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Madhouses in the Market-Place, 1701–1774

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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

During this period, the numbers of private madhouses grew steadily. Smith contends that they were a commercial response to an increasingly sophisticated demand for medically related services. The distinctions between modes of operation in London and the provinces were becoming more pronounced. London consolidated its position as the main centre of the madhouse business. An elite group of specialist physicians were particularly influential, placing patients with favoured madhouse proprietors with whom they had established connections. Some London madhouses became large undertakings, providing both for wealthy private patients and substantial numbers of parish paupers. Provincial madhouses tended to be smaller and were often family businesses. Smith details their increasing geographical dispersal, whilst noting concentrations in the West Country and the Midlands.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine, Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry 1535–1860 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 265–7; Roy Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles: A History of Madness in England From the Restoration to the Regency (London: Athlone, 1987), pp. 148–9; Review of the State of the English Nation 69, 8 June 1706, pp. 273–6; Daniel Defoe, Augusta Triumphans, Or, The Way to Make London The Most Flourishing City in the Universe (London: F. Roberts, 1728), pp. 1, 30–38.

  2. 2.

    William 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), pp. 9–10, 222–6; Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull, Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 155–60, 170–8. The significance of the legislation will be considered further in Chap. 4 and the issue of ‘wrongful confinement’ in Chap. 8.

  3. 3.

    Mark Winston, ‘The Bethel at Norwich: An Eighteenth-Century Hospital for Lunatics’, Medical History 38, no.1, January 1994, 27–51, pp. 28–30.

  4. 4.

    Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, p. 130; 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), p. 453.

  5. 5.

    Philo, A Geographical History, pp. 452, 465; Leonard Smith, Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 12–16.

  6. 6.

    Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 27–30.

  7. 7.

    Patrick Wallis and Teerapa Pirohakul, ‘Medical Revolutions? The Growth of Medicine in England, 1660–1800’, Journal of Social History 49, Issue 3, Spring 2016, 510–31.

  8. 8.

    Roy Porter, Health for Sale: Quackery in England, 1660–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), pp. vii, 1–59; Jonathan Barry, ‘Publicity and the Public Good: Presenting Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Bristol’, in Roy Porter and William F. Bynum, Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 29–39; Irvine Loudon, ‘“The Vile Race of Quacks With Which This Country is Infested”, in idem, 106–28. Innumerable advertisements for medical services can be found in the British Library, Burney Collection of 17th and 18th century newspapers. An invaluable collection of publicity hand-bills is in the British Library, General Reference Collection, C.112.f.9.

  9. 9.

    Jonathan Andrews, Asa Briggs, Roy Porter, Penny Tucker, Keir Waddington, The History of Bethlem (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 329–36; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 115–9.

  10. 10.

    Andrews et al., The History of Bethlem, p. 269; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p. 9; Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 265.

  11. 11.

    These arrangements were evident in several affidavits presented to the Court of Chancery—National Archives (TNA), C217/55.

  12. 12.

    Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, pp. 131, 166; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker of the Mind, pp. 120, 182–8; Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull, Customers and Patrons of the Mad-Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 42–4.

  13. 13.

    Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, p. 99; Ipswich Journal, 23 November 1765; London Chronicle, 28 December 1765.

  14. 14.

    Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 25–6.

  15. 15.

    Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro’ This Whole Island of Great Britain, Divided Into Circuits or Journies, Giving a Particular and Diverting Account of Whatever is Curious, and Worth Observation, Volume 2 (London: G. Strahan, 1724), p. 155.

  16. 16.

    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); The English Law Reports, Vol. 94, King’s Bench, p. 44, Term. Trin. 2 Geo. 2, 1728, ‘The King and Dr. Newton’; British Weekly Mercury, 4 June 1715; Daily Post, 17 October—16 November, 1728, 22 December 1729, 17 January 1730. A regional newspaper described him in 1730 as ‘the famous Mr. Newton, who cures Mad People in Wood’s Close near Islington’—Ipswich Journal, 22 August 1730. At some point, the house passed to James Newton’s eponymous son.

  17. 17.

    Elizabeth Foyster, ‘At the Limits of Liberty; Married Women and Confinement in Eighteenth-Century England’, Continuity and Change 17 (1), 2002, 39–62; Lambeth Palace Archives, Court of Arches, Case 141, D32, Anderson vs Sherard, fos.144–6.

  18. 18.

    Tatler, 24 June, 20 July, 8 August 1710; TNA, C217/55/8/1, Affidavit of William Prowting, 16 January 1724; TNA, PROB 11/665/123, Will of William Prowting.

  19. 19.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 22 February, 24, 28 May 1715; Daily Courant, 1, 5, 8 August 1715.

  20. 20.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 15, 29 March 1709, 19 May 1711; 21, 28 May, 7, 23 June, 5, 14, 26 July 1720.

  21. 21.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 18, 23 January, 1 February, 25 October 1705, 22 May 1707, 18 January 1710, 11 October 1811, 25, 27 December 1711, 22 February, 24, 28 May, 2, 6, 11 August, 3 December 1715, 26 June 1716, 3 September, 14, 30 November 1717, 27 March 1718; Daily Courant, 11 October, 27 November 1711, 2, 4 April, 21 July, 31 October, 2 November 1713, 13 April, 24 December 1714, 1, 5, 8 August 1715, 13, 20 April, 29 June, 2 July 1716, 25 February, 19 April, 16 September, 16 October, 18 November 1717, 11 April, 16 October 1718; Guardian, 13 August, 18 September 1713; Post Boy, 22, 24 September 1713, 29 June, 7 October 1714; London Gazette, 15 December 1713.

  22. 22.

