After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Inside the Victorian Asylum

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

One of the dark symbols of the Victorian age is the asylum. It struck fear into the mind but what was the reality of life inside its walls? Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story today.Edited by Richard Powers, Produced by Stuart Beckwith, Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Morning light spills through tall arched windows, glinting off polished floors and neatly folded uniforms. On the surface, the Victorian Asylum looks like progress. There are orderly gardens, calm wards and doctors preaching moral treatment and cure. A haven of science and compassion, they said. But behind those locked doors where, visitors seldom tread. The air is thick with fear and silence. Patients labour in laundries and fields under the guise of therapy. Some are restrained, secluded or simply forgotten. What begins as reform too often slides into repression. In a world that claimed to heal the mind how much suffering was hidden behind the facade of care and what really happened inside the Victorian asylum.

Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Anthony. And I'm Addy. Now, as you know, one of the dark symbols of the Victorian age is, of course, the asylum. And we are going to discover today why it captured their collective imagination and fitted into their idea of what a reformed society, a Victorian reformed society, should look like. We want to be careful about how we discuss this history, of course. And we caveat this episode by saying we will be using the language in the context from the period. that rightly is no longer used to describe mental illness. But with that, let's delve into the Victorian world

that created its iteration of the asylum. Maddie, what can you tell us about Victorian England at this time? Okay, so the Victorian asylum, I think, is something that we all have a sense of, particularly from Hollywood, particularly from novels written at the time and novels written afterwards that are in the Victorian era. And I think we have a very specific vision. but the asylum of the 19th century really owes a lot to the 18th century, as everything does.

Probably that. Yeah, it's the first century. And interestingly, I've actually been spending a lot of time thinking about 18th century asylums and treatment for mental illness in that period for a new book project. So I'm kind of in this headspace a little bit, so I'm excited to talk about this today. The thing to say about the difference, I suppose, between 18th and 19th century asylums is in the 18th century, it's kind of the Wild West. There's no real system across the country.

There are no inspectors. There's no regulation. There's no way of keeping tabs on how people are being treated. And so inevitably you get, of course, some absolutely terrible situations. And some people who are working to genuinely try and what they think is to cure mental illness will come to some of those cures across these two centuries in a little while. You do get people as well who are kind of interested in reforming these institutions at the end. of the 18th century that goes on to be part of this sort of bigger reform that we see in the Victorian

period. So in 1796 we get a man called William Chuk who founds a private mental institution outside York called The Retreat, which do you remember this at all from your student days at York? So it's really close to the York campus. And so he kind of came up with this idea, at least we begin to see with people like William Chuk in York, this idea of more moralistic treatment of patients, right? so everything is kind of a little bit more ethical in the context of the time, like, let's be clear, this isn't great. He institutes what's called a non-restraint policy on patients, which across the board really in the 18th century you're getting

patients who are subjected to all kinds of horrible treatments, but who are also chained up, sometimes the floor or the wall of the cell that they're kept in, essentially. So this is, we are seeing a little bit of a change. So that's the end of the 18th century. Cut to the beginning of the 19th century, and you start to see legislation coming in. So first of all, we have the County Asylums Act of 1808, which allowed but didn't require, importantly, counties to build asylums for what they called pauper lunatics.

So essentially the poor, often homeless people or people who are struggling at the bottom of society who are classed as lunatics, which is a broad term that really could encompass all kinds of physical as well as mental illness. Like this is, you know, not a term that we would use today. it's not however until 1845 so a decade almost a decade into the Victorian era that we get the lunacy and county Asylums Act and this makes it compulsory that every county and every borough in a city has to have an asylum so you're starting to see society react to I suppose the need for this across the board but also putting things in place in a more systematic way like this is an effective way of doing it again it's not going to be great necessarily there was an idea that mental illness was a physical ailment that could be cured. And so these asylums are not just holding pens in the way that maybe a workhouse is. And of course, a lot of people with mental illness end up in the workhouse in the 18th and 19th centuries.

