C/1/5.

  112. 112.

    Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 31 October 1778; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 132–3, 141.

  113. 113.

    RCP, MS 2104, 1794–1815.

  114. 114.

    Ivan Waddington, The Medical Profession in the Industrial Revolution (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1984), pp. 1–8, 20–1; Irvine Loudon, Medical Care and the General Practitioner, 1750–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), pp. 19–25; Digby, Making a Medical Living, Chap. 6.

  115. 115.

    Michael Brown, Performing Medicine: Medical Culture and Identity in Provincial England, c.1760–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), Chaps. 1 and 2. For further discussion of these issues in regard to public lunatic hospital physicians, see Leonard Smith, Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 (London: Routledge, 2007), Chap. 4.

  116. 116.

    See Chap. 2.

  117. 117.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 10–20, 45–70; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 76–7, 98–9; William Battie, A Treatise on Madness (London: Whiston and White, 1758); John Monro, Remarks on Dr Battie’s Treatise on Madness (London: John Clarke, 1758).

  118. 118.

    A Report from the Committee, Appointed (Upon the 27th Day of January 1763) to Enquire into the State of Madhouses in This Kingdom with the Proceedings of the House Thereupon (London: Whiston and White, 1763), pp. 9–10.

  119. 119.

    Jonathan Andrews, Asa Briggs, Roy Porter, Penny Tucker and Keir Waddington, The History of Bethlem (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 376, 398; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 185–7, 261–2.

  120. 120.

    Helen Brock, ‘Simmons, Samuel Foart (1750–1813)’, physician, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25565, accessed 8/12/18; LMA, St Luke’s Hospital, General Court Book, 31 October, 8 November 1781; William Munk, The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Vol. II, 1701–1800 (London, 1878), p. 320; Susan C. Lawrence, Charitable Knowledge; Hospital Pupils and Practitioners in Eighteenth-Century London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 255–74; John Barrell, Imagining the King’s Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide 1793–1796 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 515–9, 530–7; Macalpine and Hunter, George III and the Mad-Business, pp. 132–5.

  121. 121.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, pp. 137, 165; Morning Post, 5 August 1814.

  122. 122.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X 125, Introductory sheet, ‘Thomas Crawley M.B. and His “Lunatick” Asylum in Dunstable’.

  123. 123.

    Richard Russel, A Letter to Dr Addington of Reading, on His Refusal to Join in Consultation With a Physician, Who Had Taken His Degree Abroad, and Was Approved and Licensed by the College of Physicians in London (London: W. Russel, 1749); Russel, A Letter to Mr Thomas Bigg, pp. 43–5; Report From the Committee Appointed to Examine the Physicians Who Have Attended His Majesty, During His Illness, Touching the State of His Majesty’s Health (London: J. Stockdale, 1788), pp. 21–3; Anthony Addington, An Essay on the Sea-Scurvy; Wherein is Proposed an Easy Method of Curing That Distemper at Sea; and of Preserving Water Sweet for any Cruize or Voyage (Reading: C. Micklewright, 1753); Francis Pigott, An Appeal to the Public: Or, A Review of the Conduct of Dr Addington Towards Dr Pigott (Reading: For the Author, 1754); Francis Espinasse, ‘Addington, Anthony (1713–1790), Physician’, revised Claire L. Nutt, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/view/article/149, accessed 12/2/17.

  124. 124.

    Gentleman’s Magazine 77, June 1807, p. 500; Nathaniel Cotton, Observations on a Particular Kind of Scarlet Fever That Lately Prevailed in and about St Alban’s. In a Letter to Dr Mead (London: R. Manby and H.S. Cox, 1741); Leslie Ritchie, ‘Cotton, Nathaniel (1705–1788), Poet and Physician’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/view/article/6422, accessed 15/2/17; Moyle, ‘Madhouses of Hertfordshire’, pp. 70–4; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77, 172; Munk, The Roll, II, p. 324.

  125. 125.

    Francis Willis, A Treatise on Mental Derangement (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1823), pp. 177–80; Whitehall Evening Post, 9–11 December 1788; Public Advertiser, 11 December 1788.

  126. 126.

    Bath Chronicle, 2 April 1789.

  127. 127.

    Stamford Mercury, 2 April 1789.

  128. 128.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 75–6.

  129. 129.

    Norfolk CRO, BH 16, 24 July 1758; Mark Winston, ‘The Bethel at Norwich: an Eighteenth-Century Hospital for Lunatics’, Medical History 38, no. 1, January 1994, 27–51, p. 46—Beevor remained in post until 1808.

  130. 130.

