Biography and Psychology V: Henry Francis Harding (1826 – 1896)

In September 1896, the editor of Bethlem magazine Under the Dome had “a very serious loss” to report: the death of the un-official “Sub-Editor”, Henry Francis Harding, at the age of seventy. Harding had contributed regularly to the magazine since its foundation, compiling a regular column, Notes Apropos, (which related articles in the outside press to events in Bethlem and vice versa), writing a variety of articles on historical and other topics (signed X. or H.F.H.) and compiling the index to each annual bound volume.¹ In addition, Harding received credit in publications going beyond the Hospital. When Theo Hyslop’s Mental Physiology was published in 1895, he thanked “his friend, Mr. H.F. HARDING, for revisal of the proof-sheet”.²

It would not be obvious from either of these sources that Henry Harding was,throughout this time, a patient at Bethlem, although Harding himself made no secret of this fact. Indeed, he often took it upon himself to remind others of the need to avoid the potential separation (at least to outsiders) between the official function of the hospital and its therapeutic one. For example, in a lengthy report of the opening of the new recreation hall in June 1896 by the Duke of Cambridge, Harding listed the many prestigious persons present, before concluding:

Last but not least (seeing that the raison d’être of the Recreation Hall and of the Hospital, generally, is the patients, and which, it should be added, is practically and in kindly form recognised by those governing, or otherwise controlling the inner life of the Hospital), we were pleased to see present a fair contingent of the said patients, with nurses and attendants..³

In one of his earlier columns, Harding commented that “we who write these notes are of the genus patient (species: “Voluntary”) – and very patient, if a somewhat lengthy abiding in Bethlem be taken – and should it not? – as evidence thereof.”.⁴ When he wrote these lines in 1893, Harding had indeed been at Bethlem for an unusually lengthy period, following his admission in December 1886. His casenotes state that the former Law Stationer (who had left work the previous March, feeling “overworked”, perhaps not surprising at the age of 60), came to Bethlem ”because he felt his misery & agitation would make him lose control.” Nonetheless, he was never certified, and it is entirely possible that it was Harding’s personal situation, rather than his state of mind, that led to his lengthy stay. Elderly and un-married, Henry seems to have come to regard the Hospital as the family he never had, emphatically stating of Bethlem: “therein are we not a happy family! We are, we are…”.⁵

While it is obvious to see the benefit to the Hospital of such an enthusiastic advocate, Harding also reminds us that life within the Hospital was varied, and one person might have multiple roles. Henry Harding was not “just” a Bethlem patient, but also Sub-Editor, social campaigner, chronicler, companion and friend: someone who could legally have left Bethlem at any point, but chose not to. An unusually personal note in the usually factual Physician’s Weekly Report of 19 August 1896 records that “Mr H Harding VB has died of natural causes & his loss will be much felt.”

Photograph of Henry Harding, c. 1886

¹ “Mr H.F. Harding”, Under the Dome , vol. 5, no. 19 (Sept 1896)
² Hyslop, T.B. Mental Physiology, London (1895)
³ Harding, H.F. “Opening of the Recreation Hall by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge” Under the Dome, vol. 5. No. 18 (June 1896)
⁴ Harding, H.F. “Notes Apropos” Under the Dome, vol. 2, no. 8 (Dec 1893)
⁵ Harding, H.F. “Notes Apropos” Under the Dome, vol. 2, no. 7 (Sept 1893)

Biography and Psychology IV: Daniel Hack Tuke (1827 – 1895)

Daniel Hack Tuke was a major figure at Bethlem in the late nineteenth century, and well-known within the field of psychiatry. Today he is often over-looked, perhaps due to his self-acknowledged role as a compiler of information, rather than an innovator: his contemporaries saw him as “a sort of scientific sponge”: “the cool-eyed observer of nature, and not the far-seeing prophet.”¹ One of his major works in this vein was his enormous two-volume compendium A Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, which included articles by many of the leading psychiatrists, psychologists and neurologists of the day, including Jean-Marie Charcot, Hippolyte Bernheim andVictor Horsley.

Tuke was the great-grandson of Samuel Tuke, the Quaker founder of the York Retreat, famous for his role in encouraging the humanitarian treatment of the mentally ill. The Tukes recommended “moral treatment” – the use of education and occupation in asylums, rather than whips, chains and the dramatic bleedings and purgings recommended by some eighteenth century doctors. Bethlem, as previous posts have acknowledged, was heavily influenced by these ideas throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.

Tuke first became involved with Bethlem in the 1870s, and was a trustee until his death, regularly attending meetings and walking the wards – his name can often be found mentioned in anecdotes in the patient casebooks. He was a close colleague of George Savage, superintendent from 1878 – 88: the two were joint editors of the Journal of Mental Science (now The British Journal of Psychiatry) for some sixteen years, and Savage wrote more articles for Tuke’s Dictionary than any author other than Tuke himself. Tuke shared Savage’s commitment to the importance of personal relationships between psychiatrists and asylum patients, as reflected in an obituary in Under the Dome written by Bethlem patient Henry Francis Harding. Harding’s obituary is a stark contrast to the medical obituaries found in the Journal of Mental Science, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, concentrating on his family life and relationships rather than his medical achievements (although the latter articles do refer much to Tuke’s apparently “sentimental” nature).² He wrote:

The early death of his eldest son, who was a brilliant student of University College Hospital, was a painful blow to Dr. Tuke, but no doubt he found some amount of solace under this loss in the successful career as a painter of his other son, Mr. H.S. Tuke. [Henry Scott Tuke] The latter has been a foremost member of the Newlyn School, and like most of his brother artists of that school of painters, has lived a good deal on his boat on the coast of Cornwall, and, we remember, that about three seasons since, Dr. Tuke, upon his first visit to the Hospital, after his autumn holiday, said to the present writer that he had much enjoyed it, having in good part spent it with his son upon the latter’s studio-boat.³

Henry Scott Tuke, best known for his Impressionistic paintings of male nudes, was a highly successful artist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more recently becoming a cult figure in gay cultural circles. Although he was involved in what were then often termed “Uranian” circles, judging by the anecdote above Henry enjoyed a close relationship with his father. Looking at the personal and familial life of nineteenth century psychiatrists, then, can sometimes indicate that the definite and moralistic statements of contemporary published works (Tuke’s Dictionary, for example, includes a piece by Conolly Norman about homosexuality entitled “Sexual Perversion”) were not necessarily adhered to throughout their daily lives – or even, necessarily, in asylum practice.

¹ Rollin, H. “Daniel,Hack – Obituary” The Lancet, vol. 145 (1895): 718-20

² Harding, H.F. “Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., F.R.C.P., LL.D.” Under the Dome, vol. 4, no. 14 (June 1895)

³ Rollin, op. cit.

Image copyright of the Wellcome Library, London