But also it's a sense that you are being processed. Somehow you're being treated. And once you are fixed, you can go back out onto the street and you will be fine. Do you know what it's also reminiscent of, I think, and probably there is a date correlation here as well. the kind of prison reform that we see from the end of the 18th century

into the 19th century and it says something about processing one's local I use this term in the context of the time problems so be that crime be that mental illness

you are in charge of that in your own areas especially from the middle of the 19th century and then you see this systematic idea that if we build these types of wings if they're within these types of environments this will all help with all of this So that's really helpful because it's a factual way into what's going on and it gives us that historical grounding. But when I think of the Victorian Asylum, I think most people too, really what I'm thinking of is a fictional rendering or an imaginative rendering where, and it feeds into ideas like you were just saying there of the workhouse.

For instance, this is not a place you want to go. It is monstrous. It's scary. What we see then is that it starts to really infiltrate 19th century literature and art as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. So the thing to say about the 19th century asylum is that it is well and truly in the imagination of the people already. So we think about, you know, something like a really famous example like Bedlam Hospital, right, which is, of course, it's initially to treat the physically sick in the medieval period, but by the 18th century, it's known as quote unquote madhouse. And really from the mid-18th century into the Victorian era, really, people are allowed to pay as tourists to go and witness. As you say, the monstrousness as they perceived it, the chaos.

the horror of people who are mentally ill. So it's already in practice as well as on paper or you know eventually on screen something that is a sort of cultural trope that everybody understands, right? Everyone has a sense of how horrendous the asylum can be and how dangerous it can be and that it's a threat hanging over a lot of people. Mostly it's important to say in the 19th century women. We have this sense of the hysterical woman who, you know, appears again and again in novels. It's a trope that's criticised in its own moment. Like, you know, this isn't something that people brought into across the board. I can think of lots of famous examples.

Obviously, in the 1840s, we've had Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyne. Never heard of it. We didn't do a whole documentary available now on the History Head Channel on the Brontes. And obviously, in that, you know, you have Mr. Rochester's first wife, Bertha Mason, hiding in the tower, well, being trapped in the tower. And she is herself mad. The woman in white in 1859, Wilkie Collins. Have you ever read that? I think I have, yeah.

Cracken read. Yeah, it's a long time. But I think I did. There's not very many adaptations of it, actually. I'd like to see a slight to see a lot. I think there is at least one because I think I've seen one. There's like a BBC one for it, maybe 15 years ago or something. But yeah, justice for the woman in white.

Like we want more of that. But in that we have Anne Catharic, who is an escapee from an asylum, who is a really interesting character where at the beginning of the novel, everyone thinks that she is mad and that she's dangerous. And then it turns out that she's been the person speaking the truth the whole time and she's a wronged woman. So this is something that is kind of coming into. culture. That trope is really interesting too, right? In the 19th century, the escapee. You see it

in different variations in literature. I'm thinking about the beginning of David Copperfield with what's he called Magwitch. Is that David Copperfield? Great expectations? Oh God, it's great expectations. I hate great expectations. I don't know why I just like a bit of moodiness and there's a lot of that in the fens and all that mist and stuff. Yeah, great setting. Boring plot. Unsatisfactory ending. I do know why you're saying that. I like it, but I do know why you're saying that. I do for David Coppical. My favourite is Bleak House.

Oh, the BBC adaptation. Oh my God, I can't go. It's so good. It's so good. Gillian Anderson and anything I'll watch it. So we have this idea then that the Victorian asylum is looming large, both factually and things are happening there, but also in terms of imagination, even in the 19th century. And we're left with that legacy now.

Yeah, you know, just to pick up on that point, it is very much in the imagination, but also in practice, like you just said. It's physically there. By 1845, they're saying it needs to be in your sense. town everywhere. Absolutely. And people are suspicious of it. People are afraid of it. In 1887 in America, I am obsessed to this story. There's a journalist called Nelly Bligh. And she is incredible. So she's a independent bus bitch going out, doing a journalism. We're doing this again. We're bossificating. Yeah, that is definitely a word. So she is so intrigued by the idea of the asylum

and particularly the treatment of women that she fakes insanity. She gets a male colleague and you'd have to trust the male colleague to take her into the asylum and say, my wife's gone crazy. And she is in there for, I think it's 10 days, during which time she sees horrendous conditions. She sees stuff be violent with patients. There's rotten food.

