Fourth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • St. John's Hospital (Stone, Buckinghamshire, England)
Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    committee were unanimously of opinion tliat he had committed an error in judgment in sanctioning such proceedings, and that had death or serious injury resulted to any party, it would have been considered as the natural consequence of their resorting to public-houses on a fair night, and the most general and just dissatisfaction would have been diffused throughout the county. Mr. Millar, on the other hand, de¬ fended the practice, as beneficial to the patients, and in strict conformity with the general practice of all County Asylums.” Notwithstanding Mr. Millar’s defence of this practice, the Committee found upon reference to other counties that the practice did not prevail; still he warmly supported the conduct of Lissaman, stating that he had every confidence in him. An Order was then made by the Committee in the following terms :— “ That, under no circumstances, should an attendant who may be in charge of a patient beyond the bounds of the Asylum, be permitted to take such patient to any public-house or beer-shop.” In defiance of the foregoing Order, Thomas Lissaman was subsequently guilty of taking patients during their walk on a Sunday to a public-house at Ford ; and on this occasion also Mr. Millar again warmly supported him, and succeeded in urging the Committee to retain him in the service of the County. It is necessary to observe that Thomas Lissaman was intro¬ duced into the Asylum upon the sole recommendation of Mr. Millar, from his previous knowledge of the man whilst they were together in the private establishment for lunatics belong¬ ing to Mr. Phillips, of Bethnal Green. The bad spirit evinced by the Superintendent towards the House Steward since the latter end of the year 1854, became in process of time more strikingly manifest, and at a meeting of the Committee on the 15th May 1856, an intemperate letter from Mr. Millar to the House Steward was laid by the latter before them, and, upon an investigation of the subject-matter of this