TRABAJADORES ESPECIALMENTE SENSIBLES

In their study of Exminster asylum, Melling and Forsythe found ‘intense anxiety’

existed amongst the friends and family of pauper patients regarding their treatment in the asylum. A slightly different picture emerges from the Broadmoor records. The

correspondence of poor families with the Superintendent suggests that not all members of the public feared the asylum, at least after they had come into contact with it. The vast number of letters inquiring into the mental and physical health of incarcerated relatives suggests that family members viewed Broadmoor as a place of recovery.²⁵¹ It was a place

250 D/H14/D2/2/1/1699, Broadmoor Prisoner’s Prayer.

251 The wife and mother of Samuel Nelms sent many letters to Broadmoor inquiring whether he had mentally improved, D/H14/D2/2/1/1068/18-60.

Figure 6. Broadmoor Prisoner's Prayer

82 where their son, husband or father would recover his senses thus leading to his discharge enabling him to resume his role as breadwinner, carer or confidant.²⁵²

An examination of letters sent to the Superintendent from some patients’ wives suggests that the committal of their husbands to Broadmoor generated a fear of starvation and poverty, the same emotional (and practical) responses Julie-Marie Strange found sometimes followed the death of a breadwinner.²⁵³ In some cases, even though men had murdered their child(ren) or had attempted to murder their wives, their spouse begged for their discharge because they feared destitution without them.²⁵⁴ According to a medical report, the wife of paternal child-murderer Edward Abbot ‘is very anxious that he should be discharged in order to support her and their surviving children.’²⁵⁵ Other wives, perhaps unable to forgive their husbands for the miserable state they had left their families in, were seemingly happy to forget them. John Cooper’s wife wrote to him:

I [...] trust you will never write to me again nor anyone else as it makes me ill from all the sorrow I have gone through [...] And ask God to forgive you as I have had a struggling time of it [these] last 25 years it has brought me down to a poor old woman and your children have quite forgot you and never think anything of you and no one never mentions your name.²⁵⁶

In some cases wives had no choice but to leave their incarcerated husbands; some obtained a divorce and others committed adultery.²⁵⁷

An examination of the letters received by patients and the Superintendents indicates that the desire exhibited by some patients to continue to care for their families,

252 William Griffith’s father told Nicolson, ‘I am his father and am getting old and if I could only obtain his liberty he would be of great assistance to me’, D/H14/D2/2/1/1092/15. The case files also contain letters written to patients from their sons detailing their struggles in life. See, D/H14/D2/2/1/765/23, letter to John McQueeny.

253 Julie-Marie Strange, Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 194.

254 The wife of Henry Dodwell appealed to Queen Victoria for his release because she feared the workhouse. ‘The Case of the Rev. H. Dodwell’, Sheffield & Northern Independent, 24 March 1879, p. 3.

255 D/H14/D2/2/1/799/4, letter to Orange. Also, D/H14/D2/2/1/830/8, letter to Orange.

256 D/H14/D2/2/1/373/6, letter to Cooper.

257 William Brown’s wife gave birth to another child ‘at a date when it was impossible that he could have been the father of it.’ D/H14/D2/2/1/829, Brown’s case file. John Ball’s wife had four children whilst he was incarcerated, D/H14/D2/2/1/900/9, letter to Orange.

83 as discussed earlier, was shared by families towards their incarcerated loved ones. Some patients’ children wrote to the Superintendent to inquire about the mental and physical condition of their fathers and expressed anxiety if there was any indication of ill health.²⁵⁸ Others sought to provide comfort to their fathers; upon hearing his father was ‘depressed’

the son of Anthony Owston wrote him ‘cheering’ letters.²⁵⁹ Patients’ parents also

assumed a role. Possibly to feel as though they were doing their parental duty, John Ball’s

‘anxious’ parents asked Nicolson to move him to another ward for his comfort and asked if he could spend more time outside because ‘he is very fond of gardening.’²⁶⁰ Matthew Jackson Hunter’s father wrote to Orange to check if he was eating properly, as did his brother.²⁶¹ Indeed, an examination of correspondence between brothers highlights the comfort and support they tried to provide one another.²⁶² It may be that sending such letters, alongside petitioning the Home Secretary for their relatives’ release, travelling to Broadmoor to visit their loved ones, and continually checking up on their condition, all became a means of survival for patients’ families.

Some patients had no contact with their families because they were illiterate.²⁶³ In addition, some patients’ families could not visit the asylum because the distance and the cost of travelling to Broadmoor were too great.²⁶⁴ On occasions when families did visit Broadmoor exchanges between them and the patient sometimes turned abusive; it is

258 Many men wrote to the Superintendent expressing anxiety regarding their father’s condition in the asylum. See various letters in the following case files: D/H14/D2/2/1/881, Joseph England;

D/H14/D2/2/1/1085, Richard Hammett; D/H14/D2/2/1/905, Robert Hallowell.

