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Imperfect Models: The Kingston Lunatic Asylum Scandal and the Problem of Postemancipation Imperialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

Christienna D. Fryar
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Abstract

This article examines an imperial scandal concerning the treatment of patients in the lunatic asylum of Kingston, Jamaica, that highlighted the inadequacies of the imperial government. A significant moment in the development of colonial public health policy, this scandal also spoke to broader questions of postemancipation imperial governance. At the heart of the scandal was a debate about whether standards of treatment developed in Britain—symbolized by the image of the ideal asylum and the ideology of moral management—could and should be implemented in colonies. This debate was all the more fraught because the designation of moral management as the official protocol was recent, its implementation incomplete, and its underlying ideas contested. Nevertheless, despite the instability of these ideas, during the scandal and its aftermath, actors treated them as a monolithic package of standards before making them the definitive model for all colonial institutions. Indeed, the scandal helped further bolster moral management in Britain.

Keywords

medicinemental illnessasylumsBritish IslesCaribbeanEmpirenineteenth centuryraceslaveryemancipationstatepolitical ideas and thought
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 709 - 727
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2016 

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References

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2 A note on terms: While patients in Kingston's asylum are frequently described in the documents as “lunatics” or “insane,” I use these terms only where they appear in the sources. In recognition of the imprecision with which this term was applied, I refer to the people in the asylum as “patients,” “inmates” (a term found in the records), and “residents.”

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10 For the most influential treatments of postemancipation politics and the formation of racist ideologies, see Holt, Problem of Freedom, and Hall, Civilising Subjects.

11 Scull, Andrew T., The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700–1900 (New Haven, 1993), 8–9 Google Scholar, 62–63, 87–88, 96–100, 185. See also Haltunnen, Karen, “Humanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture,” American Historical Review 100, no. 2 (April 1995): 303–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 319.

12 Scull, The Most Solitary of Afflictions, 121–22, 135, 146–50, 156, 164–65.

13 See Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism, 10; Philo, Chris, A Geographical History of Institutional Provision for the Insane from Medieval Times to the 1860s in England and Wales: The Space Reserved for Insanity (Lewiston, 2004), 545–49Google Scholar; Conolly, John, The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraints, ed. Hunter, Richard and MacAlpine, Ida (1856; repr., London, 1973), 2 Google Scholar.

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15 I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for making this point.

16 Andrew Scull, s.v., “Conolly, John (1794–1866),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online (hereafter ODNB), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6094, accessed 9 October 2010; Conolly, Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraints, 2, 11–12, 19.

17 McCandless, Peter, “‘Build! Build!’ The Controversy over the Care of the Chronically Insane in England, 1855–1870,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 53, no. 4 (Winter 1979): 553–74Google Scholar, at 553–55; Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism, 9–11.

18 Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism, 39–40.

19 Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Philcox, Richard (New York, 2004)Google Scholar, chap. 5; Summers, Martin, “‘Suitable Care of the African When Afflicted with Insanity’: Race, Madness, and Social Order in Comparative Perspective,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 84, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 58–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 60.

20 The exclamation points are his. See Bowerbank, A Letter to the Commissioners, 433, 434–95. See also TNA, CO 137/338/202, 204–5, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 9 August 1858.

21 Bowerbank, A Letter to the Commissioners, 454–62; for the specific quotation, see fol. 461r. For more about the 1843 legislation, see TNA, CO 139/81/51–55, “An Act to Make Provision for the Erection of a Lunatic Asylum.”

22 Bowerbank, A Letter to the Commissioners, 444–46. See John M. Eyler, s.v., “Farr, William (1807–1883),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9185, accessed 9 October 2010. Farr's, William article is “Report upon the Mortality of Lunatics,” Journal of the Statistical Society of London 4, no. 1 (April 1841): 17–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The portion of Farr's work that Bowerbank quoted directly in A Letter to the Commissioners, 444–45, can be found in Farr, “Report upon the Mortality of Lunatics,” 17–18, which also includes, at 17, the part that Bowerbank did not attribute to Farr (at 469). The portion of Conolly's work that Bowerbank uses can be found in Conolly, John, On the Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums, ed. Hunter, Richard and MacAlpine, Ida (1847; repr., London, 1968), 65–66 Google Scholar.

