Curatorial Conversations IV

We are grateful to those who have so far joined the conversation about what and how museums of psychiatry ought to collect, preserve and display, and for coming out so strongly in defence of the museum’s mission. Readers may rest assured: there is no threat of destruction or dispersal hanging over our museum holdings. Yet Colborne and MacKinnon’s Exhibiting Madness in Museums, which we have been reading and responding to as if to a conversation partner, draws attention to artefacts of particular sensitivity within historic psychiatric collections.

What do these arguably ‘odd’ collections of mouth gags, wrist and ankle shackles, bowls, jackets, sporting equipment, locks and keys, and medicine bottles mean? What is their purpose?¹

Last year, some of the eighteenth century restraint devices held here at Bethlem were featured in the BBC’s History of the World website. As we noted at the time, the Victorian-era Hospital ‘retained what it had come to regard as the “revolting instruments of mechanical coercion” as material evidence both of its history and of its progress’, and today ‘these objects remind of the ongoing debate concerning involuntary detention, seclusion and chemical restraint’.

Coleborne and MacKinnon report that ‘touching, holding and viewing [such] objects…has had a therapeutic value for some’, whereas for others they ‘symbolise fear, serving as reminders of past experiences of brutal and lonely institutional spaces’.² Nurin Veis, curator at Museum Victoria, adds that audiences for medical exhibitions can display a ‘a fascination with the unknown, the hidden, and at times, the forbidden’ and are easily ‘captivated by the gothic theatricality evoked by displays of medical artefacts’ and provoked into ‘dramatic experiences of high emotion – ranging from moments of pain and revulsion, recognition of stigma, as well as personal insight’.³

Here at the Archives & Museum we do not think it would be right to use our collections for the purpose of manufacturing such experiences. We know that there are a wide range of possible reactions to these kind of displays. We do not wish to shepherd the responses of our visitors, but we do want to provide the information people need to understand the historical, medical and social context of the artefacts we have on display, and to reflect upon their contemporary significance.

^1. Catherine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon, Exhibiting Madness in Museums: Remembering Psychiatry through Collections and Display (Routledge, 2011), page 20.

^2. ibid.

^3. Nurin Veis, ‘The Ethics of Exhibiting Psychaitric Materials’, in Catherine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon, Exhibiting Madness in Museums: Remembering Psychiatry through Collections and Display (Routledge, 2011), page 48.

Galton’s Asylum Photos: Typecast at UCL

Bethlem Archives and Museum recently took part in a discussion stemming from photographs taken by Francis Galton at Bethlem in the 1880s, an event related to the Typecast exhibition at UCL’s Petrie Museum. Some of the Bethlem photographs are displayed in the exhibition, which explores the relationship between Flinders Petrie and Francis Galton (stemming from a collaboration over the archaeological examination of ‘racial types’), and eugenics and its legacy. You can see the relevant panel here.

Galton took a large number of photographs of Bethlem patients, planning to produce composite images. These composites were a popular method used by late nineteenth century researchers into heredity, hoping to produce a record of the “typical” features of people with particular characteristics. In the event, Galton was unable to create composites from the Bethlem pictures. However, the strength of late nineteenth century belief in the heredity of mental illness was such that this did not appear to make him reassess the idea of a link between heredity and mental health. The topic of “insanity and marriage” was much debated by psychiatrists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and certainly considered by superintendents at Bethlem, who clearly felt they had a moral obligation to provide their patients with advice, even when they were unable to definitively determine the role of heredity in the onset of illness. George Savage, superintendent at the time the Galton photographs were taken, used statistics gathered at Bethlem suggesting that roughly a third of patients could be shown to have relatives who had suffered from mental health problems to emphasise that mental illness might be inherited, but also that inheritance might play a minor part in the overall etiology of disease. Nonetheless, heredity was a real concern for many people in the later nineteenth century, influenced by the huge impact of evolutionary theory, and we have already referred on this blog to the way in which such worries might contribute to the decisions of ordinary people in relation to marriage.

Yet the Galton photos also raise many issues about the ethics of using material gathered in a period when ideas of consent were very different from those we might hold today. While examination of the patient casebooks at Bethlem certainly suggests that patients could, and did, refuse to be photographed or examined (the very technique of photography required a subject to remain still, after all, particularly for Galton’s photographs, specifically staged for composite construction by ensuring that subjects faced the same way and were at the same distance from the camera), it is entirely possible that others felt obliged to do as they were told, or did not understand what they were being asked. Certainly,  it seems unlikely that asylum patients were made fully aware of the purpose of the photographs, although it is equally possible that they might not have cared if they had, perhaps sharing with the researchers a faith held by many in the power of science.