There's freezing baths. There's rat-infested bedding and clothing. And eventually, her editors do come and get her. Okay. Thank God. Because that's a big risk in the 19th century. They might be like, that one woman in our...

office was really annoying. And now we're about to being all men, like God, she's gone, yeah. But they do go and get her. And she writes a really famous article called Behind Asylum Bars. And it's kind of a wake-up call to 19th century Americans of exactly what these conditions are like. And, you know, she talks about the absolute release of tension when she can come out of the asylum. And she is rescued. And she talks about her horror and her sorrow and not being able to take what she calls the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me in there, that she can't bring them out.

And she really draws her attention. And actually, her work in this area is so shocking to people that it prompts a jury to launch an investigation into the particular asylum that she was in. And there's a sort of cultural shift in the conversation around asylums more generally. So this is something that's in the imagination, yes, and in fiction at the time, but it's very much a conversation that people are having and constantly thinking about what the function of these places are, what the moral element is and how useful they are going forward. if you were, and she alludes to them but if you were not as lucky or as privileged or as educated potentially as Nellie Bly

and you had a plan for an escape route and you didn't have a high-ranking male colleague to come and save you. Yeah. What are the conditions under which you might be, let's say in England specifically, what are the conditions under which you might be admitted to one of these asylum?

Because I know it is something that people feared. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like it's one of the worst things that could possibly happen to you in the 19th century and that's saying something, to be absolutely stripped of your autonomy as a man or a woman, you know, whatever the situation. But obviously this was something that happened disproportionately to women. So in 1853, there's the Lunatic Asylums Act that's passed. And this means that you do need a medical certificate from a doctor and an order from a poor law official.

So sometimes a clergyman or someone like that in your local parish. It was meant to be put in place to ensure that people weren't just being chucked in. the asylum willy-neilly but of course they were doctors can be corrupt clergymen can be corrupt very much so this is a system that is open to bribery and you know leaning on people and

influence and behind the scenes handshakes and all of that so not great in conclusion not ideal it should be said though that asylum care was pricey so if you were from the lower classes and your wife was hysterical and pissing you off overstepping the mark, you're more likely

to put her in the workhouse, which was a cheaper alternative. And even more feared, like horrendous, yeah. Yeah, I mean, in terms of the brutality and the dangers that waited you. And you're not getting better in the workhouse. You're probably not getting better in the asylum. No, yeah, I mean, that's very true. But at least there is an attempt.

The idea. Yeah, to understand what's wrong with you and that these institutions are set up with the intent to do that. Yes. To make you, quote unquote, better or to fix your problems. Whereas the workhouse is like,

you're just in here until you can afford to not be here essentially or your husband is one needs you back to clean the house or whatever it is. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Once he gets hungry for his dinner and he's run off ready meals. It's 19th century ready meals. And you mentioned the workhouse there. And in my mind, I sometimes think that these things start to coalesce a little bit

in terms of my imaginings of them and where poor people are going, where maybe more middle class people are going. But there is a distinction and there's an increasing distinction. When does that distinction begin? So much earlier than you think, potentially. So if we take the most famous example of Bedlam, which of course is a medieval hospital, it's originally set up as a hospital for sick paupers,

so people who cannot afford care elsewhere. And it's called Bethlehem Hospital initially, but it obviously gets shortened over time to Bedlam. Certainly by the 18th century is a shorthand for madness, essentially. That blew my mind. I don't know when I found, like, oh my God, it's Bedlam in here. And I'd be like, yeah, okay, I know what that means. And then someone was like, oh, there's a hospital.

And I was like, there's a hospital. And then it was Bethlehem. I was like, all of these steps. Yeah, yeah. And there's so many layers of meaning there as well, isn't there? So, but that divergence between just treating poor people who are ill, physically ill, and treating people who are mentally ill, begins at Bedlam in the 13th century. It's that early.