23 Smith, “Caribbean Bedlam”; and Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism, 6, 28.

24 Scott, James, A Reply to a Letter By Lewis Quier Bowerbank, M. D. Edinburgh, To the Commissioners of the Public Hospital and Lunatic Asylum of Kingston, Jamaica, Relative to the Present State and Management of these Institutions. By James Scott, M.R.C.S.E. (Kingston and Spanish Town, 1858)Google Scholar, TNA, CO 137/338/255, 9 August 1858.

25 Bowerbank, A Letter to the Commissioners, 452–53; Scott, A Reply, 233.

26 Scott, A Reply, 225–26, 230.

27 Sketch drawn from H. M. Chichester, s.v., “Darling, Sir Charles Henry (1809–1870),” rev. Brian H. Fletcher, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7153, accessed 9 October 2010; Holt, Problem of Freedom, 254.

28 Minutes from 12 February 1845 meeting of Asylum Commissioners and a committee report on site and design, both found in Jamaica Archives (hereafter JA) 1B/5/17/1, Minute Book of the Honourable Commissioners for building a Lunatic Asylum, frontispage, 5, 9–11.

29 TNA, CO 137/343/129, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 26 January 1859. For some of the travel literature that catalogued the woes of Kingston, see Trollope, Anthony, The West Indies and the Spanish Main (London, 1968), 11 Google Scholar, 13; Gurney, Joseph John, A Winter in the West Indies, Described in Familiar Letters to Henry Clay, of Kentucky (London, 1840), 93 Google Scholar; Bigelow, John, Jamaica in 1850, Or, The Effects of Sixteen Years of Freedom on a Slave Colony (Urbana, 2006), 13–15 Google Scholar; Underhill, Edward Bean, The West Indies: Their Social and Religious Condition (London, 1862), 186 Google Scholar.

30 TNA, CO 137/343/130, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 26 January 1859.

31 Ibid., 130–31.

32 TNA, CO 137/338/208–9, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 9 August 1858.

33 TNA, CO 137/340/213–14, Darling confidential to Bulwer-Lytton, 11 December 1858. See Holt, Problem of Freedom, 181 on the matter of the assembly's control over money.

34 TNA, CO 139/93/252–54, “An Act to amend the Public Hospital and Lunatic Asylum Act 1855.”

35 TNA, CO 137/338/202, 213, 215–18: Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 9 August 1858; Henry Taylor minute, 10 September 1858; Colonial Office draft to Darling, 7 October 1858. TNA, CO 137/340/60, Henry Taylor minute, 28 December 1858.

36 TNA, CO 137/340/275–77, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 24 December 1858.

37 TNA, CO 137/343/123–27, 156–60, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 26 January 1859; TNA, CO 137/344/12–13, Dawson, civil engineer's report on drainage and ventilation, found in appendix to the 1858 Annual Report of the Medical Officers of the Public Hospital and Lunatic Asylum. Trench's report focused mainly on accounting practices.

38 TNA, CO 137/340/105, 111–12, Hugh Austin to Bowerbank, 11 and 13 November 1858; pencil notations in the margins of TNA, CO 137/340/267–68, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 24 December 1858.

39 Henry Taylor noted how the animosity between Bowerbank and Darling was getting in the way of potentially important questions. He wrote, “as the correspondence already before us shows it will be very easy … to lose all the facts of public importance in a labyrinth of personal controversy.” TNA, CO 137/340/60, Henry Taylor minute, 28 December 1858.

40 For a sense of Kingston doctors’ complaints against Darling: TNA, CO 137/345/412, Alex Fiddes, “Governor Darling and the Public Hospital of Jamaica. To the Editor of the Jamaica Tribune and Daily Advertiser,” Jamaica Tribune and Daily Advertiser [no page number or publication date; Fiddes wrote the letter on 30 June 1859].

