Reports of the superintendent and chaplain of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum for the year 1864.

  • Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports of the superintendent and chaplain of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum for the year 1864. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    occupation to a considerable number of all classes of patients, and both amuse and instruct them during many hours which, without this humane provision, would be spent in weariness, in bitter reflection, or in angry discontent. The destruction of some of these books is but a small price to pay for so beneficial a result. The school for the children of servants, to which reference was made in my report for 1863, has been examined by H.M. Inspector for this district, and his report of it to the Committee of Council on Education was sufficiently favour¬ able to obtain from their lordships a liberal grant. The erection of a proper schoolroom, which I ventured to recom¬ mend to your favourable consideration, having been approved by you, the building is now completed, and it will shortly be occupied. The instruction of the children is at present seriously impeded by the classes being distributed in different rooms of a small cottage; and I anticipate much advantage from the more efficient arrangements which will be practi¬ cable in the new building. The number of the children of the servants is at present so small that the charge necessarily made for their attendance is much higher than the charge at schools of a similar character, and falls heavily upon some of the ])arents. I respectfully submit to your consideration whether H.M. Government may not be regarded as standing in a position similar to that of any other proprietor of land or large employer of labour, and be appealed to to contribute by an annual subscription to the maintenance of a school designed exclusively for the children of its servants, and of tenants residing upon its property. During the year 1864 I have found no cause to alter the opinion which I have already submitted to you as to the moral and religious condition of the female patients. I have continued to observe among them signs of Christian faith and hope, and the workings of Christian charity. There has also been observable among the worst class of the women a marked decrease of violence. Among the men I have recog- nized similar evidence of the influence of our holy faith; but the extent of this influence appears to me not to be so great among them as it is among the female patients. If my observation upon this point is correct, I should be inclined to attribute the difference, in part, to an influence exerted upon some of the women before they were removed from Bethlehem Hospital by one attendant of earnest piety. I venture to report the traces of. this influence, not only as a testimony to the excellence of the person referred to, but as evidence that even criminal lunatics are susceptible of