    Daily Courant, 21 July 1713; Guardian, 13 August 1713; Post Boy, 22 September 1713.

  23. 23.

    Post Boy, 29 June 1714; Daily Courant, 24 December 1714.

  24. 24.

    Alexander Pope, The Narrative of Dr Robert Norris, Concerning the Strange and Deplorable Frenzy of Mr John Denn, An Officer of the Custom-house; Being an exact Account of all that past betwixt the said Patient and the Doctor till this present Day; and a full Vindication of himself and his Proceedings from the extravagant Reports of the said Mr John Denn (London: J. Norphew, 1713).

  25. 25.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 22 February, 24 May, 11 August 1715, 26 June 1716, 3 September, 14 November 1717; Daily Courant, 1 August 1715; 13 April, 29 June, 2 July 1716; 25 February, 19 April, 16 September, 16 October, 18 November 1717, 16 October 1718.

  26. 26.

    Post Man and the Historical Account, 11, 23, 27 December 1718, 31 March, 16 May, 28 July, 1 August, 1, 26 September, 15 October, 14 November, 15 December 1719, 21, 28 May, 7, 23 June, 5, 14, 26 July, 18 August, 24 September, 11, 27 October, 17 November, 6 December 1720.

  27. 27.

    TNA, Petty Bag Office: C 217/55/9/112, 19 October 1726, Affidavit of Sarah Armstrong; C 217/55/9/116, 29 October 1726, Affidavit of Letitia Hungerford.

  28. 28.

    TNA, C 217/55/1/39, 3 August 1720, Affidavit of Christopher Dalton; Fog’s Weekly Journal, 14 June, 5 July 1729; Daily Journal, 20 June 1729; Country Journal or the Craftsman, 28 June 1729.

  29. 29.

    Daily Journal, 7 October 1732; Fog’s Weekly Journal, 21 October 1732; Country Journal or the Craftsman, 21 October 1732.

  30. 30.

    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); Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 293–5; Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, p. 139.

  31. 31.

    Thomas Fallowes of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was licensed ‘to practice medicine and surgery’ by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1701—Melanie Barber, ‘Directory of Medical Licences Issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury 1536–1775 in Lambeth Palace Library’ (London: unpublished, Lambeth Palace Library, 1997), Part 1, pp. 49–50.

  32. 32.

    Fallowes, The Best Method for the Cure of Lunaticks, pp. 14–18. The medicine comprised an oil to be rubbed into the head, producing inflammation and eruptions (‘pustules’)—Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 293.

  33. 33.

    Fallowes, The Best Method, pp. 12, 18–19,

  34. 34.

    Ibid, pp. 20–22; Philo, A Geographical History, pp. 344–5.

  35. 35.

    Flying Post or the Post Master, 9 August, 6, 13 September 1712.

  36. 36.

    John Fortescue-Aland, Reports of Select Cases in all the Courts of Westminster-Hall (London: W. Chinnery, 1748), pp. 167–8. See also Chap. 8.

  37. 37.

    Universal London Morning Advertiser, 8 August 1743.

  38. 38.

    Lambeth Palace Archives, CM XX1/26; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 5/1/20.

  39. 39.

    ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, contained within Andrews and Scull, Customers and Patrons, C-105.

  40. 40.

    General Evening Post, 10 March 1770.

  41. 41.

    Royal College of Physicians Archives (henceforth RCP), MS 2104, ‘Mad-House Accounts’, 29 October 1774.

  42. 42.

    Middlesex Journal or Chronicle of Liberty, 2 March 1771.

  43. 43.

    A location near what is now Elephant and Castle.

  44. 44.

    Evening Post, 27, 30 June 1713; Daily Courant, 6 March 1714.

  45. 45.

    Daily Journal, 1, 5, July 1728; Mist’s Weekly Journal, 3 August 1728; London Journal, 22 August 1730.

  46. 46.

    London Evening Post, 1 October 1741.

  47. 47.

    Derby Mercury, 24 September 1741.

  48. 48.

    Middlesex Sessions Papers—Justices’ Working Documents, October 1754, London Lives, LMSMPS504320052 (www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, March 2018, accessed 7/12/18), London Metropolitan Archives. He was ‘commonly called Doctor Bucknall’.

  49. 49.

    Daily Advertiser, 21, 25 September 1744.

  50. 50.

    TNA, C 217/55/11/102, Affidavit of Michael Duffield, 27 March 1732.

  51. 51.

    TNA, 217/55/7/64, 17 May 1733, Affidavit of Michael Duffield. For Hale see Jonathan Andrews, ‘A Respectable Mad-Doctor? Dr. Richard Hale, F.R.S. (1670–1728)’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 44, no.2 (July 1990), 167–204.

  52. 52.

    TNA, C 217/55/11/5, 15 September 1731, Affidavit of William Short and David Surell; C 217/55/11/6, 23 August 1731, Affidavit of William Short, John Tennant and Michael Duffield; C 217/55/11/83, 18 February 1731, Affidavit of Dr. Noel Broxolme; C 217/55/11/101, 25 March 1732, Affidavit of Dr. James Monro; C 217/55/11/102, 27 March 1732, Affidavit of Michael Duffield.

  53. 53.

    This is illustrated by nearly forty commissions of lunacy implemented regarding people resident in Chelsea from 1730–70, some originating from far afield—TNA, Petty Bag Office, series C211.

  54. 54.

    TNA, C 217/55/1/21, 9 August 1720, Affidavit of George Foster; C 217/55/1/24, 9 August 1720, Affidavit of Thomas Bayley; C 217/55/1/31, 22 August 1720, Affidavit of Anne Hawes; C 217/55/1/32, 24 August 1720, Affidavit of Priscilla Shotgrave.

  55. 55.

