- Explores the role of local politics in the management of madness at the turn of the nineteenth century
- Provides the first in-depth study of how the newly created County of London impacted mental health services, as mental health came under party political scrutiny for the first time
- Of interest to historians of London and urban historians, as well as historians of mental health
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- About this book
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This book explores the impact that politics had on the management of mental health care at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 1888 and the introduction of the Local Government Act marked a turning point in which democratically elected bodies became responsible for the management of madness for the first time. With its focus on London in the period leading up to the First World War, it offers a new way to look at institutions and to consider their connections to wider issues that were facing the capital and the nation. The chapters that follow place London at the heart of international networks and debates relating to finance, welfare, architecture, scientific and medical initiatives, and the developing responses to immigrant populations. Overall, it shines a light on the relationships between mental health policies and other ideological priorities.
- About the authors
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Robert Ellis is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He has published widely on the histories of mental ill-health and learning disability, and has worked in partnership on a range of impact and engagement projects that have emphasized their contemporary relevance.
- Reviews
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"This is an important and timely contribution to the politics of mental health. Ellis’s forensic dissection of the politics and finance of asylums in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London demonstrates the evolution of asylum and mental health care but also provides a nuanced account of local government and welfare activism in this period. This book is highly recommended for those interested not only in the history of mental health care, but also the sometimes internecine conflicts which underpinned urban government in the Victorian and Edwardian eras." (Professor Heather Shore, Director of MCPHH, Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
"An insightful account of how asylums functioned in fin-de-siècle England and the forces that shaped their everyday operations. Few histories of psychiatry compare in revealing the sheer scale of asylumdom, and the complex practical negotiations involved in building and running these institutions." (Gayle Davis, University of Edinburgh, UK)
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Introduction: ‘The Mere Scope of It Is Immense’, London and Its Asylums in Context
Pages 1-25
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The Politics of Administration
Pages 27-72
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The Politics of Finance
Pages 73-115
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The Politics of Innovation
Pages 117-163
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The Politics of Architecture
Pages 165-205
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- London and its Asylums, 1888-1914
- Book Subtitle
- Politics and Madness
- Authors
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- Robert Ellis
- Series Title
- Mental Health in Historical Perspective
- Copyright
- 2020
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-44432-7
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-44432-7
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-44431-0
- Series ISSN
- 2634-6036
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XV, 296
- Number of Illustrations
- 7 b/w illustrations, 6 illustrations in colour
- Topics
