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West Riding Asylums
Meanwood Park Colony
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Asylums in Yorkshire
White's 1853
Directory
Commissioners
Reports
Parliamentary Papers Vol IV
WHITE'S 1853
CLOTHING DISTRICTS OF YORKSHIRE
The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, on East Moor, is an extensive
establishment, which was opened in 1818, & enlarged in 1830, 1837, &
1846-47.
It is under the control of the West Riding
Magistrates; & the land, buildings, & furniture cost about £100,000. C
C Corsellis, M.D., is the resident physician & director & has often
under his care about 450 lunatics.
The Dispensary, in Northgate, was founded in 1824; & the House of Recovery,
on Westgate Common, in 1826.
Source: WHITE'S 1853 CLOTHING DISTRICTS OF YORKSHIRE
Submitted by Betty Longbottom
Twenty
Second Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord Chancellor
From PP 1867/68 Vol XXXI pp 1-301
Submitted by Alan Longbottom
P 006 Yorkshire East Riding
The purchase of a site near Beverley for the erection of the proposed new Asylum
for the East Riding has been sanctioned by the Secretary of State. Upon the site
now chosen a well 340 ft deep has been sunk. Additional land is to be purchased
bringing the size of the site from 63 acres to 96 acres. Plans for the building
are in the course of preparation; the number to be at first accommodated being
250.
p 006 Yorkshire West Riding
Plans are still under consideration for the erection of the new asylum for the
West Riding, which it is proposed to call the South Yorkshire, upon the site
obtained at Wadsley Park near Sheffield, as described in our last Report. The
numbers to be accommodated, as at present intended, are 310 males and 344
females.
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Parliamentary Papers 1814/15
Vol IV
11th July 1815 Madhouses in England Report No 296
Minutes of Evidence pp 809-
First Report of Minutes pp 001-130
Note :- This is a report on the York Lunatic Asylum, not
to be confused with The Retreat which was run by the Quakers.
Godfrey Higgins esq Magistrate W Riding pp 001 811
Ist of May 1815 Rt Hon George Rose in the Chair.
Where do you live ?
At Skellow Grange near Doncaster in Yorkshire
You are a Governor of the York Asylum and a Magistrate of the
West Riding of Yorkshire ?
I am.
Have you any knowledge of the state and condition of the York
Lunatic Asylum, and the method of treatment of the patients in
that Asylum ?
I have.
Have the goodness to state to the Committee, how you became
possessed of that information ?
In the year 1813 application was made to me to grant a warrant
against a man who had assaulted a poor woman; upon enquiry I
found the man to be insane, and ordered him to be sent to the
Asylum at York: Sometime afterwards he returned, and I was informed
he had been extremely ill-used; (the name of the man was William
Vickers;) in consequence of this I published several letters and
other documents, upon which various meeting of the Governors
were held from time to time for the course of 12 months, until the
27th of August last; upon which day all the servants and officers
of the house were dismissed, or their places deemed vacant, except
one. Not being perfectly satisfied with what was done, I thought
it incumbent upon me to publish a letter to Lord Fitzwilliam, as
Lord Lieutenant of that Riding, in which to the best of my knowledge
I stated every thing that I knew relating to the Institution and
to the abuses which had taken place in that house.
The Appendix contains a Report of the Committee appointed to
investigate the abuses, and the New Rules and Regulations.
In what condition did you find the Asylum when you visited it in
the Spring Assize week of 1814 ?
Having suspicions in my mind that there were some parts of the
Asylum which had not been seen, I went early in the morning
determined to examine every place; after ordering a great number
of doors to be opened, I came to one which was in a retired
situation in the kitchen apartments, and which was almost hid by
the opening of a door in the passage; I ordered this door to be
opened; the keepers hesitated, and said the apartment belonged to
the women, and they had not the key; I ordered them to get the
key, but it was said it was mislaid, and could not be found at
the moment; upon this I grew angry, and told them, I insisted upon
its being found, and that if they would not find it, I could find a
key at the kitchen fire-side, namely, the poker; upon that the
key was immediately brought. When the door was opened, I went
into the passage and found four cells, I think, of about eight
feet square, in a very horrid and filthy situation, the straw
appeared to be almost saturated with urine and excrement; there
was some bedding laid upon the straw in one cell, in the others
only loose straw; a man (a keeper) was in the passage doing
something, but what I do not know; the walls were daubed with
excrement; the air holes, of which there was one in each cell,
were partly filled with it; in one cell there were two pewter
chamber pots loose. I asked the keeper if these cells were
inhabited by the patients ? he told me they were at night.
I then desired him to take me up stairs and shew me the place of
the women who came out of those cells that morning.
I then went up stairs, and he shewed me into a room which I caused
him to measure, and the size of which he told me was 12 feet by 7
feet and 10 inches, and in there were 13 women, who he told me
had all come out of those cells that morning.
Were they pauper women ?
I do not know; I was afraid that afterwards he should deny that,
and therefore I went in and said to him "Now Sir, clap your hand
upon the head of this woman" and I did so too; and I said "Is
this one of the very women that were in those cells last night"
and he said she was; I became very sick, and could not remain
longer in the room, I vomited.
In the course of an hour and a half after this, I procured Col
Cooke of Owston and John Cooke esq of Camps Mount, to examine those
cells; they had come to attend a special meeting which I had
caused to be called that day at 12 o'clock; whilst I was standing
at the door of the cells waiting for the key, a young woman ran
past me, amongst the men servants, decently dressed; I asked who
she was, and was told by Atkinson, that she was a female patient
of respectable connections.
At the special meeting of the Governors which I had caused to be
called, I told them what I had seen, and asked Atkinson, the
apothecary, in their presence, if what I had said was not correctly
true; and I told him, if he intended to deny any part of it, he
must do it then, he bowed his assent, and acknowledged what I said
was true.
I then desired the Governors to come with me to see those cells;
and then I discovered, for the first time that the cells were
unknown to the Governors; several of the Committee, which consisted
of fifteen, told me they had never seen them, that they had gone
round the house with His Grace the Archbishop of York, that they
had understood that they were to see the whole house, and these
cells had not been shewn to them.
We went through the cells, and at that time they had been cleaned
as much as they could be in so short a space of time. I turned
up the straw in one of them with my umbrella, and pointed out to
the gentlemen, the chain and handcuff which were then concealed
beneath the straw, and which I then perceived had been fixed onto
a board newly put down in the floor. I afterwards enquired of one
of the Committee of five, who had been appointed to afford any
temporary accommodations which they could find for a moderate sum
of money to the patients, if those cells had been shewn to that
committee, and I was told they had not.
Before I saw these cells, I had been repeatedly told by Atkinson
the apothecary, and the keepers, that I had seen the whole house
that was occupied by patients; I afterwards was told by a
professional man, Mr Pritchett, That he had heard Mr Watson the
architect, ask one of the keepers what those places were; Mr
Watson was at that time looking out of the staircase window, and
he heard the keeper answer Mr Watson that they were cellars and
other little offices. The day after my examination of these cells,
I went again early in the morning to examine them, after I knew
that the straw could have been used only one night; and I can
positively say, from this examination that the straw which I
first found there must have been in use a very considerable time.
Early in the investigation which took place into this Institution,
several gentlemen came forward to state, that they had examined the
house on purpose to form a judgement of it, but though several of
them were present when I stated the case of these cells, they did
not state that they had seen them.
When Colonel Cooke of Owston, was n one of the cells, he tried to
make marks or letters in the excrement remaining upon the floor
after it had been cleaned and fresh straw put into it, which he did
without any difficulty, and which he will be ready to state to the
Committee if required.
The day after I saw these cells, I went up to the apartments of the
upper class of female patients, with one of those men keepers as
I should suppose to be about thirty years of age, one of those
who were dismissed in August; and I asked him, when at the door
of the ward, if his key would not open those doors; I did not give
him time to answer, but I seized the key from his hand, and with
it opened the outer door of the ward, and then went and opened
the bed-room doors of the upper class of female patients, and
locked them again; I then gave him his key again. Mr Samuel Tuke,
a Quaker, of York was standing by and saw me.
Source: Asylums in Yorkshire
From Alan Longbottom at Pudsey.
Parliamentary Papers 1814/15
Vol IV
11th July 1815 Madhouses in England Report No 296
Continuation of Report on York Lunatic Asylum.
Note this was not the Retreat the Quaker Asylum.
Do you know of any unfit practices with respect to the female
patients ?