    TNA, C 217/55/9/63, 9 July 1726, Affidavit of William Sowon.

  56. 56.

    Lloyd’s Evening Post, 23 January 1753; Read’s Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, 27 January 1753.

  57. 57.

    Covent-Garden Journal, 18 July 1752; Dustin Griffin, ‘Collins, William (1721–1759), poet’, ODNB, accessed at http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/view/article/5957, accessed 7/12/18.

  58. 58.

    St James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 24 February 1763; The English Law Reports, Vol. 94, King’s Bench, p. 741, Hilary Term, 1 Geo. 3, 29 January 1761, Rex versus Turlington; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker of the Mind, pp. 156–7.

  59. 59.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, p. 168.

  60. 60.

    British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol12/pp123-145, accessed 7/12/18.

  61. 61.

    Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, D LONS L 4/4/4, 22 December 1748, 11 August 1750.

  62. 62.

    Alexander Cruden, The Adventures of Alexander the Corrector (London: For the Author, 1754), p. 8.

  63. 63.

    Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer, 26 September 1761.

  64. 64.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 166–8; Andrews and Scull, Customers and Patrons, 9, 43, 99, 104; ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-31, C-51, C-56-7, C-106, C-124. Drs William Battie and William Heberden also placed patients at Duffield’s house.

  65. 65.

    RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  66. 66.

    The Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London. And Also the Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex Held at Justice-Hall in the Old Bailey (London: G. Kearsly, 1760), Trial of William Tipton, p. 45; Cruden, The Adventures of Alexander the Corrector, pp. 8–11; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 101, 107–8, 168; ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-8.

  67. 67.

    RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  68. 68.

    ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-50—C-54; TNA, KB 1/16/4, Trin. 6, Geo.3, no.1, Deposition of James Sherratt, 22 May 1766; Foyster, ‘At the Limits of Liberty’, pp. 45–6; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 168–9, 171–2.

  69. 69.

    When ceasing as physician to St Luke’s Hospital in 1764, Battie spoke of ‘retiring from that part of the Mad Business’—LMA, H64/A/01/001, St Luke’s Hospital, General Court Book, 1750–1779, 12 April 1764.

  70. 70.

    William Munk, The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Vol. II, 1701–1800 (London, 1878), pp. 139–41; LMA, H64/A/01/001, 31 October 1750, 26 June, 14 August 1751; R.A. Hunter and I. Macalpine, ‘William Battie, M.D., F.R.S., Pioneer Psychiatrist’, The Practitioner 174 (January—June 1955), 208–215; Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 76–7.

  71. 71.

    Andrews et al., The History of Bethlem, p. 266; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 15–17.

  72. 72.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 120, 145, 154–7, 165–8.

  73. 73.

    John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1812; Kraus Reprint: New York, 1966), Vol. IV, p. 609; Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 402–3.

  74. 74.

    William Battie, A Treatise on Madness (London: Whiston and White, 1758).

  75. 75.

    Journal of the House of Commons, 22 February 1763, p. 488; Gentleman’s Magazine 23, 1763; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, pp. 609–10.

  76. 76.

    Commissions of lunacy were implemented on several wealthy people between 1757 and 1774—TNA, C211. Although only one specifies that the person resides at Wood’s Close (C211/15/L44, 15 April 1765—Edward Lloyd, Esq, ‘formerly of Domgay, Shropshire’), eight relate to people now in Clerkenwell who formerly lived elsewhere in London or the provinces.

  77. 77.

    LMA, H64/A/01/001, 12 April 1764.

  78. 78.

    LMA, M64/B/01/001, St Luke’s Hospital, Curable Patients Book, 1751–71. A proportion of the thirty plus patients Battie nominated were discharged ‘uncured’ after a year and some may well have moved into his madhouse.

  79. 79.

    RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  80. 80.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 402; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, p. 154. Both texts indicate that Battie had two madhouses, one in Clerkenwell and one in Islington, but these were almost certainly the same house.

  81. 81.

    W.S. Lewis, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), Vol. 32, pp. 314–5. This would be worth over £8 million at present values—http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 5/1/20.

  82. 82.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry, pp. 402–3—in 1763 Battie demanded an outstanding payment of £750 (now about £77,000) from the estate of a Miss Meriett.

  83. 83.

    Elizabeth Robinson, Lost Hackney (London: Hackney Society, 1989), p. 28; Isobel Watson, Hackney and Stoke Newington Past; A Visual History of Hackney and Stoke Newington (London: Historical Publications, 1998 edition), pp. 25–6; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 179–83; Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 23 June 1764, 14 December 1772.

  84. 84.

    The English Law Reports, Vol. 94, King’s Bench, pp. 875–6, Rex Versus William Clarke, 29 November 1762; Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 23 June 1764; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 172–3, 182; Andrews and Scull, Customers and Patrons, pp. 43–4.

  85. 85.

    ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-6—7, C-80.

  86. 86.

    Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archives, Stratford-on-Avon, Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh Correspondence—DR 18/17/27/200, 2 November 1769, Monro to Joseph Hill; DR 18/17/27/201, 6 November 1769, Turner to Hill; DR 18/17/27/202, 8 November 1769, Clarke to Hill; DR 18/17/27/205, 12 November 1769, Graff to Hill; Robert Bearman (ed.), Stoneleigh Abbey: The House, Is Owners, Its Lords (Stratford-on-Avon: Stoneleigh Abbey Limited / Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2003), p. 150—In March 1768, £49.7 s was paid on behalf of Lord Leigh to Monro, respecting ‘17 visits in Town & 6 in the Country’.

  87. 87.

    RCP, MS 2104, e.g. 26 October 1774, 19 October 1775, 16 October 1776; Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, p. 179.