While the idea of ‘informed consent’ was not necessarily a concept held by nineteenth century doctors, there are certain areas in which such issues appear to have been considered. When Bethlem began to admit voluntary boarders in 1886, such admissions were allowed if the patient signed a declaration (which informed them, among other things, that they might give notice to leave at any time) and “appeared to understand” the contents. Of course, the decision as to whether or not an individual appeared to understand might be a highly subjective one. Meanwhile, the 1890 ‘Lunacy Act’ was particularly concerned with the rights of asylum patients, instituting, among other things, the right of every certified patient to be seen by a judicial authority if they desired, and notice of this had to be given to each person. What’s more, although the names of individuals in asylums appeared in full in the 1881 census (a process which caused some patient complaints to be recorded in asylum casebooks), from 1891 patients were anonymised.

Two conflicting approaches to the Galton photographs were explored in the discussion, concerning how we deal with such images today. Should we provide more detail (as in a Petrie Museum blog post on the topic), including personal information from patient records? Such accounts can help to show the variety of individual asylum patient lives, a detail effectively removed by the standardisation of the images. Might the human element of such stories encourage identification, as in Jane Hubert’s personal account of her own experiences with young men who had spent their lives in institutions? Or are such images so ethically problematic that they defy interpretation? Do we risk perpetuating the messages put forward by the photographers themselves? Sarah Hutton, from the National Archives, questioned the press use of archives in this vein, such as the display of Edwardian photographs of “habitual drunkards” to support modern concerns with “antisocial behaviour”, ignoring alternative interpretations that might see them as, perhaps, representations of illness or social control.

Certainly, such stories are a reminder that many of the ethical concerns attached to the photographs of nineteenth century researchers in eugenics remain implicit in much contemporary political, social and scientific debate. These issues are ably addressed by one of the last events in the Typecast series, the screening of Estate face, a film by artist Patricia Shrigley. The still below from this darkly humorous look at prevalent stereotypes of white working class women was inspired by a recent comment made at the Conservative Party Conference about “stopping the working class breeding like pigeons”. Estate Face will be screened at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology on 13 December, from 6 – 7.30pm. For full details, see the UCL Museums website.

 

(c) Patricia Shrigley

In the Spotlight: Christopher Long

Reading a series of posts such as these is almost bound to give rise to the false impression that Bethlem and the Maudsley have been solely populated by writers, artists and architects. We anticipated and cautioned against this from the outset. A truly representative notion of the people the hospitals treated could only be gained by trawling through the records of the bank clerks, mechanics, clergymen, farmers, engineers, dress makers, teachers, doctors, governesses, domestic servants, housewives and unemployed people who spent time as patients. For the most part, knowledge of the character and achievements of these and many others remained within the circle of their acquaintance, and did not prove enduring. There must be many stories of extraordinary courage, endeavour, fortitude and weakness, hope and disappointment, virtue and vice contained in the records of these ‘ordinary’ people of the past.

One story of which we recently became aware is that of Christopher Long (1902-1924), whose undergraduate studies at Cambridge University were cut short by psychotic illness and hospitalisation at the Maudsley in 1923. Long had been reading medicine at Cambridge but his real passion was speleology, or caving. In his first year, he spent all his time outside term exploring, extending and surveying Stump Cross Caverns near Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire, and in 1922 founded the University’s first caving club, the Troglodytes, into which he apparently herded all his friends.

Long’s admission to the Maudsley took place on 7 April 1923, a day after a suicide attempt which his friends and doctors put down to overstrain, depression and nervous breakdown. He came to the Maudsley as a voluntary patient but, perhaps not finding his time there therapeutic, discharged himself after three weeks and made for the Mendip and Quantock Hills in Somerset. There Long extended and surveyed Holwell Cave. Maybe work of this sort was more restorative to him than hospital treatment – or maybe his labours were fuelled by manic energy? Certainly by then he was self-medicating on the sedative chloral hydrate to combat his insomnia.

In the summer of 1923, Long returned to Yorkshire, where he was the first to discover White Scar Caves near Chapel-le-Dale. His preparations to open it to tourists were tragically cut short, along with his promising career, by his death at the age of 22 by overdose of chloral hydrate. At the subsequent coroner’s inquest, according to Dr Stephen Craven, “no evidence was presented that Long had intended to kill himself at that time” –the overdose may well have been accidental. In any event, caving had lost someone described by friends and colleagues as “a genuine enthusiast”, a “fine character” and “an indefatigable worker”. ¹

¹ S.A. Craven, ‘The chronic illness of Christopher Francis Drake Long (1902 – 1924), who extended Stump Cross Caverns and discovered White Scar Caves, in England’, Cave and Karst Science, vol. 37 no. 2 (2010), pp. 59-64.

Christopher Long (centre) and fellow cavers in 1922. Photograph first published in Cave and Karst Science, volume 37, no.2 (© 2010, British Cave Research Association), and reproduced with the permission of the Editors.

His Powers of Walking III

Author and guest blogger Aislinn Hunter continues on from an earlier post.