Yes : I have been informed that they have been got with child;
and I have now in my hand a copy of a warrant granted by Frederick
L'Oste of the County of Lincoln, to apprehend James Backhouse the
head keeper, who was charged with having got with child Elizabeth
West, a female pauper, sent to this Asylum by the Overseers of
the Township of Louth; the warrant appears to have been backed on
the 17th of June 1797 by R Metcalfe. I am informed that he was
taken by the authority of the Warrant to Louth, where Elizabeth
West fathered the child upon him. Elizabeth West was admitted into
the Asylum August the 17th 1796, was removed May the 8th 1797,
and was delivered of a male child on August the 19th 1797; the
keeper Backhouse, paid £30 to the Overseers of the Poor of the
Parish of Louth for the maintenance of the bastard; he paid it
by three instalments; it appears in the town books, that the
overseers of the poor have made themselves debtors in these sums
to the township. I am informed that Elizabeth West was a young
woman of exceedingly good character before she went to the Asylum;
and she is now a woman of exceedingly good character, and has
been living some years in a respectable family.
Sometime after this the head keeper retired from this house, upon
which occasion a piece of plate was voted to him as a mark of
approbation of his conduct during a service of 26 years; I have
not the most distant suspicion, that any one of the Governors who
voted for this piece of plate, had any knowledge whatever of the
transaction between Backhouse and West, except the physician,
Hunter.
In what line of life is Backhouse at present ?
He now keeps a private Madhouse in York.
Do you know of any case more recent, of the same nature ?
Yes : the case of Dorothy Exilby of Kirby Malzeard; she was
admitted February 8th 1801, she was discharged cured February
20th 1802, delivered of Male child the 21st September 1802,
the father of this child was said to have been one of the patients.
I have heard also, and believe from the respectable authority
from which I received it, that a woman in a superior situation
in life who was there as an insane patient, was got with child
by some person within the house..
Another case which I laid before the Governors, was that of the
Rev Mr Shorey; he was a clergyman reduced to indigence I believe
in consequence of his mental complaint; he had at times, and for
considerable periods intervals of reason; in those intervals he
was perfectly capable of understanding every thing that was done
to him, repeatedly in the presence of his wife, he was exposed
to personal indignity; and on one occasion he was inhumanly
kicked down stairs by the keepers and told, in the presence of his
wife, that he was looked upon no better than a dog; his person
swarmed with vermin. And to complete this poor man's misery,
the keepers insulted his wife with indecent ribaldry, in order to
deter her from visiting him in his unfortunate situation, his wife
occasionally visited him to bring him such little comforts as she
could procure by the labour of her hands, for she worked to support
him during the time that he was in the Asylum. He had a gold watch,
which was lost there, and which his wife could never recover.
How long ago was this case ?
I should think not more than three years ago.
Do you know any thing of the cases of two persons of the name of
Thirkell ?
Yes.
Were they relations ?
Yes.
Have the goodness to state to the Committee what you know about
them ?
One of them, a labouring man, was sent to the Asylum on the
recommendation of Miss Place of York; after some time he disappeared
and has never been heard of from that time to this.
In what way was his disappearance entered in the books ?
He was entered as "removed". When Miss Place called to enquire
after his state of health, as she told me, she asked Atkinson the
apothecary, how he did, and Atkinson said he was gone away well.
I have asked the father of this young man, if he knew whether hand
bills were published, or any means taken to discover him; he said,
he never heard of any, and he never could get a sight of a hand-bill
Did Atkinson or any one belonging to the Asylum, say that hand-bills
were issued offering a reward for his discovery ?
Yes: the Steward said so; and on the day when I discovered the
concealed cells, I asked Mr Surr, the Steward, to produce to me
the printer's bill for that quarter of the year in which the
hand-bill must have been entered, if any had been printed by the
printer of the Asylum, and he told me that after a long search,
that he had lost the bill.
How long ago was this ?
About two years ago ; the other Thirkell was a relation of the
former and came from Sherborn in Yorkshire and was killed some
time after he was in the Asylum by another patient; his death was
entered in the book of the Institution where accounts are kept
of what becomes of patients under the word "died"
There are references to an increase in the death rate per annum
after a Dr Hunter had died.
Total admitted 1771 to 1811 2,346
Admitted 1811-1812 99
Died 210
Dr Hunter was physician for 32 years and there was an average
death rate of 8 per annum
Since his death the average has risen to 25 per year.