  88. 88.

    MS 2104, 26, 29 October 1774.

  89. 89.

    TNA, C 217/55/1/92, 7 March 1720, Affidavit of Matthew Wright; C 217/55/9, 12 January 1725, Affidavit of Thomas Millward; C 217/55/9/29, 20 January 1725, Affidavit of Matthew Wright. Wright had probably been keeping a madhouse since about 1713—C 217/55/9/26, 19 January 1725, Affidavit of Moses Ransom and John Wood.

  90. 90.

    St Dionis Backchurch, Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor Accounts, 1721–8, 1, 10 June 1723, London Lives, GLDBAC300050036; 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), London Metropolitan Archives.

  91. 91.

    Middlesex Sessions, Justices’ Working Papers, 16 January 1725, London Lives, LMSMPS502240015 (www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, March 2018, accessed 7/12/18), London Metropolitan Archives.

  92. 92.

    TNA, C 217/55/9/24, 19 January 1725, Affidavit of Benjamin Coles; C 217/55/9/27, 19 January 1725, Affidavit of Deane Peacocke; Daily Journal, 23 October 1725.

  93. 93.

    LMA, MDR/1727/4/12, 6 February 1726; John Townley, ‘Bethnal Green Madhouse in the Eighteenth Century’ (Unpublished, 2014: copy in Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives); A.J. Robinson and D.H.B. Chesshyre, The Green: A History of the Heart of Bethnal Green and the Legend of the Blind Beggar (London Borough of Tower Hamlets, 1986 edition), pp. 10–11; Elaine Murphy, ‘Mad Farming in the Metropolis. Part 1: A Significant Service Industry in East London’, History of Psychiatry 12, 2001, 245–82, pp. 246–9; Elaine Murphy, ‘The Administration of Insanity in East London, 1800–70’ (University College London, PhD thesis, 2000), pp. 42, 325; Alexander Cruden, The London-Citizen Exceedingly Injured; Or a British Inquisition Display’d (London, 1739), p. 12; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 20/12/19..

  94. 94.

    TNA, C 217/55/10/15, 6 December 1726, Affidavit of Matthew Wright; C 217/55/3/52, 29 August 1727, Affidavit of Matthew Wright; C 217/55/7/43, 7 March 1733, Affidavit of Matthew Wright; C 217/55/7/41, 7 April 1833, Affidavit of Matthew Wright and Samuel Cooke; C 217/55/7/107, 5 July 1733, Affidavit of Robert Rose and Matthew Wright.

  95. 95.

    City of Westminster Archives (henceforth CWA), St Martin in the Fields, Workhouse Registers, F4002, 1725–9.

  96. 96.

    Jonathan Andrews, ‘Bedlam Revisited: A History of Bethlem Hospital, c.1634–1770’ (University of London, PhD thesis, 1991), p. 497.

  97. 97.

    LMA, MDR/1735/1/392, 13 May 1735; Townley, ‘Bethnal Green Madhouse’.

  98. 98.

    Cruden, The London-Citizen Exceedingly Injur’d, p. 11. According to Murphy, Cruden was in the ‘Red House’—‘Mad Farming’, p. 249.

  99. 99.

    Ibid, p. 13.

  100. 100.

    CWA, St Martin in the Fields, F4003, Workhouse Day Book, 1737–41, 13 April 1738—29 February 1739.

  101. 101.

    Cruden, The London-Citizen, pp. 7, 12, 25.

  102. 102.

    Murphy, ‘The Administration of Insanity’, p. 326; Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives (henceforth THA), Land Tax Assessments, L/MBG/C/1. Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 360, reproduces a letter from Ellin Wright, Bethnell Green, 29 November 1743, directed to ‘Counseler way at is house in Shear Lain’, Guildford, requesting the half-year payment due for Mr Cothrin, as she has ‘a presing Call for mony’.

  103. 103.

    THA, L/MBG/C/1/3; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 20/12/19.

  104. 104.

    CWA, F4004, ‘Lunaticks at Mrs. Wrights’, 4 September 1744—30 July 1748, enclosed within Workhouse Day Book, 1742–46; Akihito Suzuki, ‘The Household and the Care of Lunatics in Eighteenth-Century London’, in Peregrine Horden and Richard Smith (eds), The Locus of Care: Families, Communities, Institutions and the Provision of Welfare Since Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1998), 153–75. They continued to send people periodically thereafter—CWA, F4005, 1746–8; F4006, 1748–52; F4008, 1752–56.

  105. 105.

    TNA, Petty Bag Office, C211/9/27, 12 May 1748.

  106. 106.

    THA, L/MBG/C/1/5.

  107. 107.

    LMA, M 64/B/01/001, St Luke’s Hospital, Curable Patients Book, 1751–71. A considerable number of these patients were discharged ‘uncured’ from St Luke’s after a year, very likely moving on to Potter’s madhouse.

  108. 108.

    Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser, 1 September 1762; Townley, ‘Bethnal Green Madhouse’. Mrs Potter was named in wrongful confinement allegations dating from 1759—London Chronicle, 22 January 1763.

  109. 109.

    Porter, Manacles, p. 146; Allan Ingram, Patterns of Madness in the Eighteenth Century: A Reader (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998), p. 129; Townley, ‘Bethnal Green Madhouse’.

  110. 110.

    THA, L/MBG/C/1/6, 1757; L/MBG/C/1/7, 1761; L/MBG/C/1/9, 1767.

  111. 111.

    CWA, F 4008, St Martin in the Fields, Workhouse Day Book, 1752–6, 11, 29 August 1755; Jeremy Boulton and Jeremy Black, ‘“Those, That Die by Reason of their Madness”: Dying Insane in London, 1629–1830’, History of Psychiatry 23(1), 2011, 27–39.