So you start to see people kind of specialising. And then certainly by the 18th century, Bedlam is very much focused on mental illness. And in the 19th century, other institutions are kind of taking on that role as well. So it is a kind of specialist thing, an institution like this, the kinds of treatments, just to give you a little bit of a sense. And we're going to talk a little bit more about what a typical day might look like in a Victorian asylum. But just talk about Bedlam in particular, because a lot of these treatments were kind of pioneered here, I suppose. Things like cold water therapy, there's bleeding, there's purging. There's a sense that mental illness was locked within the body.

It wasn't a problem with your mind or your brain or anything like that, that it was a physical ailment and that you could be purged of it. that if you were treated brutally enough, essentially, you could be fine. And of course, we see that in the treatment of incredibly poor, unfortunate people in this period, but also the king himself, George III. And we've done a whole episode on his final days and some of the elements of his mental illness. And he is treated by some of the doctors at Bedlam who come to the palace to treat him. So, you know, this runs the gamut of society? Do you know what I'm thinking as you're describing these treatments,

the 18th century treatments before we get onto the Victorian asylum? I mean, they don't improve greatly. But just in terms of what we have inherited in terms of the wellness industry which again is about expunging like you talk about cold water therapy and we're supposed to see this now as being cruel but actually there is a huge advocacy

for cold water immersion that people have ice baths in the back of their gardens wild swimming which to me I've never done it but to me it feels I really want to do that but like do you yeah I don't know why it's not very me but I actually really do I'd like to do wild swimming not the ice bath though

that's for like toxic men I don't want to do that. I don't want to do it. I want to do it. I want to go in like a little river and dip a toe and then be like, nope. But you talked about like purging as well. And there's this idea in wellness culture now about detoxifying. I'm on a detox. And you know, you hear real specialists always talking about you cannot detox your body. It's impossible. It's impossible. It doesn't exist. You can't do that. You know, talk about the linguistic again. You talked about the links between purging and detoxing. So we have an inheritance of some of these things again. It's just been rebranded and packaged. by any other name, essentially. Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's so interesting. we have in true after dark fashion an image that I would like you to discuss now please this is from the interior of bedlam but much later into the 19th century so in 1878 or thereabouts and it's a very different space and I will say if anyone wants to look up images

of bedlam in the 18th century there's an amazing few images from hogarth where you have patients who are dressed up as animals as the king, they're graffitiing on the walls, they're chained to the floor. It is literally chaos. And this, almost 100 years later, over 100 years later, is a very different. It's not that, is it?

Yeah. When you think of Bedlam, this is not the image you think of. And that is purposeful. So we are faced with a big long hole. It is very proper. There are big portraits on the wall. There's flowers hanging from the windows.

That is what Anthony. requires from any big hole. Yeah. There is busts on the walls. There is gas lamps. I mean, well, gas lighting coming from the ceiling. Then we have a room full of, yes, exclusively men, yes, that are very, very well dressed. You're talking, you know, at least middle class.

There is one guy who I suppose could be a little lower societally who is sitting playing some kind of accordion thing. There is a dog in there. I initially thought it was a huge crow. but no, no, that's a dog. Oh, it does look quite furlough. Yeah, people playing games together, people reading the newspaper,

smoking cigars, looking at the window, enjoying the view. Is the epitome of 19th century civilisation? And there's a big, what is that, cage of birds down the bottom right-hand corner. Is that what that is? I think it's a terrarium. Sure. Yeah, it's something.

It's something like visually stimulating anyway. But either way, it is respectable. It is clean. Like within an inch of its life. almost borders on hotel like something not quite comfortable to that extent. There's very few furniture pieces and the pieces that are there are quite basic actually. So it does feel like you might be wandering through this space with going, what the hell am I doing here?

But it's polite. It is functional. It is pretty to a certain extent. And crucially, it's calm. The patients are calm. They're interacting with each other in a very docile way. Hands are in their pockets. Everyone's relaxed.

There's no violence. There's no confusion. There's no stress. everybody knows their role and they're sort of they're employed in activity. Is that realistic though? Like take me through a typical day in this asylum. Is this what we're seeing? Yeah.

