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Until the late eighteenth century mentally ill people in Britain were usually locked away in appalling conditions in prisons, workhouses, or private ‘madhouses’ and treated with cruelty. Many people still thought that immoral behaviour or witchcraft caused mental illness, and that extremely harsh treatment could ‘drive out the devils’. The notorious Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam) even charged spectators to visit its chained, naked inmates as a sort of freak show attraction.
Public attitudes began to change when King George III (1760 - 1820) suffered from periods of mental illness. In 1792 William Tuke, a Quaker, revolutionised care for the mentally ill by founding The Retreat in York and creating a humane system of ‘moral’ treatment. A series of reforms and legislation followed, but it was not until the Lunatic Asylum Act 1845 that all counties were compelled to make provision for the treatment of the mentally ill, which would be inspected by a central government
body called the Commissioners in Lunacy.
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First page of the first annual report,
1870-1 (Q/AL 12/1)
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In the 1840s Berkshire County Council made an agreement to share Oxfordshire’s asylum,
Littlemore, but by 1867 there was no longer enough space. Berkshire formed a union with the boroughs of Reading and Newbury to build their own asylum close to the village of
Moulsford. Moulsford Asylum, which later became Fair Mile Hospital, opened in 1870.
(left) Photograph of the interior of a ward. (Courtesy
of Judy & Stuart Dewey of Pie Powder Press. Most
photographs credited to them are from their
book "Change at Cholsey - Again" available for £12.50
from info@piepowder.co.uk)
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