Accessibility and Archives: “Now you are [of] a mind to kill me”
In this blog, Philip Milnes-Smith struggles to hear the silenced voices of lower class, disabled inmates in an early Victorian workhouse. Reflecting on a couple of recently published books, and the Social Murder Festival in Manchester, it contains historic language, and frankly upsetting evidence of abuse.
In David Turner’s excellent new book[i] he asserts, “Disability history is not just adding a missing element to our understanding of the past – it’s about whom we choose to see, value and remember… It asks us to listen to voices that were silenced, to recognise lives that were overlooked, and to understand that difference has always been part of the human experience.” The difficulty of such listening can be compounded by intersecting factors such as social status. In Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s new book[ii], evocatively exploring the archive of an institution that had been founded as the Eglinton Lunatic Asylum (Cork), there is a moment of realisation that, mostly, she had not been listening to the voices that were silenced. She reads a purloined letter, confiscated and kept as case note evidence by the asylum, rather than having been sent to the patient's sister as the writer had wished:
“'Have you got any idea of what kind of a place this is - ' No. She had been looking through the doctors' eyes for too long. If Lucia had written 'content here'…, the Reader would have taken her word as fact... She'd let the casebooks lull her into thinking of them as truth, and she was angry with herself for that, and angry that she couldn't put the doctors' books aside altogether in favour of letters composed by the patients themselves. What could she do?.. The Reader felt ashamed of her relief that Lucia had pinched it, letting her read it...”
One of the useful resources circulated at the recent Social Murder Festival was this timeline of the state failing to make progress on the premature deaths of learning disabled people since 1969. There is also an Easy Read summary. But institutional deaths resulting in Inquiries have a longer history. In August 1840, for example, the Crediton Poor Law Inquiry opened following the deaths of two pauper inmates (William Lock and William Dart) earlier in the year. Common knowledge held there to have been improper accommodation, improper bedding and improper treatment (“by beating and washing”). The case was initially summarised as follows:
“It was said that two paupers died, and that they had been improperly removed to an out-house cold and dark, unfit for persons in their afflicted condition… Then it was stated – whether true or false is to be inquired into – that two relatives of one of the deceased paupers came to see him, and that it was so dark the porter was obliged to get a lantern; that the pauper Lock was laying on some loose straw,- he had no bed-tie, no mattress or bolster,- and his body, legs, and head, were, as the witnesses described it, doubled up together; that on being asked why he kept his head under the blanket, he said it was so cold he could not bear it… The witnesses say that the outhouse was cold, that there was no fire in it, and no warmth applied to these poor persons, although in the depth of winter… [T]he paupers were kept in a miserably cold state,.. much below the freezing point, and that within a few days of their deaths they were in this condition... It has also been represented out of doors that there was no dish, or plate, or basin, or spoon, or chair, or stool, or any article of furniture whatever, not even a chamber utensil, in the place… The witnesses… went on to state, that, on a light being brought, the pauper Dart was found in a corner, when the person who brought the candle said, with surprise, “What is not he gone yet?” Is this true? I hope to God it is not… It is stated that, after these paupers, Lock and Dart, had been placed in the outhouse, they were taken out naked, walked through the court to the pump, in bitter cold weather, when the ordinary mop of the house was used upon their persons, so that they were literally washed in cold water from head to foot.”[iii]
Lock’s brother would go on to assert that William “was in good health as an apprentice, till he was about eighteen years old, when the fits came upon him;… he was sensible in mind, but had not feeling in his hand and feet; I never heard any complaint that he was dirty;… he worked so long that the farmer could not employ him any longer, he kept dropping down so;… he left me because we had little children, and could not keep him, as when he had fits he would fall upon them;… I considered my brother of weak mind for 3 or 4 years before his death.”[iv] Another witness somewhat disputed this fraternal evidence: “Lock, the pauper was so dirty his brother could not keep him; he knew he was dirty, having seen him dirt himself like a child when in his fits; never saw him do it when not in a fit; have known him have fits once or twice a day.”
