Lunatics and idiots: Mental disability, the community, and the poor law in North-East England, 1600–1800

Abstract

Despite recent advances in the history of madness, we still know little of the mad themselves. This "silence at the centre" of the subject might be due to over-reliance on printed sources or institutional records (especially of famous institutions such as Bethlem or the Retreat), both of which may be unrepresentative.' More fairly, the absence is probably due to the acute difficulties inherent in any attempt to search behind the published debates and individual cases for the social contexts that produced the mentally afflicted. Even for the nineteenth century, it has been admitted that the key processes by which the mentally abnormal, particularly pauper lunatics, were discovered, labelled, and sent to workhouses and asylums remain obscure. The detailed institutional records have been described as "abundant but ultimately frustrating" evidence. 2 Yet the project of taking the study out of the institutions into a local social context is of crucial importance. The mentally abnormal were routinely mentioned in a wide variety of records in the early modern period, mostly as part ofthe organization of charity or poor relief, suggesting that this was the first era of widespread public attention to the problems they posed. These sources may unintentionally reveal the general concepts of mental disability that shaped the processes of social and official classification and response. The questions that require examination are why local authorities became concerned with the mentally disabled, and how they reacted. It is argued here that people such as overseers and magistrates were experienced, if not enthusiastic, in dealing with cases of mental disability. Secondly, it is the firm impression that they reacted to the problems in a coherent and consistent manner within the structure oflimited resources, a concern for public order, and a division of welfare responsibilities between the family and the community. Whatever the solution adopted, it marked a shift from the predominantly familial system that dominated the medieval period, although there are some signs among the wills of the propertied that private provision was still not uncommon.3

English pauper lunatics in the era of the old poor law

“…Welfare historians have shown that individuals on the margins managed by an 'economy of makeshifts' (Hindle, 2004: 15-95;King and Tomkins, 2003). Whether they were more likely to receive poor relief of some kind cannot be established, but it could well have been that many were cared for within the family, as Rushton (1988) has suggested. Poor relief was often another of these makeshifts, and it is likely that many never applied for it and that for only a few was it a major factor in keeping body and soul together (Hanly, 2003: 76-99).…”

Ten books

“…In England, asylums replaced pre-existing arrangements, whereby care and financial assistance were provided on an individual basis through local parishes. 9 Today, we are in some ways returning to this older system of care, albeit now refracted through an established medical lens.…”

Schizophrenia

“…Again, neighbours were occasionally enlisted to provide care where the family was unable to do so [19]. Wealthier families made their own private arrangements for the care of their relatives, increasingly turning to private madhouses from the 18th Century.…”