Inevitably, this isn't going to be as close to reality as we would like, but it gives a sense, I think, of the kind of structure and formality and calm that the 19th century asylum tried to put in place, right? And this is how it thought about itself, certainly. And also, I suppose by the end of the 19th century, how people are liked to think about the asylum, not as this chaos monster from the past that is full of horror and people being entrapped there

and injustices and violence and all of that, but as something that is actively reshaping people, treating them and then putting them back out into circulation. So a typical day, and this is a sort of put-together version that we've drawn from different accounts of English asylums in this period. So this is based on significant evidence from the time.

So at 6am, usually, a bell would toll to wake up patients. Too early, both go on. I mean, immediately I'm out. No, thank you. The bedroom doors would be unlocked. So you are all locked in at night, which is, again, quite telling.

You would have to have a wash. You would have to brush your hair, make yourself look presentable, and you would be inspected. There was an examination that would take place of every patient. So, again, this idea of order and that if you are sort of presenting

as physically okay and put together and polite, then show, you're fine inside, Like, if you look good, you're fine. And then you would have to go to a prayer service, of course. I'm out once again. Yes.

Immediately. Don't have time for that, yes. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I'm too busy. And classic Victorians, right, of like, tying together institutions that don't necessarily have a religious element to them with religion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is absolutely crucial.

You know, it's a sort of a great pillar of the state in this moment. Breakfast would probably be watery porridge or broth. Sometimes you'll get bread or cheese. So it's not that much better than prison. really. It's nutritious, I suppose if you, especially if you've been living on the streets during the 19th century, you've probably not had a great diet. So at least this is consistent, but not that appealing. Lunch would be meat, fish and veg. Okay, not bad. Or rather meat or fish. Very simple, very clean all of this so far. Yeah, the wellness language creeping back in there.

Interesting. Yes, I suppose as well, this idea of, again, physical health, that you'll be mentally okay. If you've had some beef today and an apple, you're fine. Dinner would be bread and cheese again. Which, to be honest, I am on board with that. My stomach is gurgling as I talk about this. I'm not a big cheese. I mean, I like cheese, but yeah, I'm not going to... It's the thing I've missed most whilst being pregnant is blue cheese,

not you, but like one can't have things, like coffee cheese. I know. But the alcohol I get. It's so sad. Yeah. And there literally will be science behind this. I just don't know it. But I'm just like, what?

Okay. I just Google. Can you eat this? It's like, no, you can't. It's like with dogs, right? Can you give a dog of blueberry? Honestly, my search history is panic. Can dogs eat this?

Usually after they've eaten something. Or can pregnant people eat this? That's literally all my search history is. Okay, getting back to this. So you've had your meals. What are you going to do during the rest of the day? So you've had your breakfast. And then you do what's called therapeutic employment,

which is what we're seeing in this image essentially. It's people doing stuff. This is not dissimilar to prison where you are forced to do hard labor, whether you're made, to make Hesian sacks or rope or break rocks, whatever it is. This is just one up from that. These are more, to use the Victorian parlance,

they are more therapeutic in that they are slightly gentler and probably useful in the outside world compared to breaking at rocks. But it's very much this idea of like busy mind, healthy body, you'll be fine. Don't like this. For men, they were allowed to do farm work, carpentry and tailoring, which is great.

Women, however, would have to do the cleaning, cooking, laundry and knitting. Cannot sew or knit anything, but I've renovated every single piece of antique furniture in my house, so I would be pissed at this. I don't want to do any of those things. Yeah. What would you want to do?

Farming, but if it didn't require digging or... Or animal care. No, tending to animals, I'll do that bit. Oh, you could do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, can. I don't know if I can, but I'd be willing to give it a go. You'd be willing.

I love this. I don't know if I can. I don't want to have to do the poo, though. Can you choose what you do? Can I do the front end of the animal feeding it into the cute bits not dealing with the back end I don't think they probably

prioritise cuddling in this system yeah but interesting thinking about proximity to animals and like now thinking about wellness and stuff like therapy animals and you know when like cute puppies had taken into offices in a financial district to like micro pigs which is just a pig there's no such thing as a micro pig

they're just small pigs people always get them as pets and they're like it grew into a pig they grew into a normal size pig it's just a Baby pig. No. Yeah, I'm sure this is true. I'm sure micro pigs don't exist. I want one anyway.

