Saint or Scoundrel 6

March 15, 1863

I have not had time nor patience to continue with my book. I sometimes feel so frustrated because I want to get on with it, but don’t know how. And all the time at the back of my mind is the fact that we sent back Mr. Wakefield’s last letter to Pa. I can continue with his letters, and my guesses as to what Pa probably said, but I can’t tell the whole of Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s story, because I won’t know what happened after Pa died and the letters stopped coming. I don’t even know how to go about finding out.

I’m feeling rather negative about this whole project at the moment. I don’t know what Pa said to Mr. Wakefield before he sent this letter. And I don’t even feel like making anything up.

July 5, 1828

Newgate Prison

Dear Daniel,

I continue with my writing, and feel that it is of value. I thought
perhaps I would mention a bit more to you about the prisoners whom I
have befriended. I recently wrote an article which was published in
the Quarterly Review. In it I told the account of a young prisoner who had been
condemned to death. The youth had escaped the turnkeys and had
climbed up a pipe in the hope of escaping, but had fallen onto the
pavement below, seriously injuring his legs. The surgeon dressed
those legs with the same care and attention as if the boy were going
to live to a ripe old age. It was as if his surgical care could
preserve the use of those limbs for years. But, of course, it didn’t
work like that. He was carried to the scaffold. And blood flowed from
those wounds evoking pity from the onlookers, one of whom said they
would like to see the Home Secretary treated in the same way.

Unfortunately, the Review did not see this incident from my point of view, and felt
that I was grossly misrepresenting it. The editor even missed the
irony of the situation. He claimed that it would have been inhumane
not to have treated the convict, and he said he couldn’t see how
this incident had anything whatsoever to do with capital punishment.

So I had to write again, this time talking about how social conditions
lead to the punishment of young children also confined in Newgate,
mostly boys who then are frequently seduced and exploited by the
‘Fagins’ of the metropolis.

But I must change the subject as I get so angry about it all, and I know
that it is not your fault and there is nothing you can do to change it.

Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to tell you more about my
grandmother. She was born Priscilla Bell in 1751, the daughter of
Daniel Bell of Stamford Hill, a coal merchant, and Catherine Barclay.

Originally her family had come from Westmorland near Kendal. She was a great
granddaughter of Robert Barclay who wrote Quaker Apology in 1676.
Priscilla has written many educational books for children, six, I
think it is, mainly to help support our family as her husband, Edward
Wakefield, had many financial misfortunes. In fact, due to his
mishandling of money, she founded the first frugality bank in
England, at Ship Inn Yard in Tottenham.

Is it any wonder that I am so interested in writing, having her for a
grandmother? She was active in bringing up all her grandchildren,
including me, but she also at the same time pioneered a lying-in
charity, and an industrial school as well as the frugality bank and
all her writing.

For a period in 1812 she was a patient in Whitmore House, a private
asylum. She told us that her keeperess, “dragged her by the hair
and beat her head repeatedly against the wall, and then tying her
legs, flogged her as children are flogged at school, in the presence
of half a dozen monsters in the shape of men.”

After this, her son, (my father) visited madhouses throughout the country
and promoted the idea which was first suggested to him by William
Hone of a London Asylum. His proposal was that there should be
an accommodation for 400 patients, which would have separate
accommodation for patients of "superior rank in life" but
unfortunately, it would cost about £100,000. He suggested raising
this by having shares of £100 each with no one allowed more than 20
shares.

To publicise the scheme, my father commissioned C. Arnold to make a
drawing of William Norris, a dangerous lunatic confined in irons in
Bethlem Hospital. Norris, an American marine
reported to be 55 years of age who had been detained in Bethlem since
1 February 1800. Housed in the incurable wing of the
hospital, Norris had been continuously restrained for about a decade
in a harness apparatus which severely restricted his movement. Father
stated that:

... a stout
iron ring was riveted about his neck, from which a short chain passed
to a ring made to slide upwards and downwards on an upright massive
iron bar, more than six feet high, inserted into the wall. Round his
body a strong iron bar about two inches wide was riveted; on each
side of the bar was a circular projection, which being fashioned to
and enclosing each of his arms, pinioned them close to his sides.
This waist bar was secured by two similar iron bars which, passing
over his shoulders, were riveted to the waist both before and behind.
The iron ring about his neck was connected to the bars on his
shoulders by a double link. From each of these bars another short
chain passed to the ring on the upright bar ... He had remained thus
encaged and chained more than twelve years.

I have heard this described as the most influential picture in the
history of English mental health. It was etched by George Cruickshank
and sold in William Hone's shop, as well as being shown to the Select
Committee of the House of Commons on Madhouses in 1815.

He told them that his work as a land agent took him to various parts of
the country, and that he made a point, at each place he visited, of
asking to see the gaols, Bridewells and madhouses in the vicinity. At
one, Miles’ house in Hoxton he had been refused admission, a keeper
telling him that 'an inspection of that house would be signing my
death-warrant'. At Gore House in Kensington, he was also refused
admission. At Thomas Munro’s House at Hackney, he was told by the
physician of Bethlem that he was welcome to visit - if he could
secure the consent of the relatives of every patient; and he was
refused a list of names of the patients.

There were a few private madhouses in which conditions were good, as far as
he could tell. At Talfourd’s house in Fulham there were fourteen
ladies who appeared to be treated with the greatest kindness. They
went to the local church, and were allowed out for walks -

Father met two who had just “walked to Walham Green to see Louis 18."
London House in Hackney also appeared to be excellently conducted.
There, he told us, "One lady, who conceives herself to be Mary,
Queen of Scots, acts as preceptress to Mrs Fox's little children, and
takes great pains in teaching them French.”

Surprisingly, he spoke favourably on Whitmore House where my grandmother was so
abused the year before. He spoke of the advantages enjoyed by
patients at Whitmore, where there were "very large gardens; some
of the patients pay rather liberally; and in these gardens are many
small distinct houses; the great enjoyment which a patient who had
the means of paying for it, received from living in a small house,
surrounded by a garden, without the noise, or the annoyance of
violent patients around him, They were impressed "by the general
comfort and cleanliness of the house", which at the time of his
visit housed some eighty patients."The house stands in the midst
of very fine gardens to the extent of five acres, and such of the
patients who can enjoy it when convalescent, are allowed to amuse
themselves by keeping fowls or rabbits, or cultivating a small piece
of garden ground."

I fear my writing has yet again gone on too long and I will be boring
you. But I do want to say again how pleased I am to have you for a
friend and correspondent.

Yours faithfully,

Edward Gibbon