Haunting photographs show some of the women who attended the infamous Bethlem Royal Hospital in Bromley, south east London, where patients were 'treated' by being spun round in a chair.
Portraits from an English 'lunatic asylum' circa 1869
More than 40 women typhoid sufferers were locked up for life in a mental asylum to prevent them spreading the disease, according to newly-found records.
Discover some of the creepiest asylums around the world that look like torture chambers rather than safe spaces, each with a dark, tragic history.
Portraits from an English 'lunatic asylum' circa 1869
Poveglia Island is an abandoned island located off the coast of Northern Italy. It is off limits for public access. It was a site of wars, dumping grounds for plague victims, used as an armory for weapons, had a mental asylum. Some estimates suggest that 100,000 people died on the island over the centuries.
For a lot of people, Pennhurst Asylum was Hell on Earth. It was once known as the 'Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic',
In 1796, Quaker businessman and philanthropist William Tuke opened the Retreat in York, England, for the care of the mentally ill. Prior to this, those with mental health or behavioral issues were treated worse than the most heinous criminal—they were usually locked-up in bedlams, imprisoned in cells or chained to walls in workhouses. As a Quaker Tuke believed in the sanctity of life and of behaving kindly and morally to all humanity. This led him to build a hospital for the care of those suffering from mental health problems. At first, the Retreat was only open to fellow Quakers, but it soon opened its doors to all. The Retreat changed the way mental health was treated in England, and in 1818 the first of four hospitals, the Stanley Royd Hospital in Wakefield, was built under the aegis of the West Riding General Asylums Committee. A further three hospitals were built between 1872 and 1904—the South Yorkshire Asylum built in Sheffield, the High Royds Hospital in Menston and the Storthes Hall built in Kirkburton—which became villages for patients and all four hospital together formed the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Inspired by the Retreat, the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum pioneered...
The now abandoned Whittingham Insane Asylum and Hospital, whose grounds adjoin the village of Goosnargh, grew to be the largest mental hospital in the country, and pioneered the use of electroencephalograms (EEGs). During its time it had its own church, farms, railway, telephone exchange, post office, reservoirs, gas works, brewery, orchestra, brass band, ballroom and butchers...