I mean, I'm now absolutely doubting myself. But write in and tell us to my... I used to have a lamb. Maybe they could let me have a lamb. Oh, my God. That is so you. Yeah. I was looking to my granddad's deathbed when he was dying.

I was like, look at this. It's a lamb. He's like... I have other things to worry out right now. But it was a cute lamb. I think... I don't know what happened to that lamb. I worry about it, but it's definitely not with me now.

Did it make it to sheephood? Do they? Okay, we've just been told by the producers that micro pigs do exist. That's the wordest message I've ever received A voice came over to either Micropigs do exist. Well, that's disappointing.

I don't know, for me it's not. Like, anyway, they probably didn't have micro pigs and by that means they 100% didn't have micro pigs in Victorian asylum. People were allowed to keep pets in Bedlam though. Their own. Bring their own with them. Well, yeah.

I mean, they acquired animals when they were in there. I don't know if people were bringing in their dog Both Molly and Kipp need institutionalising, so I would work out very well. You'd be like, I'm the support animal for these two inmates. I don't know why they're here, but they need this help. Yeah, 100%. Having met them, yes. We've gone off.

We have derailed. Yes, let's get back on track. Well, one thing that your dogs would enjoy, were they interred in Bedlam, would be the airing courts where you were allowed to go and have a walk outside. Again, a little bit like prison, you got your airtime. But there were walled gardens and things that you could walk around. So it was potentially a little bit nicer than prison. But again, this idea of physical exercise being useful.

And, you know, we know that is true to a certain extent. Being in nature. Not a severe mental illness, of course. But, you know, in terms of like, yeah, access to nature, access to outside. Exercise, like, it helps lift the spirits in a probably quite minor way compared to, you know, actual medicalised treatment. But there we go. As the century progressed and it gets a little bit better in asylums, a little bit better, in that it's not so brutal, there'd be things like musical entertainment

that would come in and perform for the people who were in there and as we saw in the image there'd be games available so things like cards chess I don't mind when it's just like two players like I don't mind a chess game I don't want to do a group activity

like at Christmas when we all have to do like Cludeau or something I'm out I don't play Monopoly I love all of my family until we get to sit down and do this and I'm like I hate you all We just don't even do it You just know not to do it

That's a little English for us Yeah, it's too look of disgust on your face. We're just trying to survive in a colonial atmosphere. No, who has time for board games? Not I'm joking. Wow.

No, but I'd be bored, stiff. I'd go madder. Yeah, the only thing that I would enjoy is the lights out are in the kind of mid-evening. It's not too late. I'd be like, good, yes, thank you. 9.30 bedtime. Perfect.

I'm done. So we're in. We're doing our boring activities that are potentially making us more mad. We are walking our dogs. We are tending to our micro pigs. And eventually somebody goes, hey, you've tended to that micro pig so well, you can leave now. But I'm being glib.

What is the actual, you're supposed to leave asylums. This is the whole point of them. So what is your route out? I presume actually there's probably a few routes out. Okay, so it was quite difficult to get out of the asylum, certainly in the early 19th century. because as we say from 1845 you need medical certificates and the word of someone in your parish who deals with the poor to be like, yeah, mentally ill and they need to be put away.

There is not a route out in the same way. There's nobody going, congrats, you're fine, let's go. So actually you don't know for sure that you're getting out. So you don't know for sure. And a lot of people, I mean, I can think of certainly a handful of famous cases in the 18th century, a lot of people spend the rest of their lives in places like bedlam. It's not guaranteed that you will get out.

It depends, of course, what you're in there for. And often with patients who are brought in for mental illness, there is also a criminal element in, i.e., they have been accused of a crime, not necessarily like they're guilty of that, or they have committed a crime because of the mental illness. You know, not conflating the two, but they are... That's how they come to the attention of the authority. Because often families are managing this, are managing mental illness.

Prior to this, something will have happened. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, 100%. And that's certainly in my next book project, I am looking at a couple of people in particular whose families did exactly that. They, you know, manage things as best they could. They were on rotational shifts looking after this person at night,

taking him to work in the morning. Co-workers at work would look after him. You know, the whole community was managing it. And then... Something happens. He did something probably big and criminal. And then off to bedlam for the rest of his life. There's no guarantee that you're going out.