259 D/H14/D2/2/1/963/31, letter to Nicolson.

260 D/H14/D2/2/1/900/4-5, letters to Nicolson.

261 D/H14/D2/2/1/1116, letters to Orange, December 1882, January 1883 and March 1883.

262 For example, D/H14/D2/2/1/605/5, letter to Nicolson; D/H14/D2/2/1/973/5, letter to Robert Thornley.

263 See footnote 274 for an example of a literate patient writing a letter on behalf of an illiterate patient.

Although in this instance the letter was to the Superintendant, it is plausible that the same practice may have occurred to communicate with a patient’s family.

264 Thomas Knapp’s wife told Orange, ‘it grieves me very much not to be able to come and see him, poor man, but having such a little family to provide for I find [...] the journey to [sic] expensive’,

D/H14/D2/2/1/969/8. The family of patient John Gee tried to have him transferred to a county asylum so they could visit him, D/H14/D2/2/1/1705, letter to Orange, 12 April 1886.

84 possible that a fear of acrimonious exchanges deterred potential visitors.²⁶⁵ Patients with little contact with the outside world looked to the Superintendent, attendants and their fellow patients for support and companionship. The development and maintenance of survival networks was thus seemingly crucial for Broadmoor’s patients, just as it was in ordinary asylums.²⁶⁶

Warmark, a patient in the 1920s, wrote that the Superintendent ‘stands out in a tragic period of my life as the best friend I had.’²⁶⁷ In the nineteenth century, some patients also appear to have relied upon the kindness and support offered to them by the Superintendent, and Orange and Nicolson feature most prominently in the letters of patients and their families in this regard.²⁶⁸ An examination of some patients’ letters to the Superintendent suggests that he assumed a paternal role; they asked for his advice and help in matters ranging from visiting their fellow patients, relations with their families and the acquisition of stamps.²⁶⁹ Such a relationship between the Superintendent and patients mirrored that between master and pupil; a relationship that was encouraged and endorsed in middle-class literature and circles until the 1880s.²⁷⁰ Some patients also formed close bonds with the attendants.²⁷¹ In 1864 John Sydney Philpot, a second-class attendant, formed such a close relationship with patient George Hage that he encouraged

265 Patients could receive visitors any day of the week except for Sunday. For an abusive exchange, see Joseph Cantrill’s case, D/H14/D2/2/1/1256/14.

266 Andrews and Digby, ‘Introduction’, Sex and Seclusion, ed. by Andrews and Digby, p. 16.

267 Warmark, Guilty but Insane, p. 158

268 For example, following his transfer to the Berkshire County Asylum, Robert Newport wrote to Orange that he ‘cannot find words to express [...] [the] gratitude he ows [sic] [him] [...] for all past indulgences [...]

which will never be forgotten.’ D/H14/D2/2/1/729/5. Also, D/H14/D2/2/1/905/54, letter to Nicolson;

D/H14/D2/2/1/975/52, letter to Orange; D/H14/D2/2/1/799/25-26, letters to Orange; D/H14/D2/2/1/1412, letter to Nicolson, August 1893.

269 D/H14/D2/2/1/1069/13, letter to Nicolson; D/H14/D2/2/1/729/5, letter to Orange.

270 Jeffrey Richards, ‘“Passing the Love of Women”: Manly Love and Victorian Society’, in Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800-1940, ed. by J. A. Mangan and James Walvin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), pp. 92-122 (p. 100).

271 Henry Dodwell wrote to attendant Bailey regarding personal matters, D/H14/D2/2/1/936a/192.

85 and assisted his escape from the asylum, and offered him advice on where he could find employment.²⁷²

As happened in other homo-social environments, some patients formed emotional bonds with one another.²⁷³ They referred to each other as ‘friends’ and shared intimate thoughts and feelings.²⁷⁴ Anthony Owston spent time talking to William Minor about ‘his soul’ and Henry Dodwell wrote letters to another patient detailing his grievances and describing his sadness.²⁷⁵ For some patients, Broadmoor appears to have taken the place of the club or the public house as a place where they could talk to their fellow men about their families and lives, and within which they could share interests.²⁷⁶ Broadmoor’s communal spaces were vital in this respect. The time patients spent at work or in the dayrooms (where they would play games, read books and newspapers) gave patients the opportunity to interact. After receiving no correspondence from his family, Philip Dawe presumed they had given up on him: ‘to them I am probably long sensed lapsed [sic] into too hopeless imbecility or insanity to maintain a correspondence.’ He asked Nicolson if he could visit another patient in a different part of the asylum, presumably after meeting him at work or in the chapel.²⁷⁷ Before he was transferred back to prison, Henry Baldwin requested that his perishable items, including Vaseline, milk, cigars, cocoa, ham and