The walk from Witley to Aldworth was, if our real-life Cowtan went directly, probably about six and a half miles or thirteen miles round trip. Depending on the route and Cowtan’s intentions this could easily have been a much longer trek. Add Cowtan’s age to that and it seems his belief in his great powers of walking were justified. As to his intentions we can only guess. Did Cowtan happen upon Aldworth or did he go there knowing it was the home of one of the era’s greatest poets? Cowtan, as previously mentioned, was a British Museum librarian and author who wrote a number of books on the Museum and its people (‘Memories of the British Museum’ and ‘A Biographical Sketch of Sir Anthony Panizzi’) before his admission to Bethlem. He was also the author of ‘The Autobiography of a “Man of Kent”’ a first-hand account of his life from 1817-1865; an account that references Tennyson twice – a sure sign that Tennyson and his work were on Cowtan’s radar.

What amazes me most about Cowtan’s casebook records is the very hazy line between statements of potential fact and ones of potential fiction. One of the signs of Cowtan’s dissociated state is that he claims to have been personally acquainted with the Queen – a completely incredulous idea if one presumes they are reading the casebook of an ordinary citizen – but one not as far-fetched when we discover that Cowtan was very well acquainted with a Mr Williams who was the ‘Librarian in Ordinary to Her Majesty Queen Victoria’ – a man he describes (in ‘Memories of the British Museum’) handling the precious volumes in the Royal Library – a description that places Cowtan there. Indeed, the records that do come up around Cowtan when one starts digging show him to have been a regular correspondent with dozens of important figures in the day (including Charles Dickens who was a ‘subscriber’ of Cowtan’s autobiography and who wrote to Cowtan at least once in 1867). A good number of these correspondences might have been related to Cowtan’s work at the library, or they may have been related to what appears to be a penchant for autographs – regardless, the letters demonstrate that Cowtan had access to, and interactions with, literary and societal circles that wielded significant influence in his day. This is not to say that Cowtan didn’t have a breakdown or suffer profoundly from the overwork his casebook describes, it’s simply to say that his story, like all patient’s stories, is far more nuanced than it might first appear.

I have always been obsessed with lost histories. It is one of the reasons I write and a theme that runs through my first five books and my current novel-in-progress. In finding Robert Cowtan I felt like I enacted what my fictional archivist Jane is seeking to do: give the dead back their stories. That afternoon ten weeks ago in the small back room of Bethlem’s archives was a pivotal one for me as a writer and as a human being. I felt in a small way like I’d re-tied a rope or knit some of the strands of one man’s life back together. A small thing perhaps, but part of what I, as a writer, hope to do: create resonance, take what those who came before us have done, and who they’ve been, and stitch some evidence of their lives back into the larger human story.

Aislinn Hunter is the author of two books of poetry, two works of fiction and a book of lyric essays. Her first novel Stay is due to begin filming in Ireland in the spring. A novel entitled And Then It Will Be Us is nearing completion.

First Person Narratives 6

A late addition to an in-principle never-ending series. In Depression and How To Survive It (Arrow Books, 1994), co-authored by Spike Milligan and Anthony Clare, there is a rare insight into late twentieth century psychiatric recordkeeping practice. In it Milligan, the writer and comedian of affectionate memory, allowed Clare, a Maudsley-trained psychiatrist, to lay out his life in the form of a typical psychiatric assessment, with details of his presenting symptoms, his personal, family, educational, medical, marital and psychiatric history, and diagnosis. As it happens, Milligan was never a Maudsley patient – he was interviewed by Clare on the BBC radio series In the Psychiatrist’s Chair – and even if he was, records such as these would be protected by the law of medical confidence. His courageous decision to put these details on record, in the interests of demystifying the experience of depression, had the secondary effect of bringing Maudsley medical recordkeeping practice, the results of which are otherwise kept confidential, into the public sphere.

As useful as third-party medical professional analyses of the experience of depression may be for clinical purposes, no-one pretends that they may stand in for the often poignant narratives of those who suffer from it. Depression and How To Survive It opens with a poem (entitled Manic Depression) written by Milligan when a patient of St Luke’s Hospital in Muswell Hill in the early 1950s. This piece, along with other poetic cris de couer, featured in a recent BBC radio programme entitled Spike Milligan – The Serious Poet (available to UK listeners via iPlayer until 20 November). In the programme, a recording of Spike reading his poem The Journey (starting ‘I think I am going out of my mind / The journey shouldn’t take long’) was played, but only in extract. On the morning in February 2002 that his death was announced on BBC radio, the clip was played to its bleak conclusion, Milligan rasping the lines (‘A white-washed nurse / a tray of NHS food … / it’s my stomach they’re treating / letting my head starve to death’). Unmatchably authentic, these lines were in fact written decades before his death, their grim humour attesting simultaneously to his comic genius and his periodic mental torture.