Idiocy, Imbecility and Insanity in Victorian Society, 1st ed. 2020 Caterham Asylum, 1867–1911 Mental Health in Historical Perspective Series

This book explores the understudied history of the so-called ?incurables? in the Victorian period, the people identified as idiots, imbeciles and the weak-minded, as opposed to those thought to have curable conditions. It focuses on Caterham, England?s first state imbecile asylum, and analyses its founding, purpose, character, and most importantly, its residents, innovatively recreating the biographies of these people. Created to relieve pressure on London?s overcrowded workhouses, Caterham opened in September 1870. It was originally intended as a long-stay institution for the chronic and incurable insane paupers of the metropolis, more commonly referred to as idiots and imbeciles. This purpose instantly differentiates Caterham from the more familiar, and more researched, lunatic asylums, which were predicated on the notion of cure and restoration of the senses. Indeed Caterham, built following the welfare and sanitary reforms of the late 1860s, was an important feature of the Victorian institutional landscape, and it represented a shift in social, medical and political responsibility towards the care and management of idiot and imbecile paupers.

Explores the understudied histories of asylum patients identified as incurably insane and how society, government and the medical profession responded to this group Focuses on the history of Caterham, England’s first state imbecile asylum, unlike other lunatic asylums where so-called curable patients were treated Challenges the notion of incurability and chronicity as sources of shame and stigma within Victorian and Edwardian economies of welfare