The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons, respecting the Asylum at York / with observations and notes, and a letter to the Committee, &c. ... ; by Godfrey Higgins.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee appointed to consider of provisions being made for the better regulation of madhouses in England.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons, respecting the Asylum at York / with observations and notes, and a letter to the Committee, &c. ... ; by Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    a clergyman, reduced to indigence I believe in consequence of his mental complaint; he had at times, and for considerable periods, intervals of reason; in those intervals, when he was perfectly capable of understanding every thing that was done to him, repeatedly in the presence of his wife, he was exposed to personal indignity; and on one occasion he was inhumanly kicked down stairs by the keepers, and told, in the presence of his wife, that he was looked upon no better than a dog ; his per- son swarmed with vermin : and to complete this poor man's misery, the keepers insulted his wife with indecent ribaldry, in order to deter her from visiting him in his unfortunate situation ; his wife occasionally visited him, to bring him such little com- forts as she could procure by the labour of her hands, for she worked to support him during the time that he was in the Asylum ; he had a gold watch, which was lost there, and which his wife could never recover. How long ago was this case ?—I should think not more than three years ago. Do you know any thing of the cases of two persons of the name of Thirkell ?—Yes. Were they relations ?—Yes. Have the goodness to state to the Committee, what you know about them ?—One of them a labouring man, was sent to the Asylum on the recommendation of Miss Place, of York ; after some time he disappeared, and has never been heard of from that time to this. In what way w as his disappearance entered in the books ?—> He was entered removed ; when Miss Place called to inquire after his state of health, as she told me, she asked Atkinson, the Apothecary, how he did, and Atkinson said, he was gone away well. I have asked the father of this young man, if he knew whether hand-bills were published, or any means taken to dis- cover him : he said, he never heard of any, and he never could get a sight of a hand-bill. Did Atkinson, or any one belonging to the Asylum, say, that hand-bills were issued offering a reward for his discovery ?— Yes, the steward said so; and on the day when,I discovered the concealed cells, I asked Mr. Suit, the steward, to produce to me the printer's bill for that quarter of the year in which the hand-bill must have been entered, if any had been printed by the printer of the Asylum, and he told me, after a long search, that he had lost the bill. How long ago is this ?-=-About two j'ears ago. The other Thirkell was a relation of the former, and came from Sherburn, in Yorkshire, and was killed some time after he was in the Asylum, by another patient; his death was entered in the book