Garlands ‘lunatic asylum’ – attitudes in 1862
Garlands, at Carleton, Carlisle, today is a modern NHS clinc and private housing. But to anyone familiar with its past, it is a name that perhaps sends a slight shiver through them.
For Garlands, from its opening in January 1862 to its closure in March 1999, was the ‘joint mental hospital for Cumberland and Westmorland’. There is a brief history here.
A newspaper article some 21 months after it opened, gives us an idea how people with varying mental health issues were seen at the time.
THE LANGUAGE IN WHAT FOLLOWS IS THEIRS
1863. October. Wigton Board of Guardians.
(Board member) Peter Irving called attention to the fact the Garlands was full, and a pauper lunatic had accordingly been sent to Dunston Lodge (Gateshead), at a much higher weekly cost.
Irving suggested forming a committee, to inquire why Garlands was short of accommodation.
Sir Robert Brisco, who was on the asylum Visiting Committee, said the Poor Law Commissioners (PLCs) had only required at first that Garlands be built to accommodate 200,
“as it was not their intention that idiots and imbeciles and what might be called quiet lunatics should be sent to an asylum.”
He said that there were at present 223 people in Garlands, and the PLCs had reported there were 185 lunatics in workhouses who should be be admitted into asylum.
It appeared, however, that the commissioners had changed their minds and now desired that lunatics of every class should be sent to asylum. If that were done at the present time, he believed it would require accommodation for 415 people.
Sir Robert said it wasn’t true that there people in Garlands who didn’t belong to Cumberland or Westmorland. But there were some who weren’t paupers, and if the committee met with such cases, they would use every endeavour to throw the whole burden of their maintenance and providing a place for their reception on their friends.
Only one such case had come to his knowledge, and that was the daughter of a tradesman. The committee had reported the matter to the Poor Law Board, who reported she was rightly there. The committee then insisted they would have her removed at any risk, but had since received the reply from the Poor Law Board that if they did so, they must take the risk of it. And on referring to the Lunacy Act, they found the Poor Law Board was quite right, that it was the intention of the law that all lunatics, of whatever position, should be taken care of, and if their friends did not, the Poor Law officials must.
The committe then tried another course and a representation to her friends was effectual, and she had since been removed.
A good deal had been said at other places about Westmorland having more than its share of ‘lunatics’ in Garlands. In fact, Westmorland paid only a quarter of the cost. But instead of Westmorland having more than one fourth of people in Garlands, it was Cumberland that actually had 15 or 16 more than its three-quarters share. So it was not yet time for Cumberland to grumble.
A report had been agreed on, to address the shortcomings. It had been determined to meet the requirements of the two counties in the most economical way they could to be effectual. They would raise the roof a storey, regardless of appearance, if that would suit the case.
The ‘quieter portion’
The committee had another idea before them, which was to build a convenient place, in another part of the grounds, to accommodate the quieter and more sensible portion of the lunatics. For whom they could have a distinctive class of servants, at a much more economical rate than such as was required for the really demented.
Sir Robert then suggested it would be worthwhile for guardians of different unions to consider if some patients could be accommodated nearer home – while keeping them separate from other paupers, as it was disagreeable to sensible paupers to be mixed up indiscriminately with the demented.
He thought it might be urged upon the Poor Law Board that it was not necessary to send every case of idiotcy and imbecility to the asylum, but such cases might be provided for satisfactorily at a much cheaper rate by the guardians themselves.
Sir Robert concluded by saying if the guardians formed a committee, the Visting Committee would ensure they were able to inspect the aslyum and get all the information they required from its officers.
The Northern diet!
A discussion afterwards arose as to the cost of the maintenance of people in the asylum, when it appeared that it had gradually decreased since the first establishment. This was owing in great measure to a revision of the dietary, which in the first instance had not been such as was considered suitable for the Northern counties.
The cost for the Board of Guardians
The cost had lately reduced by five and a half pence per head per week, to 9s 4d per head, per week.
So the cost per person was about 45p a week – the equivalent of about £50 a week today.
Competing needs
Wigton Board of Guardians at that time was regularly spending hundreds of pounds on the workhouse and its inmates, and on ‘outdoor relief’ for paupers living in their own homes. There were building maintenance costs; and the cost of building an infirmary for the town.
Salaries included a doctor, a barber, and a chaplain.
In February 1861, there were 129 inmates in the workhouse; and 845 paupers receiving outdoor relief.
They were also called on, occasionally, to help farmers who’d lost herds of cattle to epidemics of diseases such as ‘cattle plague’. And had to deal with complaints about sewage and pollution.
The money was raised locally by a rate collected in each parish. Which, like all taxes, ratepayers weren’t keen on having to pay.
Early in 1862, the guardians authorised the building (at the workhouse) of: washhouses for boys and girls; open sheds for them to play in, in wet weather; the convalescent yard to be planted with grass and shrubs; a library to be formed, and; extra stoves to be installed.
And the Wigton Advertiser gave its editorial view on the difficult balancing act between providing for the poor and keeping the rate down.
“Boards of Guardians are too often stigmatized as a batch of niggardly screws, dealing out soup of the thinnest bread of the coarsest, and lodging of the meanest to the poor.
“Whatever may be the case with some Boards, we are glad to be able to point out the Wigton Board of Guardians as a liberal and enlightened example to others.”
You can read the sad story of one woman who found herself in Garlands, in 1891, in this post