Barbara Taylor archive

This collection is uncatalogued. The following is a temporary description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in the future.

Personal papers of Barbara Taylor relating to her mental health experiences, her treatment at Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum), undergoing psychoanalysis therapy, and the writing and publication of her memoir, The Last Asylum : A memoir of madness in our time. The collection includes personal journals of Barbara Taylor (1983-1989); papers and recordings relating to the writing, publication and reception of Taylor's memoir; papers relating to creative writing groups run by Taylor at mental health day centres (1990s); correspondence written by Taylor, her family, friends, readers and mental health professionals (1980s-2010s); and photographs of Frien Hospital patients, interiors and exteriors both pre- and post-closure.

1980s-2010s

Uncatalogued: 2 boxes, 573 digital files, 4 audio cassette tapes

Donated to Wellcome Collection in November 2023.

Barbara Taylor is a historian specialising in the history of subjectivity, feminist theory and Enlightenment studies. She was born in Canada in 1950 and moved to London in the 1970s to study and later work. After suffering severe anxiety in the late 1970s, Taylor experienced a mental health crisis in 1981 and the following year began psychoanalysis as a form of treatment. Taylor was admitted to Friern Hospital, formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, in July 1988, for a fortnight, followed by further admissions in 1989. Between and after these periods at Friern, Taylor attended a day hospital and later a day centre, spending close to four years in psychiatric institutions, consequently losing her home and moving into a hostel for women with mental health issues.

Taylor continued undergoing psychoanalysis, to which she attributes her mental health recovery, until 1992, when she was discharged from the mental health system. In 1993 she was appointed to her first university job.

Taylor published her memoir The Last Asylum : A memoir of madness in our time in 2015, in which she recounts her time at Friern and her experience of the UK's mental health system against a backdrop of the decline of the asylum system.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details. Please note that the majority of material in this collection contains sensitive personal data and cannot currently be made available.