    Norfolk CRO, MC 697/35, 21 February 1769; Ipswich Journal, 23 November 1765.

  131. 131.

    Winston, ‘The Bethel at Norwich’, p. 46; Edward Copeman, Brief History of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital (Norwich: Charles Muskett, 1856), pp. 5–6.

  132. 132.

    John Hall, A Narrative of the Proceedings Relative to the Establishment, &c, of St Luke’s House (Newcastle Upon Tyne: J. White and T. Saint, 1767), pp. 8–10; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 27, 84–5.

  133. 133.

    Newcastle Courant, 3 October 1767–15 October 1774; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, p. 99.

  134. 134.

    P.M. Horsley, Eighteenth-Century Newcastle (Newcastle: Oriel, 1971), pp. 124, 128; Andrew Wilson, M.D., The Principles of Analysing Waters Briefly Explained, and Cock’s Lodge Water Analysed: Being the Subject of a Lecture by Dr Wilson and Dr Hall, on These Subjects (Newcastle: T. Saint, 1770); The Medical Register for the Year 1783 (London: Joseph Johnson, 1783), p. 94.

  135. 135.

    Carpenter, ‘Thomas Arnold’, pp. 201–11; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 34–8, 77–8, 85–7, 95–6; Leonard Smith, ‘Doctors and Lunatics: the Enigma of the Leicester Asylum, 1781–1837’, in Jonathan Reinarz (ed.), Medicine and Society in the Midlands 1750–1950 (Birmingham: Midland History Occasional Publications, 2007), 47–60; Thomas Arnold, Observations on the Nature, Kinds, Causes, and Prevention of Insanity, Lunacy, or Madness, 2 Vols. (Leicester: G. Ireland, 1782–6); Thomas Arnold, Observations on the Management of the Insane; and Particularly on the Agency and Importance of Humane and Kind Treatment in Effecting Their Cure (London: Richard Phillips, 1809).

  136. 136.

    Digby, From York Lunatic Asylum, pp. 1–13; Michael Brown, Performing Medicine, pp. 51–63; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 30–2, 77, 82–3, 91–3.

  137. 137.

    Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 23 August 1788; Temple-Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 62–6; Leonard D. Smith, ‘Cox, Joseph Mason (1763–1818), Physician and Asylum Keeper’, ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/58386, accessed 8/12/18; Joseph Mason Cox, Practical Observations on Insanity; In Which Some Suggestions Are Offered Towards an Improved Mode of Treating Diseases of the Mind and Some Rules Proposed Which It Is Hoped May Lead to a More Humane and Successful Method of Cure (London: C. and R. Baldwin, 1804).

  138. 138.

    Leonard Smith, ‘A Gentleman’s Mad-Doctor in Georgian England: Edward Long Fox and Brislington House’, History of Psychiatry 19 (2), June 2008, 163–84, pp. 165–74; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 112–5.

  139. 139.

    Jean Loudon, ‘Alderson, John (1757–1829), Physician’. ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/305, accessed 8/12/18.

  140. 140.

    Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette, 26 March, 7 May 1814.

  141. 141.

    Black, An Eighteenth-Century Mad-Doctor, pp. 16–33, 39–40, 64–6, 74–5; Gentleman’s Magazine 79, July 1809, p. 684; Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 501–5; Public Advertiser, 4 February 1775; Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 1 August 1775, 13 October 1784, 4 March 1792; Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, 8 November 1784; Oxford Journal, 1 December 1792; General Evening Post, 19 March 1791; Morning Post, 15 November 1802.

  142. 142.

    Reading Mercury, 14 January 1799; Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 24 January 1799.

  143. 143.

    Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 22 June 1807.

  144. 144.

    Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 29 August 1814.

  145. 145.

    BPP 1814–15, Vol. IV, pp. 22, 48–52. According to Edward Wakefield, Finch was ‘a humane man; a man of sense, and conducts his house in an admirable manner.’

  146. 146.

    BPP 1816, Vol. VI, pp. 44, 51–5.

  147. 147.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 7 November 1791; Morning Post, 17 October 1804.

  148. 148.

    Morning Chronicle, 4 May, 14 December 1792; Morning Herald, 19 May, 8 December 1792; General Evening Post, 24 May 1792; Mackenzie, Psychiatry for the Rich, pp. 37–40.

  149. 149.

    Northampton Mercury, 19 July 1794.

  150. 150.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 7 October 1797; Ipswich Journal, 7 March 1801.

  151. 151.

    Reading Mercury, 17 February–7 April 1800.

  152. 152.

    Northampton Mercury, 20 November 1802.

