15.7.1828 1828 Madhouse
and County Asylums Acts received Royal Assent. The Acts and
the local government of London's pauper lunatics
were closely related
issues.
The recorded
parliamentary debates on the Bills do not include reference to religion,
but this was a feature of the Acts, which required a chaplain to be
appointed to County Asylums and enquiries to be made in private asylums
about religious observances.
(see law). This was a focus of medical
complaint by Haslam in
1830
9.8.1828:
CLITHEROW METROPOLITAN COMMISSIONER
1828
aged 61
He did
not sign the 1829 Report, but he was a relatively frequent
unpaid visitor. He visited, on average, 1.5 days a quarter,
which was far
in excess of any of the other Middlesex JPs apart from
Hampson.
(3.4.2 table two). Most of his
recorded visits
were to small houses in West London, fairly
near to where he lived, or to large pauper houses to the east
of London.
Wednesday 25.8.1830
Colonel Clitherow was an active member of the Board of Governors of
Bethlem
Hospital. In August 1830, he came into conflict with the
Apothecary Superintendent,
Edward Wright MD, when complaints were made to
Clitherow that at about 10pm on Wednesday 25.8.1830, Wright was in "the
female basement... in a very intoxicated state". Wright was accused of
being there in the dark, with his clothes dishevelled. Clitherow and the
Chairman of the Governors visited Bethlem to investigate the allegations
and suspended Wright. The subsequent inquiry included investigation of
Wright's failure to keep case books and his practice of removing the heads
of dead patients. Wright was President of the
Phrenological Society of
London
and the removal was for anatomical purposes. The inquiry resolved
that Wright had forfeited the confidence of the Governors and should be
dismissed. The
minutes of the inquiry, which Wright
published, show that he
retained the confidence of the physicians at Bethlem, who he called in his
defence. The dismissal of Wright as superintendent of Bethlem took place
just before the appointment, in January 1831, of
William Ellis, founder of
the Wakefield Phrenological Society, as superintendent of Hanwell.
Phrenology, as such, is therefore unlikely to have been an issue of
conflict between Clitherow and Wright.
Political differences, on the other hand, may have been.
HANWELL
Hanwell
asylum
was built on land close to Boston House. It was
opened on 16.5.1831 for 300 pauper patients. Colonel
Clitherow was
Chairman of the
Hanwell Committee
from 1827 to 1839.
The superintendent and matron of Hanwell through most of
Clitherow's
chairmanship were
William and Mrs Ellis, previously at
Wakefield
County
Asylum. They were appointed in January 1831.
Their
relationship with the
Clitherow's was, or became, close. Their management of Hanwell was
described by Harriet Martineau in
an 1834 article
that stresses the role of Mrs Ellis.
"Mrs Ellis"
appears to be Jane Mildred Ellis, but she did not use the name
Jane. She was the daughter of John Wood of Louth, in Lincolnshire.
She was born about 1785/1786 and died 25.5.1879.
William Charles Ellis was born 10.3.1780 and died on 24.10.1839. His
parents were William and
Sarah Ellis. William Charles was christened on 9.9.1782 at Alford,
Lincolnshire, which is south of Louth. They were married on 13.2.1806 at
Louth, and both of them are shown as "of Louth". In other records they are
both shown as "of Wakefield". Mildred had a brother, Thomas Wood,
who was a surgeon and whose widow, Susan Wood, ran
a small private asylum.
William and Mildred's only son was William Robert Ellis (born
1807, Yorkshire?). William Robert Ellis married Harriet Warner Elliott
(born about 1820, died 21.6.1901). Harriet Warner Ellis was a missionary
writer who also wrote (1868) a memorial of William Charles Ellis. William Robert
Ellis died 13.9.1883.
[Family sources]
There may also be a
relationship to Sarah Stickney Ellis (1812-1872). Sarah Stickney, born
about 1816, married a William Ellis on 23.5.1837. He died 9.6.1872. A book
called The Melville Family and their Bible readings was published
with Sarah Stickney Ellis as the author in 1872, but Harriet Warner Ellis
in 1885.