  112. 112.

    TNA, Petty Bag Office, C211/14/K19, 15 March 1749.

  113. 113.

    THA, L/MBG/C/1/9, 1768; L/MBG/C/1/11, 1774. RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774. However, the land tax records indicate that only Robert Cope Junior held houses in Bethnal Green in 1774, which suggests some interchangeability.

  114. 114.

    TNA, E 140/69/9, 8 August 1763. His name was also sometimes spelt as Stratton or Strutton.

  115. 115.

    THA, L/MBG/C/1/8: ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-43, C-117.

  116. 116.

    RCP Archives, MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  117. 117.

    RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774.

  118. 118.

    Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 790; a copy of a Hoxton House receipt, dated 1831, has an impressive heading bearing the legend ‘ESTABLISHED, 1695’.

  119. 119.

    BPP 1814/15, Vol. VI, Select Committee on the State of Madhouses, p. 171, evidence of Sir Jonathan Miles.

  120. 120.

    Murphy, ‘Mad Farming’, p. 259.

  121. 121.

    LMA, P69/AND4/B/048/MS 04120, St Andrew Undershaft, Workhouse Account Books, 4 November 1747, ‘Meeting of Committee of the Workhouse’.

  122. 122.

    St James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 24 February 1763.

  123. 123.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, pp. 160–1; ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-1, C-2, C-20, C-37, C-38, C-39, C-65, C-67, C-68, C-79, C-89, C-108, C-111, C-114.

  124. 124.

    Andrews and Scull, Undertaker, p. 160; Coventry City Archives, PA 184/5/7, pp. 3-4, 11. No house was licensed under the Miles name in 1774. Harrison held three licences until 1790, when he was replaced by Jonathan Miles, son of the previous proprietor—RCP, MS 2104, 26 October 1774, 19 October 1775, 16 October 1776, October 1790.

  125. 125.

    Edgar Samuel, ‘Schomberg, Meyer (1690–1761), Physician’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/view/article/24826, accessed 7/12/18. Schomberg was a disputatious figure, clashing with William Battie in the College of Physicians—Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. IV, p. 606.

  126. 126.

    Robinson, Lost Hackney, pp. 34–5; Watson, Hackney and Stoke Newington Past, p. 56; London Evening Post, 1 November 1750; London Advertiser and Literary Gazette, 18, 19 March 1751. Contradictory newspaper reports cast doubt on when Schomberg took over the ‘great House at Hoxton’.

  127. 127.

    Warwickshire County Record Office, CR 611/725/9, 27 December 1759, Charles Talbot to Captain Clement Newsham; CR 611/726/11, 1 July 1760, Talbot to Newsham.

  128. 128.

    ‘John Monro’s 1766 Case Book’, C-4, C-115; Watson, Hackney and Stoke Newington Past, p. 56.

  129. 129.

    RCP, MS 2104, 29 October 1775.

  130. 130.

    RCP, MS 2104, 26, 29 October 1774.

  131. 131.

    See Chap. 2.

  132. 132.

    LMA, St Botolph, Bishopsgate, Churchwardens Accounts, P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/022, 1701-2, p. 231; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/023, 1702–3, p. 206; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/024, 1703–4, 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, 2 August 1707; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/028, 1707–8, p. 281; P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/034, 1719–20, p. 277.

  133. 133.

    P69/BOT4/B/009/MS04525/035, p. 277, 29 March 1721.

  134. 134.

    Select Trials or Murders, Robberies, Rapes, Sodomy, Coining, Frauds, and Other Offences at the Sessions-House in the Old Bailey, Vol. 1, From December, 1720, to October, 1723 (London: L. Gilliver, 1742), pp. 56–62; Whitehall Evening Post, 27–29 June 1721; Daily Post, 28 June 1721; Post Boy, 29 June—1 July 1721; Weekly Journal or the British Gazetteer, 1, 8 July 1721; Daily Journal, 4 July 1721; Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal, 15 July 1721; London Journal, 22 July 1721.

  135. 135.

    It was reported that people with ‘Friends or Relations’ under his care had removed them—Weekly Journal or Saturday’s Post, 1 July 1721.

  136. 136.

    Weekly Journal or Saturday’s Post, 10 August 1717; Andrews, ‘Bedlam Revisited’, p. 498.

  137. 137.

    St James’s Evening Post, 28 May 1747. A young woman escaped from the Shadwell madhouse and ran naked through the streets followed by a ‘large Mob’, reaching a court in Spitalfields where she doused herself in water from a pump. Neighbours interceded until the ‘Keepers of the Madhouse’ collected her in a coach. This house may be that in Well Close Square, once kept by Matthew Wright.

  138. 138.

    London Evening Post, 7 March 1738.

  139. 139.

    Lewis Southcomb, Peace of Mind and Health of Body United (London: M. Cooper, 1750), p. 37; Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 383–4; Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, p. 120.

  140. 140.

    Southcomb, Peace of Mind and Health of Body, pp. 30, 38–9, 53–8, 61–2, 70–2.

  141. 141.

    R.R. Sellman, ‘Madness in an 18th Century Village’, Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 32 (1971), no.2, p. 53. William Sprague of Silverton received a medical licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1703—Barber, ‘Directory of Medical Licences’, p. 131; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 20/12/19.

  142. 142.

    John Hutchins, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (London: W. Bowyer and J. Nicholls, 1774), Vol. 2, p. 472.

  143. 143.

    TNA, MH 51/735, Country Register, pp. 56–8.

  144. 144.

    Philo, A Geographical History, p. 328.

  145. 145.

