| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Long title | An Act for regulating Madhouses. |
|---|---|
| Citation | 14 Geo. 3. c. 49 |
| Introduced by | Thomas Townshend |
| Territorial extent | England and Wales |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 20 May 1774 |
| Commencement | 20 November 1774 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amended by |
|
| Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1871 |
Status: Repealed | |
The Madhouses Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3. c. 49) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which set out a legal framework for regulating "madhouses" (insane asylums).
By the mid-eighteenth century, the common methods in the United Kingdom for dealing with the insane were either to keep them in the family home, or to put them in a "madhouse", which was simply a private house whose proprietor was paid to detain their residents, and ran it as a commercial concern with little or no medical involvement. This led to two forms of abuse: the first was the keeping of "legitimately" insane people in atrocious conditions, and the second the detention of those who were falsely claimed to be insane – in effect, private imprisonment.
At this stage, there was no legislation to regulate the incarceration of anyone other than a Chancery lunatic or a pauper; there was only a vaguely defined common law power to "confine a person disordered in mind, who seems disposed to do mischief to himself, or another person". [1]
In a case in the mid-1750s, a woman came to suspect that her son-in-law had committed his wife to a madhouse in Hoxton; with the aid of a justice of the peace, she secured the release of her daughter after obtaining a confession from the husband. A similar case in 1762 saw a man trying to obtain the release of an acquaintance, one Mrs Hawley, who he suspected had been confined in a madhouse. His initial application to Lord Mansfield for a writ of habeas corpus was rejected because he was not a relative and so had no standing, but the judge arranged for a doctor to visit the house and speak to the woman. On his report, a writ was granted; she was brought before the court, and discharged. [2]
A Select Committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Thomas Townshend, was set up in 1763 to study the problem of unlawful detention in private madhouses and focused on the Hawley case. It found that she had been committed to the house solely on the word of her husband, who paid two guineas (two pounds and two shillings) a month for her board, and that she was unable to leave the house or communicate with anybody outside it. The inmates were treated as insane, but the agent who arranged their entry freely admitted that he had not committed a single insane person to the house in the past six years. No-one who would pay was turned away, no physicians attended the inmates, and no register was kept of their names. This was, the committee stated, a common situation; they noted that a number of similar cases could have been studied, and they recommended that some form of legislative intervention was needed. [3] The Commons ordered the committee to prepare a bill, but it appears this was never brought in. [4]
The issue was next addressed in 1773 when Townshend's son, also named Thomas Townshend, sponsored a bill to regulate private madhouses; within seven miles of London, this would be the responsibility of the Royal College of Physicians; and outside that, magistrates in county towns. The bill passed the Commons but was rejected by the Lords. [5] [6]
In 1774, Thomas Townshend again reintroduced the Madhouses Bill. [7] The Bill was presented to the Commons for its first reading on 2 March, and was amended in committee on 23 March. [8] The Lords voted on it on 21 April, and made two amendments (the addition of s.19 and s.31) on 6 May, before the bill returned to the Commons on 10 May. [9] The bill received royal assent on 20 May. [10]
The Act required that all madhouses be licensed by a committee of the Royal College of Physicians. This license would permit the holder to maintain a single house for accommodating lunatics, and would have to be renewed each year. All houses were to be inspected at least once per year by the committee, who would also keep a central register of all the confined lunatics in order that people could locate them; outside London, the task of inspecting them would fall to the local quarter sessions. [11]
The penalty for "concealing or confining" more than one insane person without a license was set at £500, and every keeper of such a house who took in a patient without an order from a doctor was liable to a fine of £100. [11]
| Madhouse Continuation Act 1779 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
| |
| Citation | 19 Geo. 3. c. 15 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amends | Madhouses Act 1774 |
| Madhouse Law Perpetuation Act 1786 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
| |
| Long title | An Act for making perpetual an Act made in the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled, "An Act for regulating Madhouses." |
| Citation | 26 Geo. 3. c. 91 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 4 July 1786 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amends | Madhouses Act 1774 |
The Act took effect on 20 November 1774, six months after receiving royal assent, and was originally stated to remain in force for five years and then until the end of the next parliamentary session. [11] It was continued for a further seven years by the Madhouse Continuation Act 1779 (19 Geo. 3. c. 15), and then continued indefinitely by the Madhouse Law Perpetuation Act 1786 (26 Geo. 3. c. 91); it remained in force until repealed by the Madhouses Act 1828. [12]
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals or behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder and many others. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients. Others may specialize in the temporary or permanent confinement of patients who need routine assistance, treatment, or a specialized and controlled environment due to a psychiatric disorder. Patients often choose voluntary commitment, but those whom psychiatrists believe to pose significant danger to themselves or others may be subject to involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment. Psychiatric hospitals may also be called psychiatric wards/units when they are a subunit of a regular hospital.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was a British Tory politician, philanthropist, and social reformer. He was the eldest son of the 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Anne Spencer, and elder brother of Henry Ashley, MP. A social reformer who was called the "Poor Man's Earl", he campaigned for better working conditions, reform to lunacy laws, education and the limitation of child labour. He was also an early supporter of the Zionist movement and the YMCA and a leading figure in the evangelical movement in the Church of England.
Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St. Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films, and TV series, most notably Bedlam, a 1946 film with Boris Karloff.
The Townshend Acts or Townshend Duties were a series of British acts of Parliament passed during 1767 and 1768 introducing a series of taxes and regulations to fund administration of the British colonies in America. They are named after the Chancellor of the Exchequer who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly as to which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five are often listed:
The Lunacy Act 1845 or the Lunatics Act 1845 and the County Asylums Act 1845 formed mental health law in England and Wales from 1845 to 1890. The Lunacy Act's most important provision was a change in the status of mentally ill people to patients.
The Mental Health Act 1983 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It covers the reception, care and treatment of mentally disordered people, the management of their property and other related matters, forming part of the mental health law for the people in England and Wales. In particular, it provides the legislation by which people diagnosed with a mental disorder can be detained in a hospital or police custody and have their disorder assessed or treated against their wishes, informally known as "sectioning". Its use is reviewed and regulated by the Care Quality Commission. The Act was significantly amended by the Mental Health Act 2007. A white paper proposing changes to the act was published in 2021 following an independent review of the act by Simon Wessely.
The Criminal Lunatics Act 1800 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that required and established a set procedure for the indefinite detention of mentally ill offenders. It was passed through the House of Commons in direct reaction to the trial of James Hadfield, who attempted to assassinate King George III.
The Commissioners in Lunacy or Lunacy Commission were a public body established by the Lunacy Act 1845 to oversee asylums and the welfare of mentally ill people in England and Wales. It succeeded the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy.
The Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society was an advocacy group started by former asylum patients and their supporters in 19th-century Britain. The Society campaigned for greater protection against wrongful confinement or cruel and improper treatment, and for reform of the lunacy laws. The Society is recognised today as a pioneer of the psychiatric survivors movement.
Kew Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned psychiatric hospital located between Princess Street and Yarra Boulevard in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Operational from 1871 to 1988, Kew was one of the largest asylums ever built in Australia. Later known as Willsmere, the complex of buildings were constructed between 1864 and 1872 to the design of architects G.W. Vivian and Frederick Kawerau of the Victorian Public Works Office to house the growing number of "lunatics", "inebriates", and "idiots" in the Colony of Victoria.
Richard Paternoster was an English civil servant in the East India Company, a barrister and the founder of the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society, an organisation that exposed abuses in lunatic asylums and campaigned for the reform of the lunacy laws.
The Lunacy Act 1886 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided a mechanism for a Member of Parliament who was judged to be of unsound mind to be removed from his seat.
The lunatic asylum or insane asylum was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
Insanity in English law is a defence to criminal charges based on the idea that the defendant was unable to understand what he was doing, or, that he was unable to understand that what he was doing was wrong.
This disability rights timeline lists events outside the United States relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
The Old Manor Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It was established in the early 19th century as a private licensed house called Fisherton House or Fisherton House Asylum, which became the largest private madhouse in the United Kingdom. In 1924, following a change of proprietors, it was renamed Old Manor Hospital and in 1955 it was amalgamated into the National Health Service. From 1813 to 1955 it was owned and managed by members of the same family. The Old Manor Hospital closed in 2003 and was replaced by Fountain Way, a smaller, modern, psychiatric hospital on part of the same site. In 2014 the site was acquired by Quantum Group for development as a residential estate and the conversion of the main building to a hotel.
Beaumont Hotham, 2nd Baron Hotham (1737–1814) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1774.
The Lunacy (Scotland) Act 1857 formed mental health law in Scotland from 1857 until 1913.
The Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland or Lunacy Commission for Scotland were a public body established by the Lunacy (Scotland) Act 1857 to oversee asylums and the welfare of mentally ill people in Scotland.