William and Mildred Ellis had
worked as superintendent and matron of the West Riding Pauper
Lunatic
Asylum at Wakefield from its opening in 1818. Wakefield was
built under
the guidance of Samuel Tuke, grandson of the founder of the
York
Retreat
of
the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) - a man in the
forefront of the
movement for the moral reform of asylums.
The Ellis's were devout
Methodists, taking part in many of the activities of the
Methodist
community in Yorkshire. William Ellis, who thought his asylum
work was
divinely inspired, tried to bring Christian principles into
the heart of
asylum management. From 1818 to 1828 he personally conducted
prayers every
morning for patients and staff and ran Sunday services. He
was relieved of
these responsibilities by the 1828 County Asylums Act, section 32, which
required the
asylum management to appoint an official asylum chaplain.
(See law).
(1835) Colonel Clitherow was the Originator and Treasurer of
Queen
Adelaide's fund for the benefit of those Patients who have
been discharged
cured from
Hanwell
Asylum.
(Faulkner, T.
1845 p. 99/100). This was established in 1835.
In 1835 Clitherow drew the attention of William 4th to the
merits he saw in
Ellis and, as a consequence, the King decided to make him Sir
William
Ellis.
In 1838 Ellis published A Treatise on Insanity which he
dedicated to
Clitherow. Hunter and MacAlpine quote the following from the
dedication:
"You have long stood forward as the benefactor, and
unflinching
protector of the Insane. To your influence and unwearied
exertions is
mainly to be attributed this spacious building for their
reception.. By
your having kindly allowed this humble effort.. to be
introduced into
the world, under your auspices, you have added another to
the many
obligations I have already received from you."
(H + M's Conolly , Vol.1
p.19)
Ellis resigned from Hanwell early in 1838, when he became Director of a
private asylum,
Denham Park, before establishing his own asylum,
Southall
Park, in grounds to the north west of the Hanwell County Asylum.
Dr Gideon John Millingen
was chosen as the replacement for Ellis in preference to John
Conolly. The
decision against Conolly was made on the casting vote of the
Chairman,
Colonel Clitherow. Some time after, Colonel Clitherow told
Conolly that
his exclusion was occasioned by his politics.
(H +
M's Conolly , Vol.1 p.19)
In the spring of 1839, because of illness, Colonel Clitherow
retired from
public life by resigning the Hanwell Chairmanship and other
offices he held
in the neighbourhood.
(Faulkner, T.
1845) p. 100) He had
ceased to be a
Metropolitan Commissioner in 1838
The report of the Asylum Committee on 25.4.1839 recorded
Clitherow's
resignation and the election of Charles Augustus Tulk in his
place.
(H +
M's Conolly , Vol.1 p.21)
Charles Augustus Tulk, (born 2.6.1786, died 1849), friend of Coleridge and
Flaxman and patron of Blake, was a founder member of the Swedenborg Society
(1810). Tulk owned one of the original copies of Blake's Songs of
Innocence and Experience, which he lent to Coleridge (about 1818). A
man of independent means, Tulk was independent MP for Sudbury from 1820 to
1826 and Poole from 1835 to 1837. He was a friend of Joseph Hume and
supported radical/liberal causes such as Roman Catholic emancipation, the
reform of Parliament, reform of the penal system and the abolition of
capital punishment. He was also a phrenologist, being President of the
London Phrenological Society in 1827 (Lancet 21.4.1827) at a time when Dr
E. Wright, the Superintendent of Bethlem, was also an active member.
Colonel Clitherow was instrumental in Wright's dismissal from Bethlem in
1830. Tulk became an active Middlesex Magistrate in 1837. He was Chairman
of the Hanwell Asylum Committee from 1839 to 1847.
John Conolly (born 1794, died 1866) was appointed
Superintendent on
2.5.1839.
(H +
M's Conolly, Vol.1 p.21)
Colonel Clitherow died on 12.12.1841 and was buried in the
parish church.