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Carsten Anker Dines with the Younger George Dance, and Visits St Luke’s Hospital for the Insane

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Christine Stevenson
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Extract

In 1792, Copenhagen’s St Hans Hospital, for those afflicted by insanity (including alcoholism), venereal disease, and a variety of other, incurable, infirmities, received a gift of money specifically for its repair. Thirty years earlier St Hans had been described as holding the ‘very oldest, weakest, wretchedest, and unsightliest’ of the Copenhagen Poor Board’s charges, and by 1792 its buildings were in similar shape. This gift ultimately resulted in an investigation into asylum planning that extended from St Petersburg to Finsbury, where the new St Luke’s Hospital (Fig. 1) opened in 1787.

Type
Section 5: Britain and the Continent
Information
Architectural History , Volume 44 , 2001 , pp. 153 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001

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References

Notes

1 Stevenson, Christine, ‘Plans for Reaccommodating Lunatics at St Hans Hospital, 1794-1808’, Architectura [Copenhagen], 8 (1986), pp. 82–112 Google Scholar describes the history of the St Hans projects (for the gift and the quotation, pp. 85, 82), as does my more readily available ‘Madness and the Picturesque in the Kingdom of Denmark’, pp. 13-47 in The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry, vol. 3, The Asylum and its Psychiatry, ed. Bynum, W. F., Porter, Roy, and Shepherd, Michael (London and New York, 1988), on pp. 20–28 Google Scholar. Both essays use material from my PhD dissertation, ‘The Design of Prisons and Hospitals in the Neo-classical Period, with Special Reference to the Work of C. F. Hansen (1756-1845)’, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1986, prepared with the unstinting help of my supervisor John Newman.

2 Stevenson, ‘Plans’, pp. 96, 98-105; Stevenson, ‘Madness’, pp. 25-38.

3 Copenhagen, Stadsarkivet (Municipal Archives), vu. St Hans Hospital. Kommissionen af 27.11.1794 for Set. Hans Hospitals Nye Bygninger 1792-1804, 4. Kommissionsprotokol 1794-1804, for 1 May 1802: ‘paalidelige og omstændelige Tegninger’.

4 Tenon, Jacques, Memoirs on Paris Hospitals, transl, anon., ed. Weiner, Dora C. ([Canton, Mass.], 1996), p. 334 Google Scholar; compare p. 17, from his summary preface.

5 Foucault, Michel et al, Les Machines à guérir: aux origines de l’hôpital moderne (Brussels, 1979), p. 156 Google Scholar, transcribe part of an undated copy of a letter from Tenon to Dance, whose phrasing suggests that it accompanied a copy of the book in 1788. For Tenon, Dance (who showed him around his Newgate Prison) was that ‘homme habile, obligeant’, ‘habile architecte,... de qui nous avons reçu toutes sortes d’honnêtes’: Journal d’Observations sur les principaux hôpitaux et sur quelques prisons d’Angleterre, ed. Carré, Jacques (Clermont-Ferrand, 1992), pp. 43, 58 Google Scholar.

6 Stevenson, ‘Plans’, pp. 95, 97, 99; since its publication the Narrenturm drawings have turned up in the architectural drawings collection of the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

7 Christine Stevenson, ‘Paesi Scandinavi: Promozione delle Arti e dell’ Industria’, pp. 196–211 in Storie del Disegno Industriale, vol. 1, 1750-1850: L’Età della Rivoluzione Industriale, ed. Ponte, Alessandra (Milan, 1989), on pp. 197, 208 Google Scholar.

8 Copenhagen, Stadsarkivet, VII. St. Hans Hospital. Kommissionen af 27.11.1794 for Sct. Hans Hospitals Nye Bygninger 1792-1804, 5. Dokumenter, 64.C. The documents in this set (henceforth cited as SA, St Hans 5, 64.C) include the questionnaire, Anker’s covering letter and invoice, and the ‘Beskrivelse’ (description) of the drawings and model, all dated 4 August 1803. The site plan ‘A’, for example (see the next note) had been lettered in English and Anker’s ‘Beskrivelse’ provides translations and amplifications. Thus the ‘Dead House, or Straw Barn’ is explained: Dance had designed a mortuary, but the deceased were now kept in their cells until burial, which took place very quickly.

9 The drawings Anker sent from London were, ‘A’ (his lettering), a general site plan; B, C, D, and E, basement and ground-, first- and second-floor plans; F and G, front (south) and rear (north) elevations; H, a sheet with eight sections; I, a sheet with three drawings of the wall and ‘Colonnade’ in front of the building; K and L, drawings of an individual cell. SA, St Hans 5, 64.C, ‘Beskrivelse’.

10 ‘Bygmesteren kunde ikke efter lang Tids Sögning ikke finde, end ikke, Conceot-tegningerne, og den hele Bygning maatte paa nyt opmaales, hvilken den Kongelige Commission vil finde at være skeed med störste Nöyagtighed’: SA, St Hans 5, 64.C, Anker’s letter.

11 Six of the seventeen sheets that originally accompanied the contract of 30 May 1782 survive. The 1794-watermark group comprises nine sheets, compared to four in the 1801-watermark group. Jill Lever’s catalogue of the Dance drawings in Sir John Soane’s Museum is expected to be published in 2003; Fig. 2 shows her cat. 12 (SM, Dance 4/1/9). Jill Lever gave me a copy of her draft catalogue of the St Luke’s drawings, and drew my attention to the Tuke—Bevans investigations mentioned below, and I am deeply grateful for this indispensable help with the present essay.