Now, we've done an episode before, Spencer Perciphil, the only British Prime Minister to be shot. Absolutely, to be assassinated. His son, John Percival, who I think we did discuss a little bit in that episode, he was confined to an asylum himself, a private asylum in the 1830s. It is not that long after his father is killed. And because he is, you know, obviously educated, he's very privileged, he is connected to a lot of people in power. He does make it out. And when he does, he writes a two-volume memoir called, a narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, importantly,

during a state of mental derangement. And this is over two years from 1838 to 1840. And in it, a little bit like Nellie Blye later on in the 19th century, John Percivill describes the abuse essentially of these so-called madhouses, and he's a champion of the kind of moral treatment in these reforms that then sweep in the 19th century. And one of the things that he really fights for in 1845, and we've talked about, you know, the fact that in that year there's the act that requires every county and borough to have an asylum.

There is already a conversation about how these places should be changing. So in the same year, he co-founds the alleged lunatics, and I love that term. Like, you know, again, it's very 19th century language, but there's a gesture to, you know, some understanding of nuance here. The alleged lunatics friend society, and this offers legal. aid to detainees, which is huge. For the first half of the 19th century. Yeah, 1845. We're only not even a decade into victorious rain. This is big. It also campaigns for things like appeals so that you can potentially appeal to get out. I did not know this. Yeah, it's amazing. He's a really amazing man. He also calls for external inspection so that these places are regulated

and they are answerable to people, which is massive. This has not happened up until this point, which is kind of wild that you think it gets to 1845 before this is the case. And also stricter admission certification. The requirements for putting someone into an asylum are suddenly much higher. Yeah, they're regulated. Yeah, and they're the same across the board. It's not a case of like, oh, you should take your wife to the asylum down the road because they'll have it and they won't put it back.

Like, you know, she can stay there. This is not that. It's like you now have to tick these things off a list in order to get in. So it does change. But the fact that it continues to appear in. Victorian literature, on the Victorian stage, in the Victorian imagination, as a unique danger, particularly to women. And I think there's something to be said as well about the kind of feminizing of madness. And what I mean by that is that it is associated with women, but also that

men who are mentally ill are treated as women or are discussed in those terms, right? And I think that's something to say there as well. So there's a kind of an othering within the sort of, you know, Victorian patriarchal society in terms of madness. There doesn't necessarily gel with the image that we discussed, the kind of polite masculinity where everyone is respectable, like walking around, reading the newspaper, playing cards. That's not necessarily the truth. So I think, you know, there is a gap there that we have to remember.

But there were people in this moment campaigning for better conditions, better treatment of patients. It's not as bleak as you would think. And how then does this, people like John and, those people that you're talking about campaigning and pushing for reform. How do the people on the street, the people in the villages, the people in the towns where these asylums are now going up, how are they viewing this in light of that reform? Does that idea of fear and degradation and humiliation, does that change in the 19th century?

It takes a long time for the idea that this is regulated to kick in in the imagination. So for many decades afterwards, there is a kind of, you know, what's called like lunacy panics, this anxiety that if you show any signs of mental illness, they will pack you off to the asylum. And where I grew up in Staffordshire, there was a mental hospital, as it was called, at Chedleton, which was a village I lived in briefly as a child. And across Staffordshire, people would say, don't act daft or we'll send you to Ched. And that was, you know, a common saying. So it was this idea that if you gave any indication that you weren't well mentally, like that fear was you'll be sent right off immediately.

So, you know, cover it up. hide your true feelings, brush your hair, have a wash, you'd be fine. So, you know, there's that. But there's kind of pushback. So in the 1880s, there's, you know, physicians who are working in these institutions really try and combat this idea that these are really dangerous places. And they kind of label these stories of injustices and miscarriages of justice as fanciful stories. You know, there's a kind of campaign to combat this anxiety,

which in some ways is useful. because it calms things down. And, you know, a lot of these physicians are genuinely working within the context of their own time and the tools available to them to try and treat mental illness. Like they are trying to work out what's wrong with people and they're trying to help. Not all. And I'm sure there was a huge amount that was open to corruption and all kinds of abuse, of course, as any institution always is.