272 D/H14/A1/2/1/1, Minutes of the Council, 14 October 1864; Meyer, Reports of the Superintendent (1864), p. 2. Philpot was caught and tried at the Reading assizes where he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour. ‘Assize Intelligence’, Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 4 March 1865, p. 7. Attendants who misbehaved faced severe penalties, something the Rules (1869), paraphrasing the Broadmoor Act (1860), made clear: ‘Neglect or ill-treatment of a patient in by law specially punishable as a misdemeanour. Connivance at the escape of a patient is felony, and punishable by penal servitude or imprisonment. Any officer or servant who carelessly allows a patient to escape, may be fined any sum not exceeding 20l nor less than 2L (23 and 24 Vict, c. 75).’ p. 5.

273 Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities, p. 37. The importance of patient bonds continued into the twentieth century. Barbara Taylor described how ‘the friendship of other patients [...] made my days tolerable.’ She observed that whilst asylums ‘had plenty wrong with them’ they ‘nurtured communities’ crucial for the wellbeing of patients. ‘The Demise of the Asylum’, pp. 213. 215.

274 In 1891 John Cooper sent a letter to Brayn. Cooper was illiterate and so another patient wrote the letter for him and at the bottom noted ‘written for him by a friend’, D/H14/D2/2/1/373/5.

275 D/H14/D2/2/1/1239/21, letter to Nicolson; D/H14/D2/2/1/963/5, note. Patients at the Retreat also took an interest in one another, Digby, Madness, p. 193.

276 For camaraderie in nineteenth-century public houses and clubs, Stearns, Be A Man!, pp. 83. 115.

277 D/H14/D2/2/1/1069/13, letter to Nicolson.

86 mustard, were given to patient Isaac Finch, thus suggesting the two had formed a close bond.²⁷⁸ There are examples of camaraderie occurring in the asylum. Some patients looked out for one another and others bonded together to form sinister plans.²⁷⁹ In 1864 a number of patients constructed an elaborate plan to liberate themselves; they diverted an attendant by asking him to fetch a piece of pie, put stones in a number of keyholes, and tied their handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs together to construct a rope to climb out of a window.²⁸⁰ The plot was foiled at the last minute after Burt ‘saw the men descending outside one of the windows of the room where he was reading prayers’ and raised the alarm.²⁸¹

Until the 1880s friendships between men were ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ by the

‘godliness and good learning’ brigade, which included men such as the novelist Thomas Hughes.²⁸² Under Meyer, Orange and Nicolson this also appears to have been the case at Broadmoor. Things appear to have changed in 1896 when Brayn succeeded as

Superintendent. It was, as Ralph Partridge wrote, Brayn’s ‘policy [...] to regulate patients lives in every detail, allow them few opportunities to band together, discourage any feeling of common humanity between them and the staff, and confine them under the closest surveillance.’²⁸³ Such a change in regime, as Chapter Two shows, was in part the result of Brayn’s previous experience of working with (sane) criminals in prisons, and partly because of rapidly increasing patient numbers at Broadmoor.

278 D/H14/D2/2/1/1445, list of perishable items.

279 In 1889, three patients appealed to Nicolson to punish a patient who had played a practical joke on their friend, D/H14/D2/2/1/1239/21.

280 Meyer, Reports of the Superintendent (1864), p. 4.

281 Minutes of the Council, 16 December 1864.

282 Richards, ‘Passing the Love of Women’, in Manliness and Morality, ed. by Mangan and Walvin, pp.

100. 104. Also, Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves, p. 146.

283 Ralph Partridge, Broadmoor: A History of Criminal Lunacy and its Problems (London: Chatto &

Windus, 1953), p. 91.

87 IV. Conclusion

This chapter has provided an overview of who resided and worked within Broadmoor’s male division and how they interacted. It has highlighted the bad (feelings of discrimination, prejudice, abuse and violence) as well as the good (friendships and support). It has been suggested that some working-class men were so integral to their family’s livelihoods that they endeavoured to continue to provide for their children whilst incarcerated, and when they could not fulfil this bread-winning role, their wives

sometimes had no choice but to leave them. It was seemingly not just crucial for patients to feel as though they were still acting their part, but some patients’ families also appear to have worked hard to continue their role in caring for their incarcerated family

members. In some cases contact with the outside world may have been essential to a patient’s survival, but when this was not possible patients sometimes turned to the other men in the asylum, patients and staff, for advice, support and friendship, particularly in the years preceding Brayn’s succession to the role of Superintendent in 1896.

