Asylum Science: Conference in October

We’ve recently heard about an interesting event – and a new website and blog – devoted to “asylum science“, with a particular focus on the nineteenth century and the former West Riding Asylum in Wakefield. The organisers are holding a conference on 19 October, which aims to challenge the view of asylums as “scientifically-moribund backwaters” by looking at the use and reception of science within these institutions. The focus on West Riding stems from its role as an investigative laboratory in the later nineteenth century, as physicians there attempted to incorporate neurological and physiological research into their work. Many of the papers in the conference will reflect on these endeavours.

In looking at the programme, it is clear that many of the scientific endeavours discussed are those that would still be recognised as such today: the development of technology, post-mortem dissection, medication, and chemical testing. These areas of research have often been ignored, particularly in the nineteenth century, and it is a useful contribution to bring such experimental approaches into the public eye. However, something else that immediately sparks our interest is to wonder what the organisers actually intend by the term “science”. Did their historical actors view scientific research in the same way that we do today? Or did the domain of science often encompass, for them, many things that we would be dubious about classifying in such a way?

All Bethlem’s superintendents in the late nineteenth century would have regarded themselves as men of science. They were proud of their role, as they saw it, at the forefront of psychiatric research and education, as well as care and treatment. When George Savage played an instrumental role in the foundation of an examination for non-specialist doctors in the topic of “nervous diseases” in 1886, he grandly hoped that such would aid Bethlem to, eventually, ” make itself the scientific and social centre of the English lunacy world.”¹ Yet Savage also had, perhaps, a broader view of what science was than many of us today might assume. For he and many of his colleagues, science simply meant “organised inquisitiveness”, an approach which allowed for the acceptance of a wide variety of methods of investigation within psychiatry, in addition to neurological and physiological research, including experimental psychology, “psychic analysis” (as he termed it), psychical research and hypnotism.²

It is interesting, then, to look at the various experiments in hypnosis at Bethlem – previously discussed on this blog – as an example of asylum science, reminding us that science itself is not necessarily a fixed body of knowledge, but something defined by those who practice it. In the late nineteenth century, a number of psychiatrists were interested in expanding the boundaries of what that might include.

1 George Savage, Annual Report of the Bethlem Royal Hospital for 1886, p. 44

2. George Savage, ‘The Presidential Address delivered at the Opening Meeting of the Section of Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine on October 22nd, 1912′, Journal of Mental Science, 59 (1913), 14-27

Louis Wain in Leek

On the 4 September our Education Officer will be speaking at the Nicholson Gallery in Leek in connection with their current exhibition of the works of Louis Wain.

Wain was a hugely popular illustrator of the second half of the nineteenth century, known for his drawings of cats engaged in various, often humourous, activities. His cats were instantly reognisable by their distinctively shaped eyes and perky ears and appeared in a wide variety of places from annuals, postcards, posters and cards. It was even said that ‘it wasn’t Christmas until there was a Louis Wain Christmas card on the mantlepiece.’ Wain’s mental state deteriorated towards the end of his life and he spent his latter years in care, including a number of years in Bethlem Hospital.

The talk will explore the life of Louis Wain, and put his work in the context of the wider Bethlem art collection, from which the exhibition is drawn.

Further information and booking details can be found on the Art Gallery Website.

Outside In: Bethlem – New Exhibition at the Bethlem Gallery

We have already blogged about the recently opened Outside In: London show at the CGP Gallery. In conjunction with this scheme, a new show at The Bethlem Gallery opens next week. The exhibition is a solo show, by artist Ronald, whose highly unusual style sheds an x-ray vision onto the world he sees. Whether Ronald is drawing animals, planes, boats or people he draws them from the inside out, incorporating usually unseen dimensions and often embellishing the images with written messages and symbolic meanings.

Ronald is 73 years old and was a resident of both Maudsley and Bethlem hospitals for approximately 2 years. He now lives in a low and medium secure unit in Berkshire. He began drawing when he arrived at Maudsley, honing his central motifs of planes and boats.

“I like to draw aeroplanes as they can fly with my drawings” says Ron.

When he reached Bethlem Ronald worked intensively with the Art Technician on his ward and was prolific in his output. He began to expand on his subjects, meticulously drawing and redrawing repetitive symbols which hold particular meanings for him. He believes that the hearts which he draws can be put in a human being to make them better. He says he does not know if he is foolish to believe this but says: “God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform”. He says when he is drawing he is trying to help himself, and hopes that when he is dead and gone they will go on working.

