The twelfth annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1863 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • London (England). County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The twelfth annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1863 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Patient to whom they belong. The only difference between the custom existing now and that which prevailed at the time of Mitchell’s entrance (1853), lies in the fact that formerly, there being no Inspectors, the Head Attendant was the person responsible for the safe deliverance of the articles at the Office of the Clerk of the Asylum. The clothing in which a Patient arrives is returned to the Workhouse, or, in the case of a Criminal Lunatic; to the Prison from which he came. If, however, the Patient expresses a wish to wear his own clothing, and his previous social position, or some other equally valid reason, lender the gratification of such a wish desirable, it is at the discretion of the Medical Superintendent to grant the privilege required. It does not appear that any entry was made by the Clerk of the Asylum of articles received from Benjamin Gibbs Mitchell, at the time of his admission, and it has therefore been assumed that he did not bring any with him, and that his clothes were returned to the Prison. But upon inquiry at the Middlesex House of Correction in Cold Bath Pields, it would seem that Mitchell, on his reception there, had the following articles taken from him, viz.:—“ four duplicates, spectacles, papers—all of which (continues Captain Colvill, the Governor, in a letter to Mr. Skaife) would have been handed over to him on his removal to the Asylum no money. The County, therefore, (as it seems to me) is responsible to Mitchell to the extent of “ duplicates, spectacles, papers, things which under a less stringen supervision than * now exists in the Asylum may have escaped notice or been misappropriated. And it is fair to assume that the possession of “a long netted purse containing nineteen shillings in coin,” “a bank draft for £42 8s.,” “a new beaver hat with crape,” “ a pair of waterproof boots,” “ a sea hat,” and