    Daily Journal, 22 July 1729; Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, 26 July 1729. The young man’s father was ‘so affected’ by his son’s distress that he hanged himself.

  146. 146.

    Samuel Bowden, Poems on Various Subjects: With Some Essays in Prose, Letters to Correspondents, &c. and A Treatise on Health (Bath: T. Boddely, 1754), p. 216.

  147. 147.

    Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, 206/93, Correspondence and Accounts Between James, Zachariah Jefferys and Trowbridge Overseers, 1749–92, 2 December 1749, 24 December 1758, 22 March 1761, 28 March 1763, 29 September 1775, 13 May 1782; 206/64, Trowbridge Overseers Accounts, 14–28 April 1754, 24 February—23 March 1760; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 168–9. John and Zacahriah Jefferys were probably father and son.

  148. 148.

    Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 25 May, 1, 8, 15 June 1769; Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 26 June, 10 July, 7 August 1769.

  149. 149.

    Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, A1/150/21, Quarter Sessions Minutes, 3 October 1775.

  150. 150.

    TNA, C 217/55/8/21, 3 May 1725 Affidavit of William Fricker; C 217/55/8/22, 3 May 1725, Affidavit of Edward Watts.

  151. 151.

    Gloucester Journal, 18 January 1736, cited in H. Temple Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum at Fishponds, Bristol 1740–1859’ (University of Bristol, M.Sc Dissertation, 1973), p. 7.

  152. 152.

    Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, A1/150/21, 9 January 1776; British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1814/15, Vol. VI, Select Committee (SC) on the State of Madhouses, pp. 43–8.

  153. 153.

    Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, A1/150/21, 9 January 1776.

  154. 154.

    Salisbury and Wiltshire Journal, 8 February 1779; Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, p. 472; Porter, Manacles, p. 145. For the Finch family, see Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77, 116–8.

  155. 155.

    Gloucester Journal, 12, 19, 26 December 1738; Temple-Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 21–4—in 1737 Mason senior was styled ‘as eminent for curing Melancholy and Distracted People, as any Man in the West of England.’

  156. 156.

    Gloucester Journal, 25 November, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 December 1740; Temple-Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, p. 33. For fuller consideration of Joseph Mason junior, see 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.

  157. 157.

    Bristol Archives, Jefferies Collection, 44,784/19, p. 171, 30 November 1746; Smith, ‘“God Grant it May Do Good Two All” ‘, p. 210; Temple-Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 37–40.

  158. 158.

    Bristol University Library, Special Collections, DM 2337/D/1, ‘Diary of Joseph Mason’, April–December 1763; D.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, April– December 1763’, (Bristol, 1972; unpublished, copy in Bristol Archives, 39,801/X/8); Smith, ‘“God Grant it May Do Good Two All” ‘, pp. 210–15; Temple Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 40–3.

  159. 159.

    Gloucestershire Archives, D 9125/1/5/5742, 4 October 1774; Q/SR/1775/A, 22 December 1774; Temple Phillips, ‘The History of the Old Private Lunatic Asylum’, pp. 44–7.

  160. 160.

    TNA, C 217/55/11/53, 18 November 1731, Affidavit of Peter Fawconer.

  161. 161.

    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, Which the Former Clandestinely Communicated to Many Persons, in Order to Excuse His Not Answering Dr Russel’s Letter to Him, and to Obstruct and Hinder the Course of His Practice (London: W. Russel, 1751), pp. 43–5; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 20/12/19.

  162. 162.

    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; Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles, pp. 140, 143, 167; Francis Espinasse, ‘Addington, Anthony (1713–1790), Physician’, rev. Claire L. Nutt, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/view/article/149, accessed 12/2/17. Addington, whose politician son Henry Addington became prime minister, was consulted regarding the insanity of King George III. Other patients included the Earl of Chatham, who experienced episodic insanity.

  163. 163.

    Reading Mercury, 27 April 1778.

  164. 164.

    Hampshire Archives, 44 M69/M3/4/6, ‘Certificate of the State of the Madhouse Bstoke 6 June 1792’; 3M82W/PO24/2, Daniel Kinchin to Edward Pyott (not dated, 1771).

  165. 165.

    Surrey History Centre, QS 5/5/3, Private Lunatic Asylums, Visitors Minute Book, 1774–1813, 4 October, 17 November 1774.

  166. 166.

    TNA, Petty Bag Office, C211/22/R29, 6 August 1734, John Read, grocer; C211/2/B99, 24 November 1747, Ann Bartholomew, spinster; C211/27/W66, 15 April 1748, William Wade, ‘esq, formerly of Walsoken, Norfolk’.

  167. 167.

    Historic England, ‘Great Fosters’, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000303, accessed 12/2/17.

  168. 168.

    QS 5/5/3, 4 October, 17 November 1774, 30 April, 3 October 1775.

  169. 169.

    True Briton, 13 January 1796.

  170. 170.

    Shirley Burgoyne Black, An 18th Century Mad-Doctor: William Perfect of West Malling (Sevenoaks: Darenth Valley Publications, 1995), pp. 41, 51.

  171. 171.

    Black, An 18th Century Mad-Doctor, pp. 42–6; Oxford Journal, 21 November 1767. The inoculation house was at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

  172. 172.

    Kentish Gazette, 13 August, 17 September 1771.

  173. 173.

    St James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 12 February 1774; Kentish Gazette, 28 May, 6 August, 21 September 1774; London Evening Post, 14 June, 24 September 1774.

  174. 174.

    L.T.F., ‘Private Madhouses a Century Ago’, Notes and Queries 9, May 1866, 367–8.

  175. 175.

    A Full and True Account of the Whole Tryal, Examination and Conviction of Dr James Newton pp. 1, 6.

  176. 176.

