Ellen Sutcliffe, a patient at West Riding Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire. Photograph attributed to James Crichton-Browne, 1873.

  • Crichton-Browne, James, 1840-1938.
Date:
[1873]
Reference:
35152i
Part of:
West Riding Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire: photographs of patients.
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About this work

Description

A woman with pursed lips, wearing a patterned dress, identified as Ellen Sutcliffe from Wheatley, Ovenden near Halifax. She had been admitted from Halifax Workhouse to the West Riding Asylum in April 1865 aged twenty-six. She was married to the dyer Aaron and they had two children. William Alexander had examined Ellen ahead of her committal and recorded the following observations to support the case for her being considered a lunatic: "That she is whining and crying out 'Oh dear'. That she fails to reply to my enquiries, that she is desponding and now crying out loudly for her father. That Mrs Haigh tells me she has been obliged to confine her in the padded room at the Workhouse, that she attempted to throw herself and infant out of the window a week ago." Ellen's photograph was taken in 1873. In July 1884 she was dancing in the main hall of the Asylum when she had a seizure. Carried to bed, she died shortly afterwards. -- records in the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield, Yorkshire, identified by David Scrimgeour, op. cit.

Publication/Creation

Wakefield : West Riding Asylum, Photographic Studio, [1873]

Physical description

1 photograph : photoprint, albumen ; sheet 9 x 5.5 cm

Lettering

Imbecility Lettering hand-written in black ink on mount

Creator/production credits

The photograph may have been taken by James Crichton-Browne (1840-1938), the medical superintendent at West Riding Asylum 1866-1876. Crichton-Browne sent a similar set of photographs to Charles Darwin in or around 1869

References note

David Scrimgeour, 'Wellcome Library's "Anonymous patients" become proper people', David Scrimgeour blog http://www.davidscrimgeour.co.uk , 22 September 2016

Reference

Wellcome Collection 35152i

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