41 TNA, CO 137/345/343–44, office minutes, including Henry Taylor minute, 26 August 1859.

42 TNA, CO 137/343/357–59, 456–57: Bowerbank to Bulwer-Lytton, 10 January 1859; on Bowerbank's trip, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 9 February 1859.

43 TNA, CO 137/343/351–52, 370, 352, 354: Bowerbank to Bulwer-Lytton, 17 March 1859; Bowerbank to Duke of Newcastle, 15 August 1859; Henry Taylor minute, 22 March 1859; Carnarvon draft to Bowerbank, 12 April 1859. See also TNA, CO 137/347/355, 361–62: Bowerbank to Bulwer-Lytton, 13 April 1859; Bowerbank to Carnarvon, 14 April 1859.

44 James Wyld question and Bulwer-Lytton response, 17 March 1859, Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 153 (1859), col. 247.

45 John Wolffe, s.v., “Cooper, Anthony Ashley-, seventh earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6210, accessed 9 October 2010; Scull, Most Solitary of Afflictions, 84n135.

46 TNA, CO 137/256–74, 297–98: Shaftesbury to Bulwer-Lytton, 14 May 1859; Shaftesbury to Newcastle, 25 June 1859.

47 TNA, CO 137/346/324–25, Darling to Newcastle, 21 October 1859; “Jamaica Lunatic Asylum. To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 8 September 1859, 10; TNA, CO 137/347/308–12, 299–301: John Forster to Herman Merivale, 12 August 1859; Colonial Office minutes, 14, 16, and 17 August 1859; Merivale to Forster, 24 August 1859; Henry Taylor minute, 1 July 1859.

48 TNA, CO 137/347/302, Henry Taylor minute, 1 July 1859.

49 TNA, CO 137/347/278, 286–91, 293, Carnarvon to Shaftesbury, 30 May 1859.

50 Ibid., 293–94. As Holt notes, while the Colonial Office and governor had veto power, the metropolitan government had few means to demand that specific legislation be passed. See Holt, Problem of Freedom, 181. For related legislative proceedings, see JA, 1B/5/5/6, the Legislative Council Journals for 1859–60.

51 Some commentators wished that the Lunacy Commission could take over the investigation. See, for example, Clergyman, “To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 1 September 1859, 9. These suggestions were again shot down during an 1860 House of Commons debate. See Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. 160 (1860), col. 664.

52 TNA, CO 137/347/370–71, 306: Bowerbank to Newcastle, 15 August 1859; Newcastle letter to Darling, 23 August 1859; John Forster to Merivale, 2 August 1859.

53 B, “To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 30 August 1859, 9.

54 For other articles, see Philo-Jamaicensis, “To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 20 April 1859, 8; Clergyman, “To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 1 September 1859, 9; P, “Jamaica Lunatic Asylum. To the Editor of the Times,” Times, 8 September 1859, 10.

55 Copies of this testimony do not appear in the Colonial Office archives.

56 TNA, CO 137/348/184, Henry Taylor minute, 3 March 1860; TNA, CO 137/349/407, 413, 427, 428–30: Henry Taylor minute, 3 July 1860; James Scott to Henry Hutchings, Acting Inspector and Director of the Hospital and Asylum, 15 May 1860; “Analytical Synopsis of Deaths Occuring in the Lunatic Asylum of Kingston between the 12th January and 8th December 1859”; Chichester Fortescue draft to Commissioners in Lunacy, 28 July 1860; TNA, CO 137/352/182–83, John Forster to Colonial Office, 20 August 1860.

57 Pratt, Ann, Seven Months in the Kingston Lunatic Asylum, and What I Saw There (Kingston, 1860)Google Scholar, enclosed in TNA, CO 137/350.