    LMA, St Dionis Backchurch—Minutes of Parish Vestries, 1712–1759, 21 December 1714, London Lives, GLDBMV305010039; Churchwardens’ Vouchers / Receipts, 1706–60, 2 April 1722, GLDBPP307020128; Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor Account Books, 1689–1720, 8 April 1714—25 March, 1720, GLDBAC300000533-573 (www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, March 2018, accessed 7/12/18); Andrews, ‘Bedlam Revisited’, pp. 498–9. They refused to pay James Newton 2 guineas entrance and 10s per week; Browne only charged 6 s, later reduced to 5 s.

  177. 177.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X 125, Introductory sheet, ‘Thomas Crawley M.B. and His “Lunatick” Asylum in Dunstable’; X 125/13, Introductory sheet, Casebook of Dr. Symcotts;’ X 125/76, Pedigree of Crawley Family.

  178. 178.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X 125/68, ‘On Madness, By Thomas Crawley MB’; F.G. Stokes (ed.), The Blecheley Diary of the Rev. William Cole, 1765–7 (London: Constable, 1931), p. 43, 24 April 1766.

  179. 179.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X 125, ‘Thomas Crawley and His “Lunatick” Asylum’; Cole, The Blecheley Diary, p. 43.

  180. 180.

    Cole, The Blecheley Diary, p. 43.

  181. 181.

    Bedfordshire Archives, X 125/13, Casebook of Dr. Symcotts. Reverend Lord used this book for his own cases from 1759, and it was subsequently used by his son and grandson, with intermittent entries until the 1830s.

  182. 182.

    X 125/13, Casebook, 10 March 1760—20 December 1775.

  183. 183.

    X 125/13, Casebook, 20 December 1775.

  184. 184.

    ‘Memoir of Dr. Nathaniel Cotton’, Gentleman’s Magazine 77, June 1807, 500–1; 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; Gary Moyle, ‘Madhouses of Hertfordshire 1735–1903’, in Steve King and Gillian Gear (eds), A Caring County? Social Welfare in Hertfordshire From 1600 (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2013), 69–98.

  185. 185.

    ‘Memoir of Dr Nathaniel Cotton’, p. 500; William Hayley, The Life and Letters of William Cowper, Esq. With Remarks on Epistolatory Writers (London: J. Johnson and Co., 1812), pp. 95–7, 111–12; William Cowper, Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq. Written By Himself (London: R. Edwards, 1816), pp. 71–80; Ritchie, ‘Cotton, Nathaniel’; Moyle, ‘Madhouses of Hertfordshire’, pp. 72–4; Porter, Manacles, pp. 142, 146, 265; Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 77, 172.

  186. 186.

    Linnaean Society, Pulteney Manuscripts, 5 June 1761, Cotton to Pulteney—reproduced in Hunter and Macalpine, Three Hundred Years, pp. 425–6; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/, accessed 20/12/19.

  187. 187.

    Stamford Mercury, 26 December 1717.

  188. 188.

    Winston, ‘The Bethel at Norwich’, pp. 31–7.

  189. 189.

    Ipswich Journal, 22 December 1764.

  190. 190.

    Ipswich Journal, 23 November 1765; London Chronicle, 28 December 1765; Norfolk CRO, MC 687/35, 21 February 1769, ‘Attested Copy of Settlement of Lunatick House and other hereditaments in Lakenham’.

  191. 191.

    Winston, ‘The Bethel at Norwich’, p. 46.

  192. 192.

    Stamford Mercury, 7 September 1721.

  193. 193.

    Daily Journal, 1, 5 July 1728; Mist’s Weekly Journal, 3 August 1728; Derby Mercury, 24 September 1741; London Evening Post, 1 October 1741. For his other, London-based son William Bucknall, see above, p. 8.

  194. 194.

    Peter Carpenter, ‘The Private Lunatic Asylums of Leicestershire’, Transactions of Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society LXI, 1987, 34–42; Peter Carpenter, ‘Thomas Arnold: A Provincial Psychiatrist in Georgian England’, Medical History 33, 1989, 199–216; Leicester Journal, 6 August—26 November, 3, 10 December 1768.

  195. 195.

    Francis Willis, A Treatise on Mental Derangement, Containing the Substance of the Gulstonian Lectures, for May MDCCCXXII (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1823), pp. 177–8; Leonard Smith and Timothy Peters, ‘Introduction’ to Classic Text no. 111, ‘“Details on the Establishment of Doctor Willis, for the Cure of Lunatics” (1796)’, History of Psychiatry 28 (3), 2017, 365–72, pp. 366–8.

  196. 196.

    Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archives, Stoneleigh MSS, DR 18/5/5029, 18/5/5096, 18/5/5107, 18/5/5115, 18/5/5126; DR 671/36; Joan Lane, A Social History of Medicine: Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750–1950 (London and New York: Routledge), p. 102; Robert Bearman (ed.), Stoneleigh Abbey: The House, Its Owners, Its Lords (Stratford-upon-Avon: Stoneleigh Abbey Limited / Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2003), pp. 150–1; William Hawkes (ed,), The Diaries of Sanderson Miller of Radway (Stratford-upon-Avon: Dugdale Society, XLI, 2005), pp. 41, 46, 328–9. Lord Leigh paid the astronomical sum of 100 guineas per month, plus expenses.

  197. 197.

    Bodleian Library, Dashwood MSS: B19/3/2, 24 December 1765, Willis to Despenser; B19/3/3, 25 November 1770, Willis to Despenser (quote); B19/3/6, 27 May 1773, Willis to Despenser.

  198. 198.