But I think as well, that pushback in that narrative of you're all getting a bit hysterical. It isn't like this. Calm down. that's sort of the problem really, isn't it? And it's dangerous in that it then washes over actual issues that were still in existence and probably still continue well into the 20th century, if not to today.

So there's a kind of institutional pushback that we should be wary of maybe in this moment as well. Well, you see it in like panorama investigations even now, don't you? Where there's, be it, you know, care for the elderly or in certain facilities that look after people with additional needs or with mental illness needs, whatever it is, there is still systematic abuse

happening at the very lowest levels of that all the way up to the top. I witnessed some of that when my grandma was in a care home, you know, terrible neglect and real issues. It is something that still exists today, absolutely. Talk about that fear that people maybe had in the 19th century.

You still hear people saying, don't put me in a home, whatever you're going to do. When I get older, I'm talking about age-related stuff now, not necessarily mental illness. But like, whatever you do, try and keep me here with the family

and don't just put me in there, which, you know, was increasingly impossible for people in this day and age, you know, financially and all those things time-wise. So we do actually have a taste of what that fear still looks and feels like, even if it's in a different type of institution. Yeah, and that anxiety, which is, you know, based on fact as well as cultural imagination, runs through from the 19th century and is still with us.

You know, we still have these issues. So to round off this discussion then, we do, despite what we're just saying there, about that cultural fear, that social fear is still with us, There are reforms that come into place at the end of the 19th century that try to change this idea a little bit. There are some. So the Lunacy Act of 1890 establishes new legal controls over psychiatric admissions for private patients. And it makes it more difficult to open new private as well. So there is, again, this kind of regulation, you know, everything's getting tighter and tighter.

I wonder, though, overall, if you think the asylum was a useful tool in Victorian society. Do you think it served a purpose, or do you think it was just rife for horror? Do you know what? That's a really big question because my instinct says no, that it was too degrading. But certainly there are individuals within that system and there are probably individual. And, you know, I'm not a specialist in this area. So there will be people that will absolutely advocate for some of these institutions and what they were able to offer to communities and to towns. But I am coming with this cultural baggage of fear and don't go to asylum.

And, you know, I've said this before in the podcast. We have it more so with a workhouse in Ireland than we do with asylum. But asylum is a workhouse adjacent as we have discovered in this. So I probably don't have the nuance to answer that question. I'll give you my instinctual answer, which is not a factual answer. It's just a feeling. The feeling is that, oh, no, they weren't. But, you know, logically I can see arguments emerging even by me feeling that that say,

well, what's going to happen then? And yeah, what was the alternative? Yeah. People throughout human history get mental illness and they need help and they need treatment and they need to be cared for and kept safe while they recover if they are able to recover.

And I think these institutions provided something akin to that, possibly, probably for the minority who were lucky enough to probably recover on their own, the workhouse or the asylum and probably didn't help them much, but maybe they just got better and survived it. I don't know what the success rate of actual treatment would be.

That would be interesting to know. I have a real, I'm real, I'm realising having this conversation that I have a real lack of trust for institutions. And that... I love that you're only just noticing this. Every episode you're like, this is a life. I have a real lack of trust for institutions

and an even more innate lack of trust for institutions that incorporate religion. And that's... Which is everything in the 19th century in England. And our... And I think it feeds into my Irishness that I have that link as well. But anyway, look, it's really interesting to talk beyond the myth, I think, and to talk beyond the fictional renderings of, you know, the Jane Ayers and the,

that's what I have in my mind, or the Dickens, of course, or variations of Dickens in terms of orphanages and all that kind of thing as well, which just leaves these things rife for abuse in the public imagination. But of course, there will have been people trying to do or good work in the boundaries of what they understood about this at the time. So it's complex as everything. It's nuanced, you know, historians can never give an answer because things are not black and white in the past.

So it's been interesting, but it's just the thing that exists the most, that persists the most, is the fear, I think. So whoever's in charge of what were asylums, PR, need to be fired because that hasn't broken through. Still negative PR. Who do we write to about this? I don't know. I'm not going to write a letter.

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