Chance Encounters in the Museum 3 – and temporary closure notice for next Monday, 5 July

Since writing last fortnight’s blog post about recent visitors to the museum from Norway and Austria, the Archivist has continued in reminiscing mood. One visit that stands out in his mind was made some years ago by Peruvian documentary film-makers interested in the visit made to Bethlem by the French socialist and proto-feminist thinker Flora Tristan in 1840. She signed Bethlem’s visitors’ book (now held in the Archives) and later wrote of her experiences in Promenades dans Londres (published in English translation under the title Flora Tristan’s London Journal 1840).

In it she makes the ostensibly unflattering observation that ‘it is generally accepted that England is the country with the greatest number of insane’. But an explanation is offered for this: England is, according to Tristan, ‘the country where free inquiry gives rise to the greatest number of religious and philosophical sects…[and] the more a people is inclined, by its religion and its philosophy, to resignation, the fewer madmen there are in its midst; whereas those peoples who by reason govern their religious beliefs and their conduct in life are those among whom one finds the greatest number of insane’ (London Journal, pp. 159-160).

Following in the footsteps of those Peruvian documentary makers, another film crew is coming (at short notice) to the Archives & Museum next Monday, 5 July. Please note that the Archives & Museum, which is ordinarily open to the public on weekdays between 9.30am and 4.30pm, will have to close at midday on this day to accommodate them.

London Lives: New Online Research Resource

A wide range of primary sources for eighteenth-century London has just been made available online (by a consortium led by the Universities of Sheffield and Hertfordshire) in fully searchable form at http://www.londonlives.org. These sources include the minutes of the Court of Governors of Bridewell and Bethlem Hospital from 1689 to 1800.

The search capability of this new resource makes it particularly useful. After all, the minutes of the Court of Governors from 1559 to 1792 have been available online at http://www.bethlemheritage.org.uk for some years now. But it would be a labour of love, as well as a palaeographical challenge, to browse through them looking for something particular.

Now there is a much easier way, as long as your interest is in something that is recorded in the Bridewell and Bethlem court book minutes (or indeed in any of the other London records digitised as part of the project) between 1689 and 1800.

Say you wanted to find references in the court books to Edward Tyson, Bethlem’s Physician from 1684 to 1708. Just go to the Search Form, type in ‘Tyson’ and ‘Edward’ in the name fields, choose Bridewell Royal Hospital > Minutes of the Court of Governors in the ‘Search in Document Type’ field to limit your search (if that’s what you want to do), and click on ‘Search’.

You should get seven results (the earliest dated 1691), and be able to click through to a transcription and digital image of the original minute book entry for each one.

The London Lives homepage gives details of a conference that will take place on 5 July 2010 at the University of Hertfordshire to celebrate the launch of this new resource. Scholars, take note!

Consulting the Collection: Bethlem Artists Past and Present

For over 150 years the Bethlem Hospital has collected art by its patients. The current exhibition at the Bethlem Gallery, which opened yesterday, 23 June, provides a showcase for the inspirational talents of service user artists. Eight artists delved into the Museum’s impressive archive in search of inspiring artwork and curiosities, responding to these exhibits in their own work. Past and present works are exhibited together in this exhibition, allowing artists to take us on a guided tour of their forerunners, offering us the visual delights of their creative consultation.

This unique perspective links mental health history to our present day lives – at any time, one in six people are affected by a mental health problem. The exhibition includes works by famous Bethlem patients of the past such as Richard Dadd (1817 – 1886), who spent twenty years in nineteenth century Bethlem, and Louis Wain (1860 – 1939), whose anthropomorphised cat paintings have been popular for over 100 years. Although these artists are well remembered, their work forms but a small proportion of the sizeable Bethlem art collection celebrated by the exhibition.

Exhibition includes artwork by David Beales, Stephanie Bates, Richard Dadd, John Exell, Jane Fradgley, Henry Hering, Imma Maddox, Sue Morgan, Marion Patrick, Cynthia Pell, Max Reeves, Maureen Scott, Julian Trevelyan, Louis Wain, and Scottie Wilson.

Open June 23 – July 16, Wednesday – Friday 11am – 6pm and Saturday 10 July 12 – 5pm

John Exell – City of Towers (2010)

Madness and Literature: First Annual Health Humanities Conference

We’re excited to see that the programme for the First Annual Health Humanities Conference on “Madness and Literature” has been announced, with a fascinating array of keynote speakers, panel sessions and poster presentations. Papers include Samantha Walton’s ‘Guilty But Insane: Psychiatric Detectives in the ‘Golden Age’;, Sonja Deschrijver’s ‘The Devil in Writing: Malady, Mind and Medicine in Early Modern Spiritual Text and Criminal Trial Proceedings’ and Dr Caroline Logan’s ‘La femme fatale: The Female Psychopath in Literature and Clinical Practice.’ Bethlem also finds representation: two papers discuss the work of Samuel Beckett, inspired to write Murphy and Watt by a visit to the Hospital in the 1930s, while Sarah Chaney’s paper on self-mutilation in Victorian fiction, “A hideous torture on himself,” is grounded in research into the Hospital’s 19th century casebooks.

Taking place in Nottingham from 6-8 August 2010, the conference is hosted by the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham, as part of an AHRC-funded project, the Madness and Literature Network. The Network aims to stimulate cooperation and co-working between researchers, academics, clinicians, service users, carers and creative writers in order to develop an interdisciplinary, global dialogue about the issues raised around representations of madness in literature: the Conference will bring together speakers from the humanities and clinical backgrounds to aid this collaboration.

Our readers may be particularly interested in the conference’s keynote speakers. On Friday 6 August, Kay Redfield Jamison, a leading expert in mood disorders, will discuss ‘The Consequences of Writing a Memoir about Madness.’ Kay’s autobiography, An Unquiet Mind, documents her personal battle with Bipolar Affective Disorder (BPAD), while Touched With Fire examines manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament: her presentation promises to be engaging and insightful. On Saturday 7 August, Elaine Showalter, author of the influential The Female Malady, will provide a cultural perspective on ‘The Grand Delusions.’

You can find the full conference programme and registration form on the Madness and Literature website. Several free places for service users and carers remain: interested parties should contact Charlotte Baker for details (email address can be found on the homepage of the Madness and Literature site).

Life in a Victorian Asylum 1

Following investigation and subsequent reform in the early half of the nineteenth century (1815 and 1852), Bethlem Hospital increasingly became a very domestic environment, as pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1860. The accompanying article attributed the changes in the Hospital entirely to Bethlem’s new “skilful and benevolent” resident-physician, W. Charles Hood, appointed in 1853; however, the published annual reports show that a large number of changes had already been made under the previous charge of Sir Alexander Morison and Edward T. Monro, the visiting physicians. In 1845, they reported that “much attention has been paid to the amusements of the patients during the past year. The library, billiard and bagatelle rooms are very generally occupied on the male side by the better classes, and much interest excited by books, cards and games.”

These additions to activities in the Hospital, and improvements in the therapeutic environment, were continued by Hood, who adhered strongly to the twin ideals of moral treatment (cure through re-education, with a clear emphasis on environmental and occupational, rather than strictly medical, therapies) and non-restraint (complete abandonment of any type of mechanical restraint, including straps, straight-waistcoats etc. Seclusion, however, was permitted).