Herman Charles Merivale's guest appearances

Herman Charles Merivale

History of Psychiatry Podcast Series

William Cowper

Alice Hill

Chris Williams

John Ross

Uta Frith

Rory O'Connor

Danny Smith

Ruth Allen

Chris Frith

Hugh Blair

John Phillip

Fionnuala Williams

James Boswell

Hannah Allen

Christian Watt

OwlTail

This extract accompanies Podcast 17 - Being an asylum patient 3b: Herman Charles Merivale at Ticehurst, 1875IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London. Ticehurst Case Records, 1875-9, pp. 15-16. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial licenseVoice Credit: Jem Tatar

This extract accompanies Podcast 17 - Being an asylum patient 3b: Herman Charles Merivale at Ticehurst, 1875 IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London. Ticehurst Case Records, 1875-9, pp. 15-16. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license Voice Credit: Jem Tatar

Extract 17.1 - Herman Charles Merivale

Last week’s extract and podcast allowed us to see what others thought of the lawyer Herman Charles Merivale, when he was committed to a private asylum. The document from which it came exists in abundance for 19th century asylums. Insight into how patients saw the experience of incarceration are much rarer, though I shall give examples this week and next. Merivale is unusual because he wrote his own account of entering and living in an up-market private madhouse. Public asylums were crowded with paupers. Understaffed and with only basic facilities, they were probably difficult environments for most patients. Merivale’s experience was very different, though he does not seem to have enjoyed it.IMAGE: Herman Charles Merivale. Photograph by Elliott &amp; Fry. From the frontispiece to H. C. Merivale, Bar, Stage &amp; Platform (London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1902).

Last week’s extract and podcast allowed us to see what others thought of the lawyer Herman Charles Merivale, when he was committed to a private asylum. The document from which it came exists in abundance for 19th century asylums. Insight into how patients saw the experience of incarceration are much rarer, though I shall give examples this week and next. Merivale is unusual because he wrote his own account of entering and living in an up-market private madhouse. Public asylums were crowded with paupers. Understaffed and with only basic facilities, they were probably difficult environments for most patients. Merivale’s experience was very different, though he does not seem to have enjoyed it. IMAGE: Herman Charles Merivale. Photograph by Elliott &amp; Fry. From the frontispiece to H. C. Merivale, Bar, Stage &amp; Platform (London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1902).

17. Being an asylum patient 3b: Herman Charles Merivale at Ticehurst, 1875

The most abundant sources for understanding the history of psychiatry are medical case notes, kept by asylum staff. In addition, petitions for admission gave accounts of behaviour that precipitated the committal of a person to an institution. In this case he was a well-off London lawyer and the asylum was an up-market private one in the Home Counties of England. In drawing up the certification necessary for compulsory committal, the medical men relied much more on accounts given by servants and family, than they did on the rather uncommunicative object of their consultation.IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London. Ticehurst Case Records, 1875-9, pp. 15-16. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license

The most abundant sources for understanding the history of psychiatry are medical case notes, kept by asylum staff. In addition, petitions for admission gave accounts of behaviour that precipitated the committal of a person to an institution. In this case he was a well-off London lawyer and the asylum was an up-market private one in the Home Counties of England. In drawing up the certification necessary for compulsory committal, the medical men relied much more on accounts given by servants and family, than they did on the rather uncommunicative object of their consultation. IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London. Ticehurst Case Records, 1875-9, pp. 15-16. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license