Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T15:45:30.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Development of Broadmoor 1863–1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John R. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Broadmoor Hospital
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The history of Broadmoor involves the management of mentally abnormal offenders, or ‘criminal lunatics’ as they were called, over the last 180 years (Partridge 1953; Walker and McCabe 1973; Allderidge 1977). Before 1800 there were no special facilities for such patients, and they were incarcerated in local prisons where, John Howard wrote, the conditions were ‘crowded and offensive because the rooms which were designed for prisoners are occupied by the insane. Where these are not kept separate they disturb and terrify other prisoners. No care is taken of them although it is probable that by medicines and proper regimen some of them might be restored to their senses and usefulness in life’.

Type
Psychiatry at Broadmoor
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1980

References

Allderidge, Patricia (1977) In Daniel McNaughton: His Trial and the Aftermath ed. West, D. J. & Walk, A. London: Gaskell Books.Google Scholar
Dell, Susanne (1980) Transfer of Special Hospital patients to the NHS. British Journal of psychiatry, 136, 222–34.Google Scholar
Partridge, R. (1953) Broadmoor. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Walker, N. and McCabe, S. (1973) Crime and Insanity in England, Vol. 2 Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.