Mary Dendy Hospital

Coordinates: 53°17′38″N 2°17′10″W / 53.294°N 2.286°W / 53.294; -2.286 The Mary Dendy Hospital was a hospital for the "mentally subnormal" located in Great Warford, Cheshire, England. It was founded in 1902 as the Sandlebridge Colony when the Lancashire and Cheshire Society for the Permanent Care of the Feeble-Minded opened two houses in Sandlebridge in Cheshire.^[1]

Mary Dendy M.A. 1859-1933 (after whom the establishment was renamed following her death in 1933) was the secretary (and later president) of the society, involved in agitation for the reform of provision for the "mentally sub-normal", and gave evidence to the Royal Commission looking into the issue, which produced the Radnor Report, leading to the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.^[2] She repeated in her evidence to the commission ^[3] a view she had frequently expressed previously,^[4] that the mentally subnormal and the mentally ill should be recognised as separate problems, requiring different approaches, and hence the mentally subnormal required separate facilities and institutions distinct from the traditional lunatic asylum: the Sandlebridge Colony was the first permanent residential care home for mentally deficient children in the United Kingdom and thus an exemplar for this approach.^[5]

With charitable and state support, the Colony expanded, acquiring new accommodation for residents and staff, a laundry, schoolroom and hospital, farm buildings, land and livestock and a recreation hall. At its peak, the hospital owned a large proportion of the property in Great Warford.

In 1941, financial problems forced the Society to relinquish control to Cheshire County Council. Post-war other approaches were considered more appropriate, and Mary Dendy Hospital (as it had become known) was run down, finally closing in 1989. All that survives today is a unit operating on Chelford Road which now takes care of mentally ill patients who would previously have been sent to Rampton Secure Hospital. One of the largest of its old sites has been demolished to make way for a modern housing estate at Buttermere Drive

Thinking behind the Colony

The purpose was as stated in the name of the founding society 'permanent care of the feeble minded', but 'Permanent care' and 'the feeble-minded' had implications and significance to the society which may not be apparent to the modern reader.

In the terminology of the period 'mental deficiency' was used to describe all degrees of mental and social ineptitude, with the term 'feebleminded' (as opposed to 'idiocy' and 'imbecility') referring to the mildest degree of mental deficiency. As a book co-authored by Mary Dendy noted in 1920 ^[6]

The definitions of the three grades adopted by the Act^[7] are :

• Idiots that is to say, persons so deeply defective in mind from birth or from an early age as to be unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers.

• Imbeciles that is to say, persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to idiocy, yet so pronounced that they are incapable of managing themselves or their affairs, or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so.

• Feebleminded persons that is to say, persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or for the protection of others, or, in the case of children, that they by reason of such defectiveness appear to be permanently incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools. Dr Goddard has suggested the name " Moron " for this type of mentally defective person.

The eugenics movement was strong in Edwardian England. Many of its supporters held that feeble mindedness was of particular concern because it weakened moral restraint more than physical capability and was therefore connected with criminality, poverty and promiscuity.^[8][9] Furthermore, it was thought to be to some degree hereditary; if left unchecked, the alleged lack of sexual restraint of the feeble-minded meant that the incidence of feeble-mindedness would increase in each succeeding generation.^[5]

It is not only that these people are themselves failures; they are, almost all, at large and are at liberty to take upon themselves the duties and responsibilities of parenthood and it is certain that they hand on their incapacity

Hence, the eugenicists argued, ‘for the good of the race^[10]’ the mentally subnormal should be prevented from breeding. Permanent separation of the mentally subnormal was one (relatively benign^[11])way of seeking to achieve this, and would carry with it a requirement to permanently care for them, so that separation was also in the best interests of those removed from society. This was the basis upon which the Sandlebridge Colony was established, and the Royal Commission subsequently found this view to be well-supported, reporting:

1. That both on the grounds of fact and of theory there is the highest degree of probability that "feeblemindedness" is usually spontaneous in origin that is, not due to influences acting on the parent and tends strongly to be inherited.
2. That, especially in view of the evidence concerning fertility, the prevention of mentally defective persons from becoming parents would tend largely to diminish the number of such persons in the population.
3. That the evidence for the conclusion strongly supports measures, which on other grounds are of pressing importance, for placing mentally defective persons, men and women, who are living at large and uncontrolled, in institutions where they will be employed and detained; and in this, and in other ways,kept under effectual supervision so long as may be necessary.

and adding that:

the general feeling of the people would at present rightly condemn any legislation directed chiefly or exclusively to the prevention of hereditary transmission of mental defects by surgical or other artificial measures. The possibility of adopting such measures having been referred to by twenty-one of the witnesses but only recommended by three.^[6]

The Mental Disability Act of 1913 led to the general adoption of this approach in England and Wales and was passed despite objections from some MPs ^[12] that it could lead to vulnerable people being deprived of their liberty for inadequate reasons and without adequate safeguards.

Notes