12 The other section is across the very centre of the building and so, Anker explained, needed no special indication. He however listed his sections in an order that would be odd if they were arranged the way they are on the Soane sheets (cat. 25, 1794 watermark [Dance 4/1/16] and cat. 26, 1801 watermark [Dance 4/1/17]), which have them in four columns. If they were, his numbering would run from the far left column to the far right, then to the inner left and inner right columns.

13 See St Luke’s’ many appearances (indexed) in Andrews, Jonathan et al., The History of Bethlent (London, 1997)Google Scholar which explores the ramifications of the institutional rivalry.

14 St Luke’s ‘Rules and Orders’ were freely adapted by compilers of London’s historical topographies, beginning with Maitland, William, The History of London from its Foundation to the Present Time, 2 vols (London, 1756), 2, p. 1315 Google Scholar, from which I have taken this quotation. For visiting, Andrews et al, History of Bethlem, especially pp. 178-99.

15 Letter from Tuke to Bevans, 20 January 1794 (Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York); see Digby, Anne, Madness, Morality and Medicine: A Study of the York Retreat, 1796-1914 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 18, 37–38 Google Scholar. Jill Lever proposes linking some of the Soane drawings with the Retreat’s planning (the 1794 watermark is suggestive), and this cannot be ruled out, though Anne Digby reports that there is no evidence that drawings were sent up to York, and another of Bevans’s letters (26 February 1794) uses lengthy descriptions, and a couple of sketches, to explain St Luke’s arrangements instead.

16 Smith, Leonard D., ‘Cure, Comfort, and Safe Custody’: Public Lunatic Asylums in early Nineteenth-century England (London, 1999), pp. 14–15, 33, 53, 143Google Scholar. Stevenson, Christine, Medicine and Magnificence: British Hospital and Asylum Architecture 1660-1815 (London, 2000), pp. 99–100, 101-05Google Scholar explains the rationales for, and appeal of, the lunettes.

17 Elmes, James, ‘History of Architecture in Great Britain. A Brief Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Architecture in Great Britain’, Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal, 10 (1847), pp. 166-70, 209-10, 234–38, 268-71, 300-02, 337-41, 378-83Google Scholar, on p. 379. See also David Watkin, ‘Adam, Dance and the Expression of Character in Architecture’, pp. 50-54 in Adam in Context: Papers given at the Georgian Group Symposium 1992, ed. Worsley, Giles (London, 1993), on p. 52 Google Scholar.

18 St Luke’s Woodside (Muswell Hill, London), ‘General Committee Book of St Luke’s Hospital from Sept 19th 1750 to Deer 7th 1774’ (unpaginated; henceforth cited as SLW, Gen. Comm. Book 1750–1774), for 23 January 1751 and 7 March 1753; my thanks to Sylvia Manning for making my day at St Luke’s Woodside so informative, and enjoyable. The most revealing view of the building is that in Enthusiasm Displayed (c. 1755, Robert Pranker after John Griffiths), reproduced by Bindman, David, Hogarth and his Times: Serious Comedy (London, 1997), p. 123 Google Scholar, cat. 65, though the fenestration differs a little from that shown in other prints. On this building, see French, C. N., Tlie Story of St Luke’s Hospital (London, 1951), pp. 9–13 Google Scholar (who was mistaken in believing that it replaced John Wesley’s ‘Foundery’ meeting-house, which was adjacent) and Stroud, Dorothy, George Dance, Architect 1741–1821 (London, 1971), pp. 49–50 Google Scholar.

19 SLW, Gen. Comm. Book 1750-1774, for 26 September 1750.

20 No plan of Hooke’s building has survived, but this is a safe conclusion. For Bethlem’s architecture, see Andrews et al., History of Bethlent, pp. 230–59; on the resemblance, p. 250. For the first St Luke’s cells, SLW, Gen. Comm. Book 1750-1774, for 8 May 1754, for example, when ten beds plus bedding were ordered for the ‘Ten Cells that are fitted up for Uncured Patients’.

21 Howard did describe both as ‘three long galleries and wings’, with their cells, which at Bethlem were ‘very properly’ on one side of the galleries only. An Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe . . . (London, 1789), pp. 139-40.

22 Tenon, Memoirs, p. 197; see also pp. 17, 28.

23 According to Howard, Account, p. 139, Bethlem’s cells were 12 ft × 8 ft 10 in, and 12 ft 10 in high; St Luke’s, 10 ft 4 in × 8 ft, and 13 ft 3 in high.

24 SA, St Hans 5, 64.C, ‘Beskrivelse’ (‘Jern gitterværk til Luft og Sikkerhed’); Tenon, Journal, pp. 44-45 (‘Au-dessus de la porte sont des barreaux de fer, avec treillage de fer mis en dedans pour éviter que les fous se pendent, ce qui est arrivé dans certains hôpitaux.’)

25 ‘Hr Dance spiste hos mig, og kort efter at have igentaget min . . . Undskyldning . . ., saget han mig, dog med sand Værdighed, at han ønske nok at eje den danske Vitruvius’. SA, St Hans 5, 64.C, Anker’s letter. The request does not seem to have been carried out.

26 In 1807, his house near Copenhagen, then under siege, was ordered untouched by British officers who ‘no longer felt themselves on hostile ground’ after consuming his beef, ale, porter, and Cheshire cheese: Wolff, Jens, Sketches on a Tour to Copenhagen through Norway and Sweden (London, 1814), pp. 174-75Google Scholar.