This morning's post brought a large interesting envelope whose content have shaped my whole day – it was the response from Surrey archives. With my interest in mental health issues I have been fascinated by my great grandfather’s job as an ‘asylum attendant’ so sent off for the archivist to look up the records for me (cheaper than travelling to do it myself someday).
Web searches had already told me about the huge asylums in the Epsom cluster that were built to house 'lunatics' and the 'feeble minded' from London - each could hold 2-3 thousand inmates. Despite the bad press of these institutions, my web research showed they were developed with good intentions. They were designed to move the mentally ill poor away from the workhouses, offer safe spaces, therapeutic occupation and in a place in the country. Here with specialised care physical restraints could be reduced to a minimum, when necessary a padded cell was a step away from the mechanical devices.
Today I discovered that my great grandfather worked at what became St Ebba's but which was first built as an 'epileptic colony', became a hospital for the mentally war wounded and then taken into the NHS as a mental hospital. It was built as a series of villas around the park like site. Focussed on those considered 'curable' it later focussed on voluntary patients. The manuals for staff that the archivist copied talk with a stern voice but respectful of patients, this was the new post Victorian approach. My great grandfather went from lowly attendant to charge nurse (via Egypt and WW1) in this cutting edge of its day institution.
But then the web led me to a story like this - a system that once in it was almost impossible to escape from and systematic brutality. And I am reminded how slight a condition or percieved moral weakness could make you an inmate.
I meet people now who have been inside these places in their earlier lives, not as far back as my research, but still in the height of institutional care.
Care in the community was seen as a long overdue corrective to the perils of the asylums - but I wonder if future generations will compare the gaps between the ideals and realities of our enlightened approach with the same complex feelings I have had in my reading of asylum life 100 years ago?
No comments:
Post a Comment