Do you know the mortality that took place in the Institution
called The Retreat at York, by which the Committee can be made
acquainted with the ratio of deaths to the number of patients ?
I believe that deaths at the Asylum in the 1st 36 years were
365 the average number of patients in the Asylum about 98.
In the Retreat in 16 years they were 26 the average number of
patients in the Retreat 46.
.....
Dr Best the Physician has resigned has he not ?
He has.
Have you any reason to believe that the food of the patients
was bad ?
Yes : Mary Beckwith, who was examined in the case of Martha Kidd,
one of the cases of abuse laid before the Governors, told me
that she was faint for want of something to eat, when attending
as a witness, and she was ordered some bread and cheese, that
the bread was of the vilest and worst description she ever saw in
her life.
What has become of Mr Atkinson since he was discharged from the
Institution ?
He has set up a private Madhouse of his own in York.
In the PRO Catalogue under Class C211 Chancery Petty Bag Office
Commissions and Inquisitions of Lunacy
There are records of 3,964 cases 133 pages dating from 1853 to 1932
These show the dates and Ref Number the name of the Person
and the Asylum. It is then possible to obtain via a London
researcher a copy of the papers for the Inquisition.
Among the Yorkshire Asylums mentioned near York are
Acomb House Asylum York c 1855-58
Claxton Grange Asylum Bossall c 1853-61
Dunnington House Asylum c 1856-76
Grove House Asylum Acomb c 1867-87
Lawrence House Asylum York c 1870-93
Lime Tree House Asylum Acomb c 1877
N & E Riding Asylum at Clifton c 1859-78
The Retreat York (Quakers) c 1855-80
York Lunatic Asylum Bootham c 1855-97
Other Information Re Asylums in the York Area taken from Census
Statistical Information . These show the numbers of Total occupants
which includes staff and the totals for inmates both divided into male and
female.
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Page 1 Census Statistics Re Prisons Etc
03-04-2000
AREA York RD61 515.20 PARISH York
LOCATION York Clifton North Riding Lunatic Asylum TYPE
LAS
TT61 - 540 TM61 - 283 TF61 - 257 IT61 - 486 IM61 - 258
IF61 - 228
TT71 - 621 TM71 - 310 TF71 - 311 IT71 - 560 IM71 - 282
IF71 - 278
AREA York RD61 515.20 PARISH St Giles
LOCATION York Lunatic Hospital TYPE
LAS
TT61 - 176 TM61 - 94 TF61 - 82 IT61 -133 IM61 -76
IF61 -57
TT71 - 224 TM71 - 110 TF71 - 114 IT71 - 175 IM71 - 94
IF71 - 81
AREA York RD61 515.40 PARISH Gate Fulford
LOCATION York Friends Retreat Lunatic Hospital TYPE
LAS
TT61 -173 TM61 - 59 TF61 -114 IT61 -120 IM61- 46
IF61 -74
TT71 -195 TM71 - 69 TF71 - 126 IT71 - 138 IM71 - 51
IF71 - 87
For 1901
TT91 - 265 TM91 - 87 TF91 - 178 IT91 - 153 IM91 - 62
IF91 - 91
AREA York RD61 515.40 PARISH Osbaldwick
LOCATION Terrace House Private Lunatic Asylum (Not in 1871/81) TYPE
LAS
TT61 -13 TM61 -1 TF61 -12 IT61 - 8 IM61 - 0
IF61 - 8
AREA York RD61 515.60 PARISH Dunnington
LOCATION Dunnington House Retreat Lunatic Asylum (Not in 1881) TYPE
LAS
TT61 - 46 TM61- 26 TF61- 20 IT61- 34 IM61- 21
IF61 -13
TT71 - 44 TM71- 25 TF71- 19 IT71- 37 IM71- 22
IF71 - 15
AREA York RD61 515.70 PARISH Claxton
LOCATION Claxton Grange Retreat Lunatic Asylum (Not in 1871/81) TYPE
LAS
TT61 - 23 TM61 - 11 TF61 - 12 IT61 - 9 IM61 - 5
IF61 - 4
It would therefore appear that it was easy to set up a Private Asylum in the
19th Century and note from the previous posts that some of those dismissed
from the Lunatic Asylum at York immediately set up their own establishments.
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Page last updated
06 August, 2007
by Rossbret |
Yorkshire Asylums