The exhibition is part of the wider programme of Outside In events providing a platform for artists who find it difficult to access the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or because their work does not conform to what is normally considered as ‘art.’ The project was set up in 2006 at Pallant House Gallery to showcase and give opportunities to artists facing barriers to their inclusion in the art world. The aim is to challenge the many barriers inherent in the art world that prevent non-traditional artists having their work seen or valued.

Ronald was selected from over 30 Bethlem artists by Deputy Director of Pallant House Gallery Marc Steene. “It was difficult to make my final selection as there are so many wonderful works produced by the artists working with the Bethlem Gallery. Ronald’s drawings really stood out for me, I love this work, the forms Ronald realises for his work; his reimaginings of planes and animals and the use of text make for extremely interesting and original art.”

Opening Event: 29th August, 3 – 6pm

Exhibition continues: 30th August– 21st September

Opening times: Wed, Thurs, Friday, 11am – 6pm

Gallery and Museum open Saturday 1st Sept, 11am – 6pm

Curatorial Conversations XIII

(continued from previous post)

Last month, we considered the application of the term “voyeurism” to museums of mental health. In further exploring this idea, it is interesting to note that the very term originated within the field of sexual psychopathology around the turn of the twentieth century, and is still attributed as a diagnosis in this context. This emphasises a presumed need for intervention (either directly or indirectly, by preventing access to pornographic and similar materials) to prevent behaviour deemed to be negative or unhealthy. Within the context of psychiatric visiting, the idea is most frequently associated by writers with the open doors of eighteenth-century Bethlem. Examples of the cruelty of some individual visitors in such circumstances are used to portray the very practice as essentially sadistic (another term popularised by Krafft-Ebing), ignoring the great diversity of experiences and motives for visiting, as well as issues later raised by the closing of institutional doors (including allegations of abuse).

Is voyeurism really a problem for today’s mental health museums? How would we even judge whether or not a person’s experiences of the collection were voyeuristic? As in the eighteenth century, the motivations for visiting psychiatric museums are extremely varied, ranging from personal and familial experience to social and political concerns or general interest. Indeed, fears over voyeurism might seem to conflict with the educational aims of many of these collections. A recent MA project at the University of Birmingham by Laura Humphreys found that lack of interest in fact appeared to be the biggest challenge for psychiatric museums, with a portion of the museum-going public not regarding such collections as relevant or interesting. If one aims (as the Bethlem Museum does) to contribute towards the destigmatisation of mental illness there is, after all, less point in preaching to the potentially converted (those with direct experience of mental health services by any means) than to the so-called “voyeurs” who may have a general interest but little knowledge of the realities of mental health experiences and treatment. Stigmatising such potential visitors as “voyeuristic” may be an elitist and potentially damaging attitude.

His Powers of Walking IV

A chance discovery in the archives has prompted us to add a short coda to the series of posts we published about Robert Cowtan last autumn, material from which has been reworked by the author Aislinn Hunter to form the preface to Illustrious Company. While a patient at Bethlem’s countryside convalescent establishment Witley House, Cowtan walked six or seven miles, maybe more, to pay an unsolicited visit on Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the late 1870s. It will be remembered that for patients transferred to Witley, the associated prospect of imminent discharge from the Hospital, as well as the rural charm and relaxed treatment regime intrinsic to it, made it a longed-for destination among many of the Hospital’s residents. Cowtan was among this number, and was discharged recovered from Bethlem Hospital in 1878 after a stay of nearly a year. After a period of remission, he returned to stay another year in 1880, eventually being discharged relieved (better, in other words, though not entirely well). Thereafter his name disappears entirely from Bethlem’s record – or so we thought until recently.

Consulting a slim volume of late Victorian voluntary admissions to the Hospital, we recently happened across the details of a middle-aged woman by the name of Jessie Mary Cowtan. Jessie spent four months of 1893 in Bethlem, three of those at Witley, before being discharged recovered. Her notes reveal that her father had been “insane for many years”, from which we may deduce that matters did not improve for Robert Cowtan after his departure from Bethlem. In a letter of thanks to the Physician Superintendent preserved in her records (photographed below), Jessie writes movingly of “beautiful Witley”, presumably unconscious of the pleasure her father once derived from precisely the same surroundings.