Accessibility and Archives: “Beyond experiment or cure”
In this, the 20th in a sequence of blogposts around disability and inclusion from the Accessibility working group of ARA’s Diversity and Inclusion Allies, Philip Milnes-Smith explores some early attempts to make provision for those with intellectual impairments and/or neurodivergent brains, and reflects on the motivations for this innovation. The post includes historic language which would now be deemed offensive, and attitudes that ought to shock.
For centuries learning difficulties were understood to be outside the remit of medical care (hence “beyond experiment or cure”). Documentation of the lives of those with intellectual impairments might occur in a legal context, where family members would attempt to deny others rights to marriage and inheritance on the grounds of limited capacity (as with, for example, Hugh Blair of Borgue). However, from around the middle of the nineteenth century a country-wide network of doctor-led provision, inspired by continental and transatlantic pioneers, was rapidly established. An Asylum for Idiots opened in Highgate in 1848. This was replaced by a purpose-built institution near Redhill, which opened as The Earlswood Asylum in 1855.
It was represented that this community was a “happy family”, maintained without “correction or coercion” and with its members wanting “not to get away, but to stay”. Sarah Smith writing (under the pseudonym Hesba Stretton) in 1874, quotes the asylum’s then leader saying: “The first thing we have to do is to gain a pupil's affection. Unless we do that, our task is hopeless. The craving for affection is the chief characteristic of imbeciles and idiots. If they are fond of you, you can make them do a great many things; if they are afraid of you, or dislike you, your chance is gone, for they can be very obstinate and headstrong. For the first month we do not teach them anything at all, but simply try to attach them to us.” Unlike in many homes and schools of the period, “Corporal punishment is to be strictly prohibited.”
Play would be used to introduce the pupils to schooling and, in due course, those who had the potential might attain more than had been expected before admission: “the greater number do nothing but scribble on their slates; and in arithmetic the lack of mental power is still more perceptible; only sixteen out of the five hundred and sixteen being able to work sums in simple rules. But they are all occupied, and all, more or less, reaching forward to something beyond what they have already attained. Sixty-nine of the patients can write home with assistance, while nineteen write letters without assistance.” Education was followed by training in useful trades including, for boys, carpentry, shoemaking, mat- and basket-weaving, tailoring, and work on the farm and in the gardens. Printing was eventually added. It should not be missed that the trades offered could help lower the costs of the establishment.
So what prompted what has been called ‘The Great Incarceration’? To seek to extend human potential and to protect disabled people from mockery, assault and even being chained up, were certainly laudable aims. It was also positive to prevent the inappropriate placement of those with learning difficulties in establishments intended for those experiencing mental health difficulties. But it is worth noting that a book published to support plans for an Institution for the Training and Education of the Imbecile and the Improvement of Invalid Youth in Scotland in 1861, had started life as articles in the journal Christian Treasury. At the same time as non-Europeans were being equated with the intellectually disabled, with missionaries appointed to save them, it is evident that one prompt for charitable action was the literal saving of souls. Publicity materials were keen to assure pious benefactors that the children cared for there can develop what John Langdon Down described as “an appreciation of the simple teachings of Christ, so as to influence their acts”.
But we can also detect a desire for the separation of the intended residents from their families because they could never become “perfect men” and were “eyesores to society”. A eugenic undercurrent can be detected when a doctor appealing for the establishment of provision in Ireland, notes that “We cannot with Spartan-like severity put them to death in infancy; the Commissioners in Lunacy will take care that year by year the causes of disease and death which affect them shall be obviated, and thus there will be a gradually increasing number of idiots living to be maintained, and maintained in idleness if not trained to the kind of labour they are fitted for.” It is perhaps no coincidence that the doctor also chose to mention the existence of charities for the care of stray dogs. Without the need for extermination or sterilisation, the separation of the sexes in the controlled environment of an asylum could contribute to what would later be termed ‘racial hygiene’. Even so, around the birth of the NHS, the eugenicist British psychiatrist Alfred Tredgold was bemoaning the cost to the “normal population” of those whose ”existence is a perpetual source of worry and unhappiness to their parents” noting that “Many clinicians believe that it would be an economical and humane procedure were their existence to be painlessly terminated, and that this would be welcomed by a very large proportion of parents.”
Back in Victorian Earlswood, a small minority did make sufficient progress to leave, and to support themselves independently in the community: “One…, who, when admitted, appeared sullen and good for nothing, and could not leam the simplest thing, now resides in lodgings at Notting Hill, and earns four shillings a-day.” Christopher Crayon reports that a resident of ten years had been discharged: “He was quite able to earn his living as a tailor, could make coats, vests, and trousers; he was quick at his work, combining neatness with strength, and was also a fair machinist. He is now earning from 17s. to 22s. a week.” But there is also evidence that not releasing successfully trained individuals might be framed by the medical superintendent as being in their best interests while, in reality, being “a matter of economy”: “we could not get a man for 20 pounds per annum and his board, who would be so valuable altogether as he is”.
It would be remarkable if any such institution could exist without instances of exploitation and abuse (particularly when residents were meant to be fond of staff, and accustomed to doing what they were asked), but with under 4% being independently literate at a place like Earlswood, capturing the perspective of the disabled people themselves is difficult. Was a letter such as this one, even genuine, or produced unsupported?
“Dear Sir,—As you came to see us in our school a few days ago, I think you would like to know some more about us, so I should like to tell you a little about myself. When I came here I was nearly nine years old, but could not read or write at all. I had always been to school, but did not even know my letters, I am now twelve years old, can read well, and am fond of all my lessons, so now I am able to write this letter to you. If I get on well, I hope I shall soon learn a trade, and perhaps I shall be a printer, I hope you will tell everybody what a nice school ours is.—Yours truly, H.0.”
John Langdon Down notes a ‘savant’ (perhaps James Henry Pullen, pictured with one of his model ships) who had written to his mother a letter copied verbatim from a book with, from the doctor’s perspective, “not the slightest appropriateness in word or sentiment”. We may suspect it was never sent, and perhaps even kept on file.
Contributions to this series are welcomed, particularly if you have experience of working with records of those with intellectual impairments, or using historic records with those with learning
Thumbnail image: James Pullen, sitting on the end of a wooden trolley upon which rests a huge model ship made by him. Process print. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source Wellcome Collection. https.wellcomecollection.org