58 Ibid.

59 TNA, CO 137/355/228–31, Scott to Trench, 3 September 1860.

60 TNA, CO 137/350/444, Bowerbank to Austin, 14 July 1860, printed in Official Documents on the Case of Ann Pratt, The Reputed Authoress of a Certain Pamphlet, Entitled “Seven Months in the Kingston Lunatic Asylum, and What I Saw There.”

61 TNA, CO 137/355/277–82, 288–89, 294–300, testimony of Henrietta Dawson, Ann Pratt, and defense witnesses.

62 TNA, CO 137/355/212, Darling to Newcastle, 20 June 1861.

63 TNA, CO 137/353/385–86, Darling to Newcastle, 8 April 1861.

64 TNA, CO 137/353/388–89, Newcastle draft to Darling, 16 May 1861.

65 TNA, CO 137/355/212, Darling to Newcastle, 20 June 1861. Holt elaborates on Darling's racism in Problem of Freedom, 276, 285–86.

66 The person most associated with the spread of these narratives is writer Thomas Carlyle, who was also friends with Henry Taylor, senior West Indian clerk in the Colonial Office. See Holt, Problem of Freedom, 278–89; Hall, Civilising Subjects, 347–63. For the appearance of similar rhetoric in another postemancipation medical crisis, see Fryar, “Moral Politics of Cholera,” 603–6.

67 Journals of the Legislative Council of Jamaica (November 1860–March 1861), meetings on 7 February 1861 and 21 February 1861, JA, 1B/5/5/7, 77, 91; TNA, CO 137/94/164, “An act authorizing the appointment of a commission to inquire into the condition and management of the public hospital and lunatic asylums of Kingston”; TNA, CO 142/72/35, Blue Book for Jamaica 1858, list of Legislative Council members; Jones, “Most Cruel and Revolting Crimes,” 306n21.

68 TNA, CO 139/94/165, “An act authorizing the appointment of a commission to inquire into the condition and management of the public hospital and lunatic asylums of Kingston.”

69 For Bowerbank's testimony, see TNA, CO 137/359/2–74, quotation at 73.

70 There are five volumes of the evidence and testimony gathered by the commission (TNA, CO 137/359–63). For the testimony from Matilda Symmonette, wife of Captain Symmonette, see TNA, CO 137/360/126–27.

71 TNA, CO 137/364/242–43, 245, “Report on the Management of the Public Hospital. 20th November, 1861.”

72 Ibid., 245–46.

73 Ibid., 246.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid., 242–43. For more on oversight by physicians rather than inexperienced laypeople, see Conolly, Treatment of the Insane without Medical Restraints, 369–71.

76 For legislation on governance in the new asylum, see TNA, CO 137/95/34–40, “An Act for the government of the New Lunatic Asylum.” For later legislation on governance in the public hospital, see TNA, CO 139/95/236–43, “An Act for the Government of the Public Hospital of Kingston.” See also TNA, CO 137/364/401–6, Darling to Newcastle, 28 February 1862. For the correspondence, evidence, and proceedings related to Scott's suspension, see TNA, CO 137/366/237–537, Eyre to Newcastle, 8 May 1862.

77 TNA, CO 137/365/247–52, Newcastle/Taylor draft to Eyre, 14 August 1862.

78 Darling became governor of Victoria, Australia in 1863.

79 TNA, CO 137/365/260, Newcastle/Taylor draft to Eyre, 14 August 1862.

80 TNA, CO 137/365/240, Henry Taylor minute, 26 July 1862. For Darling's comments suggesting he shared this belief, see TNA, CO 137/340/275–77, Darling to Bulwer-Lytton, 24 December 1858.

81 Jones, “Most Cruel and Revolting Crimes,” 292, 302–4.

82 Hall, Civilising Subjects.

83 Ibid., 304; Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism, chap. 4; Heuring, Darcy Hughes, “‘In the Cheapest Way Possible …’: Responsibility and the Failure of Improvement at the Kingston Lunatic Asylum, 1914–1945,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 12, no. 3 (Winter 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://muse.jhu.edu/article/463344.