  153. 153.

    Northampton Mercury, 4 April 1807.

  154. 154.

    Northampton Mercury, 17 February, 17 November 1810, 13 July 1816; Leicester Journal, 20 December 1811, 2 August 1812, 18 November 1815.

  155. 155.

    Michael MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam; Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 8–11, 175–8 Michael MacDonald, ‘Religion, Social Change and Psychological Healing in England, 1600–1800’, in W.J. Shiels (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), 101–25, pp. 102–6, 111–6; David Harley, ‘Mental Illness, Magical Medicine vand the Devil in Northern England, 1650–1700’, in Roger French and Andrew Wear (eds), The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 114–44, pp. 119–24.

  156. 156.

    Southcomb, Peace of Mind and Health of Body United, title page.

  157. 157.

    Pargeter, Observations on Maniacal Disorders, pp. 124–5.

  158. 158.

    See Chaps. 3 and 4.

  159. 159.

    Daily Post, 17 October–16 November 1728, 22, 24 December 1729.

  160. 160.

    General Advertiser, 4, 6 September 1745.

  161. 161.

    Faulkner, Observations on the General and Improper Treatment.

  162. 162.

    Thomas Bakewell, The Domestic Guide in Cases of Insanity, Pointing Out the Causes, Means of Preventing and Proper Treatment, of That Disorder (Hanley, 1805); L.D. Smith, ‘To Cure Those Afflicted With the Disease of Insanity: Thomas Bakewell and Spring Vale Asylum’, History of Psychiatry 4, 1993, 107–27, pp. 110–2.

  163. 163.

    Thomas Bakewell, The Domestic Guide in Cases of Insanity (Second Edition, Newcastle: C. Chester, 1809), Advertisement, following p. 116.

  164. 164.

    Thomas Bakewell, A Letter Addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Commons Appointed to Enquire into the State of Mad-Houses: To Which is Subjoined Remarks on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of Mental Derangement (Newcastle: C. Chester, 1815), p. 116.

  165. 165.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 161–6.

  166. 166.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, p. 161; Andrew Scull, Charlotte MacKenzie and Nicholas Hervey, Masters of Bedlam: The Transformation of the Mad-Doctoring Trade (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 16–7; John Wilson Rogers, A Statement of the Cruelties, Abuses and Frauds Which are Practised in Madhouses (London: For the Author, 1816), pp. 16–7; The Examiner, 31 December 1815. Rogers alleged a corrupt business relationship between Warburton and Dunston.

  167. 167.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. IV, pp. 18–9, 25–32, 76–82, 107–14, 145–8, 166–8, 171–82, 189–93; BPP 1816, Vol. VI, pp. 1–23, 36–8.

  168. 168.

    Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, D SEN/5/5/1/8/12, ‘Letters and Accounts to Humphrey Senhouse from Dr Abraham Chew re his treatment of George Senhouse’. George had been at Billington since about 1756—Lancashire Archives, QSP/2056/14, 28 November 1776.

  169. 169.

    Ibid., 1 April, 1790.

  170. 170.

    Ibid., 20 December 1790.

  171. 171.

    Ibid., 21 October 1791.

  172. 172.

    Ibid., 20 April 1793.

  173. 173.

    Ibid., 24 July 1793.

  174. 174.

    Ibid., 8 August, 14 October, 30 November 1793.

  175. 175.

    Leonard Smith, ‘“God Grant it May Do Good Two All”: the Madhouse Practice of Joseph Mason, 1738–79’, History of Psychiatry 27, 2016, 208–19, pp. 212–5.

  176. 176.

    Dawn R. Phillips and H. Temple Phillips (eds), ‘An Eighteenth Century Gloucestershire Diary. The Journal of Dr Joseph Mason, Proprietor of the Fishponds Private Lunatic Asylum’ (Bristol, 1972; unpublished, copy in Bristol Archives, 39801/X/8), 7 October 1763.

  177. 177.

    Temple Phillips, ‘An Eighteenth Century Gloucestershire Diary’, 28 October 1763.

  178. 178.

    Ibid., 22 April, 21 September, 14 October 1763.

  179. 179.

    Smith, ‘Eighteenth-Century Madhouse Practice’, pp. 47–51.

  180. 180.

    Shropshire Archives, Wakeman Papers, 938/595–605.

  181. 181.

    Wakeman Papers, 938/606–615.

  182. 182.

    Wakeman Papers, 938/616–646; quote from 938/630, 10 January 1788.

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Smith, L. (2020). Madhouse Entrepreneurs. In: Private Madhouses in England, 1640–1815. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41640-9_6

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