In 1810 the Government urged upon the House of Commons the necessity of affording some relief to the neglected condition of the insane poor in Ireland, the result being that grants were made for building an asylum in Dublin, called "The Richmond Lunatic Asylum" (55 Geo. III., c. 107). It was opened in 1815, and proved a great boon to the district. Two years afterwards, Mr. John Leslie Foster, one of the governors, in evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the lunatic poor in Ireland, referred to the humane system of treatment introduced at the York Retreat, "the good effects of which are illustrated in a publication[255] of Mr. Tuke," and said, "This system appearing to the governors of the Richmond Lunatic Asylum to be founded in good sense, they determined on trying the experiment in their new institution, and beg to add, as a proof of this, that there is not in the Richmond Asylum, to the best of my belief, a chain, a fetter, or a handcuff. I do not believe there is one patient out of twenty confined to his cell, and that of those who are confined to their cells, in the great number it is owing to derangement of their bodily health rather than to the violence of mania." He speaks of the superintendent as the "moral governor," whose particular business it is to attend to the comforts of the patients, to remove from them causes of irritation, to regulate the degrees of restraint, and to provide occupation for the convalescent.
The Richmond Asylum did not serve, as was hoped and expected at that time, to supply accommodation for a large portion of Ireland. To the amazement of those who had induced Parliament to make what they deemed so ample a provision, it was soon found that not only was the asylum full to overflowing, but the house of industry was soon as full as before, and that as to finding accommodation for those at a distance, it was altogether out of the question. At first, sanguine hopes were raised by the large number of recent cases discharged cured, and the common but fallacious inference was drawn that, had all the chronic cases in the houses of industry or at large been fortunate enough to be placed under asylum treatment in the first stage of their malady, they would also have been cured in like proportion. Unfortunately, the accumulation of incurables, even in asylums, opened the eyes of many to the fallacy of this inference.[256] Other asylums were, therefore, it was seen, required.
"Your Committee," observe the Select Committee of the House of Commons of 1817,[257] "beg leave to call the attention of the House to the detailed opinion expressed by the governors of the Richmond Asylum, that the only mode of effectual relief will be found in the formation of district asylums, exclusively appropriated to the reception of the insane." It appeared that, with the exception of the Dublin institution, that at Cork, and one at Tipperary, there was not provision made for more than one hundred lunatics throughout the whole of Ireland. The Committee proposed that, in addition to the asylums in Dublin and Cork, there should be built four or five additional asylums, capable of containing a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty lunatics each. They recommended that powers should be given to the Government to divide Ireland into districts, and that the expense should be borne by the counties included within the several districts. The consequence of this Report was the Act 57 Geo. III., c. 136,[258] afterwards repealed, but re-enacted with amendments by the 1 and 2 Geo. IV., c. 33; 6 Geo. IV., c. 54; and 7 Geo. IV., c. 14. These statutes enacted that the cost of asylums, advanced from the Consolidated Fund, was to be ultimately paid by the counties; that all the principal officers were to be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant, the general superintendence being vested in a Board of Commissioners, named by the Government but acting gratuitously; that the asylums should be brought under the annual review of the inspectors-general of prisons by the 7 Geo. V., c. 74, and should be noticed in the reports submitted annually to Parliament. The inspectors-general had power to enter private as well as public asylums.
The first really effective Act of Parliament, directing the erection of asylums for the insane poor in Ireland, was, then, that which we have mentioned as passed in the year 1821, and formed the 1 and 2 Geo. IV., c. 33.[259] The Lord Lieutenant (not the justices, as in England) was authorized to establish any number of these asylums (to accommodate not less than one hundred and not more than one hundred and fifty paupers) when and where it seemed expedient, while for this purpose eight Commissioners were nominated to superintend the execution of the work. Some years elapsed before asylums were built. Then nine, capable of accommodating nine hundred and eighty patients, were commenced at Armagh, Ballinasloe, Carlow, Clonmel, Limerick, Londonderry, Maryborough, and Waterford, for their respective districts, some being composed of no less than five counties. It is stated that such was the dislike of the humbler classes to the name of mad-houses, that they were not fully occupied until 1835. The eight Commissioners retired, and the Board of Works took their duties upon them, and acted until 1861, when the 18 and 19 Vict., c. 109, enacted that two members of the Board, including the chairman, and the two Inspectors of the insane, should be appointed Commissioners of general control and correspondence.[260]
The grand juries of assizes were to present such sums as should be required for asylums. In 1826 an Act was passed (7 Geo. IV., c. 74) which continued and extended the former provisions, viz. that the inspectors-general of prisons should be inspectors of lunatic asylums in Ireland; that no person should keep a house for the reception of insane persons unless licensed; that justices of the peace might grant them; that no person should be received into or retained in a licensed or unlicensed house without an order and the certificate of a medical man not interested in such houses; that licensed houses not kept by a physician should be visited by a medical man once a fortnight; that the inspector must visit such houses once in six months, and may make special visits, and after two such visits may liberate a patient; and that the inspectors should make an annual report to the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Chancellor. This Act did not apply to public asylums. It was to commence and take effect in the county and city of Dublin, and to remain in force till August 1, 1845. It may be well to note here that in 1826 "the numbers of lunatics and idiots in every public asylum in Dublin, and in every asylum in Ireland,"[261] erected under the provisions of the Act 1 and 2 Geo. IV., c. 33, and 55 Geo. III., c. 107, were only as follows:—
| Lunatics. | Under what Act maintained. | |
|---|---|---|
| Richmond Lunatic Asylum | 252 | 55 Geo. III., c. 107. |
| House of Industry Lunatic Asylum | 461 | |
| 713 |
| Lunatics. | Idiots. | |
|---|---|---|
| District Lunatic Asylum, Armagh | 52 | 6 |
The following table shows, at a glance, the number of lunatic and idiots confined in 1826, and maintained in the public institutions, supported wholly or in part by grand jury presentments in Ireland.
The accumulation of incurables pressed heavily upon the Richmond Asylum, where, as I have said, the most sanguine hopes were at first raised as to the cure of the great majority of the patients. The governor thus wrote in 1827 to the Right Hon. W. Lamb:—