Commissioners in Lunacy

The Commissioners in Lunacy or Lunacy Commission were a UK public body established by the Lunacy Act 1845 to oversee asylums and the welfare of mentally ill people. It succeeded the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy.

Contents

Previous bodies

The predecessors of the Commissioners in Lunacy were the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy, dating back to the Madhouses Act 1774, and established as such by the Madhouses Act 1828. By 1842 their remit had been extended from London to cover the whole country. The Lord Chancellor's jurisdiction over lunatics so found by writ of De Lunatico Inquirendo had been delegated to two Masters in Chancery. By the Lunacy Act 1842 (5&6 Vict. c.64), these were established as the Commissioners in Lunacy and after 1845 they were retitled Masters in Lunacy.[1]

Establishment

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury was the head of the Commission from its founding in 1845 until his death in 1885.[2] The Lunacy Commission was made up of eleven Metropolitan Commissioners: three medical, three legal and five laymen.[3] The Commission was monumental as it was not only a full-time commission, but it was also salaried for six of its members. The six members of the commission that were full-time and salaried were made of up three members of the legal system and three members of the medical community. The other five lay members of the commission were all honorary members that simply had to attend board meetings. The duty of the Commission was to establish and carry out the provisions of the Act,[4] reporting to the Poor Law Commissioners (in the case of workhouses) and to the Lord Chancellor.[3] The first Secretary to the Commissioners was Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, a barrister and uncle of Lewis Carroll.[5] He had previously been one of the Metropolitan Commissioners, and later become an Inspector of the Commission.[6][7]

Successors

The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 replaced the Commission by the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency.[8]

Commissioners

Incomplete list:

References

  1. ^ Jones (2003) p.222
  2. ^ Unsworth, Clive."Law and Lunacy in Psychiatry's 'Golden Age'", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Vol. 13, No. 4. (Winter, 1993), pp. 482.
  3. ^ a b Watkin, Brian (1975). Documents on health and social services, 1834 to the present day. Taylor & Francis. p. 358. ISBN 0416180809. 
  4. ^ Wright, David: "Mental Health Timeline", 1999
  5. ^ Seiberling, Grace; Bloore, Carolyn (1986). Amateurs, photography, and the mid-Victorian imagination. University of Chicago Press. p. 135. ISBN 0226744981. 
  6. ^ a b Edwin Fuller Torrey; Judy Miller (2001). The invisible plague: the rise of mental illness from 1750 to the present. Rutgers University Press. p. 87. ISBN 0813530032. 
  7. ^ Mellett, D. J. (1981). "Bureaucracy and Mental Illness: The Commissioners in Lunacy 1845-90". Medical History 25: 221-250. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139037/. 
  8. ^ Phil Fennell (1996). Treatment without consent: law, psychiatry and the treatment of mentally disordered people since 1845. Social ethics and policy series. Routledge. p. 75. ISBN 0415077877. 
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Jones (2003) p.191
  10. ^ Richard Marggraf Turley (2009). Bright stars: John Keats, Barry Cornwall and Romantic literary culture. Liverpool English texts and studies. 57. Liverpool University Press. p. 60. ISBN 1846312116. 
  11. ^ a b London Gazette: no. 25917. p. 1870. 2 April 1889. Retrieved 11 July 2010.

External links

Mental health law in the United Kingdom
18th century
19th century
Criminal Lunatics Act 1800 · County Asylums Act 1808 · Marriage of Lunatics Act 1811 · Scottish Madhouses Act 1815 · Criminal Lunatics Amendment Act 1815 · Irish Lunatic Asylums for the Poor Act 1817 · Pauper Lunatics Act 1819 · County Asylums Act 1828 · Madhouses Act 1828 · Chancery Lunatics Property Act 1828 · Madhouses Act 1832 · County Asylums Act 1845 · Lunacy Act 1845 · Idiots Act 1886 · Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act 1886
20th century
Public bodies
Other