Pauper lunacy in nineteenth-century England
My research in this area focuses on the huge increase in the number of pauper lunatics
admitted to lunatic asylums in the nineteenth century and particularly after the Lunacy
Acts of 1845. From 1845 it was mandatory for all counties to build a county asylum
dedicated principally to the needs of pauper lunatics. The growth in pauper lunatic
populations has traditionally been explained as a result of the growing pressures on
family life from industrialisation, urbanisation and migration making it difficult for
families to accommodate their more needy members and with the asylum offering a
ready alternative form of care. My work seeks to look more closely at both the nature
of the pauper patient experience of the asylum alongside other care options such as
within the family, the workhouse or private lodgings. It also seeks to explore the
process by which individuals are admitted and discharged from asylums and the rate
of readmission. Another key area of interest is the patient experience of the asylum.
This approach seeks to move away from a focus more directly on the institution of the
asylum towards a greater understanding of the role the asylum played within the local
community and patient and family experience of it.
Recent publications in this area include:
C.A. Smith
‘Living with insanity: Narratives of poverty, pauperism and sickness in
asylum records 1840-1876’ in S. King (ed.), Narratives of poverty and sickness in Europe
1780-1938 (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010)
C.A. Smith ‘Insanity and the “civilising process”: Violence, the insane and
asylums in the nineteenth century’ in K. Watson, Assaulting the Past: Violence in
Historical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007) ISBN 1-84718-1058
C. A. Smith ‘Parsimony, Power and Prescriptive Legislation: The Politics of Pauper
Lunacy in Northamptonshire 1845-1876’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 81,
no. 2, (Summer, 2007), 359-385
C.A. Smith ‘Family, Community and the Victorian Asylum: A Case Study of the
Northampton General Lunatic Asylum and its Pauper Lunatics’, Family and
Community History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (November, 2006), 109-24.