Broadmoor was an institution within which clear demarcations between normal and abnormal male behaviour were made. This is evident through an examination of reports made on patients by the Superintendent, attendants and medical officers. Ideal male behaviour, according to such reports, consisted of morality, industry, self-control, industry, temperance and rationality. It was not just the patients who were expected to exhibit such behaviour, and it was vital that the attendants learned to set a good example or they risked losing their jobs. An examination of patients’ letters indicates that they too held specific ideas about what it meant to be a man. In addition, the emphasis working-class patients placed on industry and providing for their children whilst incarcerated suggests the importance of skill and employment to their identity. On the other hand, some middle-class patients, such as John Wendover, were seemingly more concerned

88 with retaining their independence and refused to work in the asylum on the basis that it was not their place to do so. It was not that such patients had an aversion to work; on the contrary, Wendover’s letters suggest his pride at performing his ‘duty’ as an engineer in the Royal Navy. The evidence thus lends some support to Lee’s argument that ‘manly work’ held different meanings for the working and middle classes in the nineteenth century.²⁸⁴ By extension, this supports Tosh’s assertion that ‘masculinity was more than a social construction’; it was a ‘subjective identity.’ ²⁸⁵ For some men, this identity appears to have been attached to providing financially for their families and to being industrious and robust. For others, it was about character, stoicism and maintaining ones position in life, whatever the circumstances.

The following chapter examines how Broadmoor’s male patients were built up into men. It also considers just how important the display of manly attributes was to a patient’s discharge from the asylum.

284 Lee, Masculinity and the English Working Class, p. 16.

285 Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities, p. 47.

89 Chapter Two: Being Treated Like a Man at Broadmoor

In 1888 a friend of patient Timothy Grundy praised David Nicolson’s (Superintendent 1886-1896) work at Broadmoor:

Your aim of curing and setting free all you consciously can is a Noble and God like one [...] just my idea of what all asylums ought to aim at [...] I shall be very glad when our prisons, workhouses and asylums are all carried on [these] lines, [you] have solved the problem of how to help and relieve [patients] without [...] destroying their self respect but raising them up to manhood [...] to be honest and upright.²⁸⁶

In this chapter the transformation of criminal lunatics into men is examined.

Historians have shown how asylum treatment was perceived by some contemporaries to inculcate womanly virtues such as silence and decorum into female patients.²⁸⁷ Judith Knelman argues that Christiana Edmunds, a middle-class murderess who did not qualify under the McNaughton Rules but was committed to Broadmoor, was done so in order to be reformed.²⁸⁸ Less attention has been paid to the moral treatment of men. Here, it is shown that whilst certain models of manliness were modelled and encouraged by Broadmoor’s staff, as shown in Chapter One, not all patients had to display manly attributes before they were discharged. Moreover, this chapter takes a closer look at who treated Broadmoor’s patients. In addition, it stakes a place for Broadmoor within the broader history of regimes of treatment in British asylums. It considers the

implementation of moral treatment as a form of control and examines what impact psychiatric pessimism had on the asylum’s regime.

286 D/H14/D2/2/1/186/21, letter to Nicolson.

287 Anne Shepherd, ‘The Female Patient Experience in Two Late-Nineteenth Century Surrey Asylums’, in Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody: Perspectives on Gender and Class in the History of British and Irish Psychiatry, ed. by Jonathan Andrews and Anne Digby (New York: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 223-248; Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Virago Press, 1987).

288 Judith Knelman, Twisting the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press (Toronto, Buffalo & London:

Toronto University Press, 1999), p. 141.

90 I. The Men in Charge

The Broadmoor Act (1860) empowered the Home Secretary to appoint a Council of Supervision, which he did in 1861. The Council superintended and managed the asylum and the care and treatment of patients, and any two of its members reported any matters concerning Broadmoor or its patients in writing to the Home Secretary. As a result, there was almost continual correspondence between Broadmoor and the Home Office.²⁸⁹

Under the Council reigned the Medical Superintendent whose job it was to

‘superintend the whole of the medical and moral treatment of the asylum.’ He controlled all other officers, attendants and servants ‘in everything pertaining to the maintenance, care, occupation, and amusement of the patients.’²⁹⁰

The first Superintendent of Broadmoor was John Meyer (Superintendent 1863-1870). Born in 1814 at Norwood, near London, Meyer studied medicine at Heidelberg and graduated in 1836. Soon after, he left England for Australia and in 1844 was appointed Superintendent of the Hospital and Convict Lunatic Asylum at New Norfolk, Tasmania.²⁹¹ During the Crimean War, Meyer was placed in charge of the Civil Hospital, Smyrna.²⁹² In 1858 he was appointed Chief Resident Physician at the Surrey County Asylum. In January 1862, the Council announced to the Home Office that it had unanimously chosen to appoint Meyer Broadmoor’s first Superintendent.²⁹³ Meyer did not publish during his time at Broadmoor, thus making it difficult to understand his ethos,

289 D/H14/A1/2/4/1, Council of Supervision Correspondence. The original Council included the Right

289 D/H14/A1/2/4/1, Council of Supervision Correspondence. The original Council included the Right