Lunatic Asylum

[Kit]

I just discovered my first cousin 4times removed was in a lunatic asylum for 18 years. The only census I can find shows that he was a lunatic as opposed to an imbecile.

What is the difference between the two?

He was in the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Lunatic Asylum. Has anyone heard of it and how bad would the conditions have been?

[Kit]

Update - I found him on the 1881 census too.

They only recorded his initials and age but had no details as to his place of birth. They did know his occupation though. That seems strange to me.

[Olde Crone]

Imbecile would be from birth, of low intelligence. A lunatic would be someone afflicted by "madness" in adulthood (normally) but of normal intelligence and quite often capable of work. Mental illness was very poorly understood.

OC

[Phoenix]

The lunatic Asylums of the late 1800s were cutting edge. They were not the Bedlams of an earlier period, nor the depressing, underfunded institutions of the c20th.

As OC says, mental illness was poorly understood, but they were attempting to find out what caused it, what the symptoms were, how it might be managed. The records, where they survive, are fascinating.

They were particularly successful with mothers, where a good diet and a separation from their husbands and children often gave them the strength to return to a debilitating life.

[Olde Crone]

For some years in the 1960s I lived literally a stone's throw from Friern Barnet Hospital, the largest asylum in North London. I came to understand that, awful as it might seem if you were sane, the hospital provided a safe refuge and a home for those who simply could not cope on the outside.

OC

[Kit]

Thanks for the answers. As he lived there for 18 years I'm glad it wasn't as bad as I had pictured. He must have worked too as there was a will and he left 105 pounds. Interestingly his sister was in a different lunatic asylum, but I'm not sure for how long and she also left a will for 105 pounds.

[Merry]

Might they have both inherited a share of someone else's money and then not spent any of it because of their circumstances? Hence the matching amounts....

[Phoenix]

Can a lunatic make a will? Are they "of sound mind"?
They might well have assets at death, but can they choose where the money went?

[Kit]

Good points Merry and Phoenix. Not having investigated the sister properly I had thought she may be been in the asylum due to a short term illness, then she died.

Both wills were administered by the same brother, with the family middle name, and same occupation so it is definitely the right people.

The brother who did the admin also died in an asylum but again I think it was a short term illness, but the register does not give a proper entry date.

[Kit]

Might they have both inherited a share of someone else's money and then not spent any of it because of their circumstances? Hence the matching amounts....

That sounds better than the brother cooking the books somehow. The mother's will was administered at the same time as the sister, her amount 1050 pounds. She had 11 children so it doesn't divide by 11 but one daughter, Fanny, did die before probate was complete so maybe Fanny's family did not get her share of the inheritance.

[Merry]

Can a lunatic make a will? Are they "of sound mind"?
They might well have assets at death, but can they choose where the money went?

One of my distant relations was put in an asylum in 1870 aged 38. He remained in institutions for about 16 years, at which point his aging parents arranged for a Lunacy Inquisition, which found him to be of unsound mind and which allowed him to be cared for in the community. On the 1891 census he is living in a private house with a male carer. He spent the next ten years escaping from his home in Torquay and catching London bound trains as he had a fixation about changing his will which he had written in 1869. Unfortunately he never made it to London and presumably had he done so, any change to the will would not have been acceptable. He died in 1900 aged 68 and the majority of his considerable estate passed to his 100-year-old mother who outlived him for a few months.

I have no idea what the tax situation would have been in those days, but I doubt it would have been helpful for all his money to pass to a previous generation! Maybe that was why he was intent on changing his will?

[Kit]

If his parents had put him in the asylum in the first place maybe he was unhappy about it and wanted to nominate someone else?

[Olde Crone]

Depends when you make your will as to whether you are of sound mind or not. If he had made a will before he was considered mad, then that would stand.

Sorry, I have tried to resist but the pedant in me has won......the mother left 1000 guineas, the brother and sister each got 100 guineas. (There! I feel much better now)

OC

[Merry]

If his parents had put him in the asylum in the first place maybe he was unhappy about it and wanted to nominate someone else?

Depends when you make your will as to whether you are of sound mind or not. If he had made a will before he was considered mad, then that would stand.


OC

The 1869 will did stand, so he must have been considered OK at that point, but any future will would presumably not have been valid.

I hadn't really thought about the relationship between him and his parents. I think he was disruptive to some of their business plans, so I hope that wasn't why he was locked away :eek::eek::eek: