The subject of mental health is very much in the news these days, but the historic record shows that the topic is anything but new. In fact, Gloucestershire Archives holds the largest collection of mental health records of any repository in the country. These are on the whole related to the City’s three mental health institutions Barnwood House Private Mental Hospital and Trust, Horton Road County Lunatic Asylum and Coney Hill Hospital.
In the past there were many crazy old-fashioned cures for mental illness. One of these was trepanning. This was the drilling of a hole in the skull that it was thought would ‘let the devil out’. This has been done since at least Neolithic times and in fact 15% of skulls from this time period had been trepanned. While the technique was improved over time the main problem was the 60% death rate associated with it. With time ideas about mental illness developed to it being seen not as possession by the devil, but rather a chemical imbalance in the brain of the afflicted person.
On the 17th July 1823 First Gloucestershire County Lunatic Asylum (Horton Road) was opened in Gloucester in one of the city’s finest Georgian buildings. Proposals to create a public “lunatic” asylum to serve Gloucestershire were first made in 1793. A suitable site surrounded by countryside was identified at Wotton in 1811. Plans were developed by William Stark which were based on a radial design. The 3-storey central crescent section contained the rooms for wealthy patients and the superintendent’s quarters, while the charitable cases were to be accommodated in the less salubrious 2-storey wings. The building was finally completed in 1823 some 9 years after building had commenced. At its height, the hospital cared for 400 patients. Horton Road hospital eventually closed in 1988. After several years of being un-occupied, the crescent and wings were converted to their present residential use.
What was it like exactly being in a mental hospital in the past? Originally there was a distinct similarity between the various institutions of mental health asylums, workhouses and prisons in that the rules and regulations were very similar in all of these institutions. However, with time the situation improved. A few insights into what conditions were like can be gleaned from various records we hold. For instance, Barnwood Hospital was well provided with amenities. Photos show that it includes: a chapel, a hall with stage, a skittle alley, a billiard room, a pond with bridge and drawing rooms for ladies and gentlemen. The hospital was intended to have the feel of an upper-class house of the period and to represent for the patients “A Home from Home.” In fact, conditions in the asylums were better than some patients could provide for themselves at home. In 1864 Barnwood House was described as a model lunatic hospital and the Commissioners in Lunacy outlined that the committee and the superintendent aimed “to render the hospital as perfect an institution for the care and treatment of the insane as it is possible to arrive at”.
At Coney Hill the nature of the regime can be demonstrated by a wonderful item from the collection the in-house produced magazine the Coney Clarion. The magazine was “run by patients for patients” and produced using typewriters and a Gestetner duplicating machine. The magazine is said to have had a circulation of 430 and to be probably the most widely read publication in the hospital. The magazine contains articles on a wide variety of subjects. These include various clubs that existed at the hospital (camera, music, social, garden and gramophone) poems, jokes, letters to the editor, the gardens at the hospital, a report on the staff social, a report on the winter entertainment programme, an appreciation of the cricketer Dennis Compton, a visit to Sheepscombe British Legion, a report on a slide show of images taken on a trip to France and Spain given by one of the staff and a report on the staff darts team. Perhaps the greatest testament to the quality of the provision in Gloucester’s asylums was that they became overcrowded since they took in so many patients from other parts of the country.
So as can be seen by examining the actual records the care of mental health patients has developed with time. Let us hope that today’s more enlightened view of mental health issues continues to develop with the passage of time and that ever improving treatment is available for all that need it.
Written by Jon Shepherd, Community Cataloguing Archivist
Further Reading
Richard Auckland, ‘A Home from Home’, The Story of Barnwood House Hospital, 2022
Ian M. C. Hollingsbee, ‘Gloucester’s Asylums 1794-2002’, An account of Gloucester’s two Public Mental Health Hospitals at Horton Road and Coney Hill.
Gloucestershire Archives 