The Middlesex County Asylum
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The Middlesex County Asylums were a chain of pauper lunatic asylums, built in Middlesex, North London, England
In the 1820s, the Middlesex County Court Judges noted an increase in the people before them who were not "right in their mind", but felt that the options before them: Gaol or the Workhouse were not conducive to proper care.
Whilst private asylums existed these would only take patients who could (or whose families could) pay privately, the most notable being the York Retreat.
The Judges petitioned Parliament asking for funds to be made available to build and manage suitable caring institutions and in 1829 The Madhouse Act (1828) became law, and this did indeed allow for the building and management of Asylums with the caveat that all patients must be unable to pay for private care.
Work started almost immediately, building an Asylum in West London on farmland at Hanwell next to the Grand Union Canel and in 1831 The Middlesex County Asylum opened for business with accommodation for 300 patients.
Unfortunately, 300 beds (8 wards - D,E,F & G blocks) were quickly found to be not enough and the plans were altered before it opened to add a further 200 beds (4 more wards - B & C blocks).
However in 1834 the Superintendent (Doctor in charge) William Ellis reported that the asylum was full and that applications for admission were far too numerous. In 1835 Hanwell was running with 100 patients more than it was designed for and two years later was enlarged again to take a further 200.
By the end of the decade in 1840 Hanwell had accommodation for 1000 patients with applications still piling up. In 1844, the magistrates decided to build a second asylum and in 1851 Colney Hatch opened for with space for 1200 patients. With the opening of Colney Hatch, Hanwell Asylum was renamed Hanwell Pauper and Lunatic Asylum.
The need for this type of care continued to grow as the magistrates removed the mentally ill from the prisons and work houses and by 1855, there were still many more lunatics to be housed from the Middlesex (and north London) area and plans were enacted to increase both Asylums to 2000 patients each. In Hanwell's case an extra floor was added across the whole roof of the then two story (plus basement) buildings.
Inevitably, history repeated itself once again and by the late 1860s, the shortage of beds was so acute that some patients had to be sent to be treated out of the county (some as far as Yorkshire!). In addition, two "special" Asylums at Caterham and Leavesden were opened each for 2000 of the most chronic cases, whilst a third "normal" asylum was opened at Bansted.
In 1882, the Superintendent in the Hanwell County Asylum Annual Report reported that it "was notable that the availability of beds seems to generate the demand".
Hanwell continued to grow in population with around 3800 patients becoming its final maximum after the two world wars (with a large increase in shell shock victims before the advent of new anti-psychotic medicines gave many patients the ability to regain enough control of their minds to be able to live outside the hospital and be discharged.
[edit] Anecdote
The builders and managers of these Asylums (a word meaning a place of safety) did a superb job during the C19 of trying to care for the insane and made a significant and positive contribution to the care of many, however as with all large undertakings history is excellent at finding errors. The first patient to die at Hanwell, in 1831, was originally admitted because of "continual sneezing" (src. Death book at Hanwell, read by the author), now perhaps at the most a simple operation.
[edit] References
Src. Hanwell Asylum to St. Bernard's Hospital, A History f the Asylum from 1831 to 1997, compiled by Pauline May (Museum curator at St. Bernard's Hospital) typescript 1998
Src. Museums of Madness, Andrew T. Scull; Penguin 1979
