Sarah Thackray, a patient at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire. Photograph attributed to James Crichton-Browne, 1873.

  • Crichton-Browne, James, 1840-1938.
Date:
[1873]
Reference:
35115i
Part of:
West Riding Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire: photographs of patients.
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About this work

Description

A woman identified as Sarah Thackray from York Road, Leeds. She was admitted to the West Riding Asylum in January 1871 as a forty-six year old spinster. It was her fourth and last visit to the Asylum. Her committal paperwork records observations made by the surgeon Frederick Holmes, who had examined Sarah the previous day: "She is constantly alarmed, restless, violent and excited. Talks wildly and incoherently and believes that those about her wish to rob her of her fortune and birthright." This photograph of Sarah is dated 1873. Her delusions persisted throughout the next 24 years only being brought to an end by her death in June 1895 from chronic disease of her heart and kidneys. -- 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

Consecutive dementia Lettering hand-written in black ink on mount

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 35115i

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

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