    Smith and Peters, ‘Introduction to Classic Text’, p. 367; Dashwood MSS: B19/3/20, 27 December 1773, Willis to Despenser; B19/3/26, 2 March 1774, Despenser to Willis; B19/3/39, 3 April 1775, Willis to Despenser; B19/5/44, 21 December 1775, Garner to Despenser; D19/5/46, 25 January 1776, Garner to Despenser.

  199. 199.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, pp. 131–3; Northampton Mercury, 25 March 1809; Oxford Journal, 4 December 1813, 4 February 1815. According to these advertisements, the Hook Norton house was established by James Harris’s ancestors over a century earlier.

  200. 200.

    Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 31 October 1778—cited in Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p132.

  201. 201.

    Warwickshire County Record Office, QS 24/6/1, ‘Madhouse Act—Account’, 1774.

  202. 202.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p. 36,

  203. 203.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 2, 9 May 1774; Derby Mercury, 6, 13 May 1774; Thomas Bakewell, ‘Remarks on Mental Affections’, Imperial Magazine, May 1823, cols. 435–6; ‘Memoir of Mr Thomas Bakewell, Keeper of Spring Vale Asylum, Near Stone, Staffordshire’, Imperial Magazine, May 1826, col.402; 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.

  204. 204.

    Derby Mercury, 6 May 1774; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 9 May 1774.

  205. 205.

    Derby Mercury, 3 March 1775; Staffordshire Archives, Q/FAa/1/1, Accounts of Monies Received and Disbursed by the Clerk of the Peace, p. 83. Lichfield was the vibrant regional centre of culture at this time—John Brewer. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997), pp. 591–601.

  206. 206.

    Lichfield Joint Record Office, D25/3/3, ‘City of Lichfield: Reports as to Houses for the Reception of Lunatics’, 1779–182 8, 29 December 1779.

  207. 207.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 2, 16, 30 August 1756.

  208. 208.

    TNA, Petty Bag Office, C211/19/P50, 2 July 1740; C211/26/V10, 19 July 1750; C211/11/H72, 20 July 1756). Intriguingly, there was a commission dated 6 October 1758 (C211/19/P70) in relation to ‘Samuel Proud, yeoman, Bilston’, suggesting that Proud himself became insane in his later years and was looked after by his son.

  209. 209.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 2, 16, 30 August 1756; Ron Davies, ‘“A Trifle From Bilston”‘, The Blackcountryman 19, no.3, 1986, 46–8.

  210. 210.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 23 May—5 December 1774

  211. 211.

    L.D. Smith,, ‘Eighteenth-Century Madhouse Practice: The Prouds of Bilston’, History of Psychiatry 3, 1992, 45–52; Davies, ‘“A Trifle From Bilston”‘, p. 46; Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service, Bantock House Museum, EM217—the Bilston enamel boxes were manufactured somewhere between 1760 and 1780.

  212. 212.

    Staffordshire Archives, Q/FAa/1/1, pp. 74–5; Q/SB/1776/T/105, 11 July 1776; Smith, ‘Eighteenth-Century Madhouse Practice’, p. 47.

  213. 213.

    Leonard Smith, ‘The Bilston Madhouses’, The Blackcountryman 51 (2), Spring 2018, 51–6.

  214. 214.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 31 August 1752, 30 April—28 May 1753..

  215. 215.

    Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 20 August 1756.

  216. 216.

    Staffordshire Archives, Q/SB/1776/T/105, 11 July 1776.

  217. 217.

    Chester Chronicle, 20 February 1778.

  218. 218.

    Evening Post, 5 January 1717.

  219. 219.

    Lancashire Archives, Visitors Reports, QSP/2056/14, 28 November 1776.

  220. 220.

    Lancashire Archives, De Trafford Papers, DDTR/5/5, Box 48, 22 December 1750; Friends of Lancashire Archives, ‘Chew’s Asylum, Billington’, 6/12/2005, http://www.flarchives.co.uk/latest/chews-asylum-billington, accessed 7/12/18; Stanley was subject to a commission of lunacy—TNA, Petty Bag Office, C211/23/S75, 21 May 1748.

  221. 221.

    St James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 24 February 1763.

  222. 222.

    Lancashire Archives, QSP/2282/34, 6 October 1790—Edward Stott of Manchester had been in the house for twenty years.

  223. 223.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p. 226; Porter, Manacles, pp. 261–2; Samuel Bruckshaw, One More Proof of the Iniquitous Abuse of Private Madhouses (London: for the Author, 1774); Samuel Bruckshaw, The Case, Petition and Address, of Samuel Bruckshaw, Who Suffered a Most Severe Imprisonment for Very Nearly a Whole Year, Loaded With Irons, Without Being Heard in His Defence, Nay Even Without Being Secured, and at Last Denied an Appeal to a Jury. Humbly Offered to the Perusal and Consideration of the Judicious and Humane Public (London: ‘Printed and Sold for the Sufferer’, 1774). The content of Bruckshaw’s writings strongly indicate a mental disorder.

  224. 224.

    Lancashire Archives, QSP/2090/1, 22 September, 15 October 1778.

  225. 225.

    Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy, p. 61.

  226. 226.

    Smith, Lunatic Hospitals, pp. 27–8.

  227. 227.

    Ibid, p. 27; 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. 7–22.

  228. 228.

    Newcastle Courant, 17 May—1 November 1766.

  229. 229.

    Hall, A Narrative of the Proceedings, pp. 22–36; Newcastle Courant, 3 October 1767—5 November 1768.

  230. 230.

    Newcastle Courant, 19 September 1767.

  231. 231.

    Newcastle Courant, 3 October 1767—15 October 1774.

  232. 232.

    Philo, A Geographical History, pp. 340–8.

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Smith, L. (2020). Madhouses in the Market-Place, 1701–1774. 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_3

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