Parliament Acts Slowly

During the first four decades of the 19th century there were seventy one bills and reports

regarding insane people. This was in response to parish overseer of asylums, workhouses

and private asylums. The Lunacy Act of 1808, empowered counties to build local asylums

but by 1845 only sixteen had done so. Prior to this lunatics had been treated with a mixture of

cruelty and indifference.

Evidence was submitted to a Select Committee on Madhouses in 1815, described conditions

in private asylums as follows:

"in a very horrid and filthy condition.....the walls were daubed with excrement.

The airholes, of which there were one, were partly filled with it.....I then went

upstairs into a room, twelve feet by seven feet ten inches, in which there were

twelve women who had come out of the cells this morning.........I became very

sick. ..."

In 1854 two bills were passed. The Lunatics Act which established a permanent National

Lunacy Committee with the power to make detailed and frequent inspection of all type of

asylum. It also made compulsory, the erection of county and borough asylums to house

pauper lunatics.

The Asylum Opens

It was against this background that the Prestwich County Asylum was set up in 1845. The

site of the Asylum estate was chosen for its general salubrity and its contiguity to the more

populous Unions within the Hundreds of Salford. The original site consisted of 37a. 1r. 23p.,

and was purchased from Mr. Oswald Milne in 1847 for the sum of £11,412. 4s. 5d.

The Asylum, which was opened in January 1851, was built to accommodate 500 patients; the

architects were Messrs Holden. The site was in Prestwich Wood. We find it called by that

name in 1652. It was for some time in the possession of Thos. Crompton, gentleman, who

died there in 1776. Mr Nathaniel Milne purchased it and subsequently, it came into the hands

of Mr. Oswald Milne, a solicitor of Manchester. The extent of the estate was about 60 acres

Cost Control

Running costs were closely monitored and charged to the relevant Union, except for criminal

lunatics and soldiers, which were chargeable to the state. These patients were referred to as

'private patients'. One such patient was John McCarthy, age 25, a painter and described as

with 'little education'. He was admitted to the workhouse. He refused to work, so was

sentenced to fourteen days hard labour. A Reception Order was issued against him on 15

November 1895, and he was sent to Prestwich and admitted as a criminal and private patient.

The photograph reflects his army discipline and smartness and he served time as a Private

patient in the hospital to be later admitted as a pauper lunatic.

Because the costs were charged to the local Unions, much attention was paid to the costs of

running the asylums. The average weekly cost in 1845 was 7s. 31/2d (36p).compared with

the workhouse average of 2s 7d (13p). An additional cost of 4 shillings (20p) per week was

accepted to cover the treatment and other residential costs. Costs tended to rise and by 1913

the costs for Prestwich were 9s 4d (47p) per week. The annual cost for clothing per head the

first year £1.12s.0d, and for 1897, £1.19s.11d., having peaked in 1867 at £2.15s.9d.

Inmates were taught skills and used to build and maintain the buildings. Keeping patients

occupied was considered part of the cure. In 1901, 53.8% of the men and 69.5% of the

women were gainfully employed in the running of the hospital. This practice was sometimes

mis-understood. When the Bolton Chronicle of the 31st August 1872, was reporting on the

proceedings of a meeting of the Board of Guardians for the Bolton Union, the costs of

running Prestwich was discussed. The chairman, Mr Charles Heywood, emphatically

declared that there were many inmates in the asylum who were as sensible as any of the

guardians or anybody in the Union. He knew of persons who were quite sensible who had

been in there for 20 years. They were joiners, gardeners, and other useful trades and were

therefore good for service in that establishment and were kept in and couldn't get about. The

Prestwich Authorities denied this of course. After a lengthy and heated exchange of

correspondence, Mr Heywood was invited to visit the asylum, and after seeing patients, said

that, 'he was greatly impressed' and diplomatically retracted his statement which, he said, '

was made at an unguarded moment when he spoke warmly upon the subject under a sense of

public duty.'

The tendency to retain skilled labour, was blamed by some, to contribute to the increase in

the number of inmates in the asylum. Nationally, it was alleged that insanity had increased

from 30,000 in 1855 to 150,000 by the turn of the century.

A Protected Environment?

There were many other reasons suggested for the increase of number of patients. Elderly

patients lived longer in a protected environment and often became long stay patients. Chronic

and difficult patients were transferred from the workhouse where less physical restraint made

conditions more tolerable. Another reason was a rise in the number of people classified as

insane. Insanity was no longer hidden and the asylum became a dumping ground for the

physically and mentally handicapped, social misfits, and epileptics. Although the asylum

was mainly for adults, many young children were admitted and cared for on the female

wards.

From the opening of Prestwich Hospital in 1851, 'difficult' patients were referred from the

workhouses and private asylums but by 1901 a broad spectrum of patients were admitted and

not necessarily pauper lunatics. In 1909 provision

was made for private fee-paying patients at

Prestwich providing reasonable accommodation. "...

It is intended to remove the hardship

suffered by patients of a superior standing, whose friends are able and willing to meet a

small charge. These Villa Blocks would be self supporting..."

Alcoholism appeared to be a major problem. There had been a dramatic increase in the

asylum population and, during a discussion about

the building of a new asylum for pauper

lunatics in 1869, the Rev. J.Shepherd Birley declared that " beerhouses and gin palaces were

a great source of supply of inmates to workhouses and asylums, and a change in the law was

needed not only for social but also for economic reasons"