The Madhouses Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3 c.49) was an
Act of the
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...
, which set out a legal framework for regulating "madhouses" (
insane asylums
The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...
).
Background
By the mid-eighteenth century, the common methods in the United Kingdom for dealing with the insane were either to keep them in the family home, or to put them in a "madhouse", which was simply a private house whose proprietor was paid to detain their residents, and ran it as a commercial concern with little or no medical involvement. This led to two forms of abuse: the first was the keeping of "legitimately" insane people in atrocious conditions, and the second the detention of those who were falsely claimed to be insane – in effect, private imprisonment.
At this stage, there was no legislation to regulate the incarceration of anyone other than a
Chancery lunatic or a
pauper
Pauperism (Lat. ''pauper'', poor) is poverty or generally the state of being poor, or particularly the condition of being a "pauper", i.e. receiving relief administered under the English Poor Laws. From this, pauperism can also be more generally ...
; there was only a vaguely defined
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
power to "confine a person disordered in mind, who seems disposed to do mischief to himself, or another person".
In a case in the mid-1750s, a woman came to suspect that her son-in-law had committed his wife to a madhouse in
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. I ...
; with the aid of a
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
, she secured the release of her daughter after obtaining a confession from the husband. A similar case in 1762 saw a man trying to obtain the release of an acquaintance, one Mrs Hawley, who he suspected had been confined in a madhouse. His initial application to
Lord Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to Lond ...
for a writ of ''
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' was rejected because he was not a relative and so had no standing, but the judge arranged for a doctor to visit the house and speak to the woman. On his report, a writ was granted; she was brought before the court, and discharged.
A
Select Committee of the House of Commons
In British politics, parliamentary select committees can be appointed from the House of Commons, like the Foreign Affairs Select Committee; from the House of Lords, like the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; or as a joint commit ...
, chaired by
Thomas Townshend, was set up in 1763 to study the problem of unlawful detention in private madhouses and focused on the Hawley case. It found that she had been committed to the house solely on the word of her husband, who paid two
guineas
The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from t ...
(two pounds and two shillings) a month for her board, and that she was unable to leave the house or communicate with anybody outside it. The inmates were treated as insane, but the agent who arranged their entry freely admitted that he had not committed a single insane person to the house in the past six years. No-one who would pay was turned away, no physicians attended the inmates, and no register was kept of their names. This was, the Committee stated, a common situation; they noted that a number of similar cases could have been studied, and they recommended that some form of legislative intervention was needed. The Commons ordered the committee to prepare a bill, but it appears this was never brought in.
The issue was next addressed in 1773 when Townshend's son, also named
Thomas Townshend, sponsored a bill to regulate private madhouses; within seven miles of London, this would be the responsibility of the
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...
; and outside that, magistrates in
county town
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...
s. The bill passed the Commons but was rejected by the Lords.
Legislative history
![1stViscountSydney](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/1stViscountSydney.jpg)
In 1774, Thomas Townshend again reintroduced the Madhouses Bill. The Bill was presented to the Commons for its
first reading
A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature.
In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming, ...
on 2 March, and was amended in committee on 23 March. The Lords voted on it on 21 April, and made two amendments (the addition of s.19 and s.31) on 6 May, before the bill returned to the Commons on 10 May. The bill received
Royal Assent
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...
on 20 May.
Provisions
The Act required that all
madhouses be licensed by a committee of the
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...
. This license would permit the holder to maintain a single house for accommodating
lunatics
Lunatic is an antiquated term referring to a person who is seen as mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, or crazy—conditions once attributed to "lunacy". The word derives from ''lunaticus'' meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".
History
The te ...
, and would have to be renewed each year. All houses were to be inspected at least once per year by the committee, who would also keep a central register of all the confined lunatics in order that people could locate them; outside London, the task of inspecting them would fall to the local
quarter sessions
The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388 (extending also to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535). They were also established in ...
.
[Annual Register, pp. 240-1]
The penalty for "concealing or confining" more than one insane person without a license was set at £500, and every keeper of such a house who took in a patient without an order from a doctor was liable to a fine of £100.
Implementation
The Act took effect on 20 November 1774, six months after receiving Royal Assent, and was originally stated to remain in force for five years and then until the end of the next Parliamentary session.
It was continued for a further seven years by the Madhouse Continuation Act 1779 (19 Geo. 3 c.15), and then continued indefinitely by the Madhouse Law Perpetuation Act 1786 (26 Geo. 3 c.91); it remained in force until repealed by the
Madhouses Act 1828.
[Roberts, s. 2]
Notes
References
* ''Annual Register for the year 1774''. London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1778. Second edition.
* Roberts, Andrew
''The Lunacy Commission'':*Section 2
:*Section 2.3:
ttp://studymore.org.uk/2_2.htm ''The 1763 Committee on Madhouses and the 1774 Madhouses Act'':*Section 7
''Chronological and alphabetical bibliographies of lunacy''
*
{{UK mental health legislation
Great Britain Acts of Parliament 1774
Mental health legal history of the United Kingdom
Repealed Great Britain Acts of Parliament