Grace Tucker had known William Dart as an apprentice of her father’s and notes that thereafter “he had no wages, as he was not capable of getting any… he could not work as another man; he was a strong lusty chap; he was weak in mind; he had not the ordinary capacity of men in general…; I did see that his knees and legs were very much bruised;… he said Mr Leach would come behind his back, and teaze him, and give him a chuck under the chin, and make him bite his tongue- this put him (Dart) into a passion…; then Mr Leach used to call for assistance and drag him out, and lock him up without victuals for the day; he said he had been locked up two days together without victuals, and that he had no flesh meat for a week together …”[v] Other witnesses mentioned Dart manifesting what would more recently have been termed ‘challenging behaviour’ and ‘aggression’. This perhaps contributed to Leach beating Dart with a cane “very often indeed.” Another witness, however, confirmed they had seen Mr Leach provoking him.[vi]
Mary Ann Bater testified about Dart “I recollect that in one week, out of seven allowances of bread for breakfast, he lost five of them; on two occasions they were kept from him by Mr Leach, for not washing his face and hands; he had not got his right reason, and knew very little about washing his face and hands… I have known Dart in the lock-up several times; eight hours was the usual time, but I have heard… that Dart had been several times kept there all night…” Of the room where they had died, a surgeon deposed “the room has been described as an outhouse or shed; the master called it the idiot ward; I suppose he described it by its proper name;… it was calculated for idiots in good health…; there was a most offensive smell there when I first saw it; the place was not fit for more than one or two idiots;… I was told that these paupers were idiotic and dirty… I think the room a very improper place for persons suffering under diarrhoea; I think it very unfit for such persons to sleep in…”
A week later, by which time the workhouse board of guardians had resigned in protest at the conduct of the Inquiry (rather than the failings of their care), the newspaper reports the Union Chaplain testifying as follows: “Lock appeared to me generally a weak person, subject to epileptic fits; I cannot say anything of his conduct; I don’t imagine his conduct was different from any of the other paupers; as to Dart; I knew but little of him; but I considered he was here as a dangerous lunatic, scarcely a responsible being… I never saw Dart in his bed-room whilst he was ill, as I considered him a lunatic, a perfectly irresponsible being, and out of my province altogether… I have been in the idiot ward where these men died… Lock was removed from the infirmary in consequence of his dirty habits; I knew them both to be of dirty habits.”[vii]
One former inmate asserted; “I have seen Dart washed in cold water several times; I have seen him taken from his room, across the yard to the wash-house, and washed naked with a mop; James Tremlett took him, and he was hardly able to walk; I have seen Robert Tucker and Tremlett wash him with a mop and cold water; I was present at the time and Mr Leach was there;… it turned me so much that I hoped I should never come to the pass of that poor fellow; I have seen Pitts draw a bucket of cold water from the cock and throw it right down over Dart, and there was Tucker washing him down with a mop all over his body and legs. Pitts said “Will one bucket do?” and Tucker answered “heave five over him; Dart said, “Now you are [of] a mind to kill me;” Dart’s senses were almost gone; it was enough to kill any man in his perfect health… I said “he can’t stand this long,” and the answer Leach made was that it would be no sin to give him laudanum to put him to sleep, out of the way. I used to wash out that room; I was ordered to do it because the men did their dirt there; they were very dirty people, and did whatever they liked there; I saw Mr Leach beat Dart with the iron handcuffs, because he would not comply to put his hands in; he was a stupefied poor creature…”[viii]
You may have noticed that the vocabulary around Lock and Dart was, from a medical model perspective, rather confused (‘idiot’ and ‘lunatic’ not being synonyms). But there was no doubt that these two individuals were disabled (and potentially cruelly neglected to death) by society’s treatment of those not able to conform to expectations, whether around continence or being able to work. What is striking, however, is that there was no shortage of pauper inmates and other low social status witnesses from the wider community willing to stand up against the dehumanising treatment of Lock and Dart – treatment that was perhaps different in kind and degree, but not essence, from that non-disabled inmates were experiencing. Importantly, because Lock and Dart were not in a specialised institution surrounded only by patients deemed as unreliable as them, these ordinary people were able to speak up about abuse they had been powerless to stop, exciting popular feeling to the extent that an Inquiry was granted within months.
More than 180 years on, there is a commonly understood belief in human progress that presumes disabled people are much better off now – not just because of scientific advances, but also a purportedly more tolerant and caring society. I join in Turner’s hope for a possible future “where everyone belongs”. But as the Social Murder Festival demonstrated, some 21st century disabled lives have not mattered enough. As in the Crediton case, we are even now finding that some appointed to institutional care of vulnerable people enjoy power more than community with fellow human beings. Protecting the powerful from scrutiny (by, for example, changing the appearance of accommodation in advance of inspection) continues to seem more important than learning lessons that would prevent future mistreatment and death. Moreover, there is a revived social acceptance for those advocating euthanasia of those not deemed worthy of life. The surgeon observed of the room where Lock and Dart died: “such a smell ought not to have existed six months after the patients were removed” – it lingers still.
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Thumbnail picture courtesy of George Julian.
[i]Disability: A history of resistance, The Bodley Head, London
[ii]Said the Dead, Faber
[iii] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 22 August 1840 (BL_0000267_18400822_021_0004)
[iv] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 29 August 1840 (BL_0000267_18400829_001_0002)
[v] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 05 September 1840 (BL_0000267_18400905_022_0004)
[vi] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 05 September 1840 (BL_0000267_18400905_022_0004)
[vii] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 05 September 1840 (BL_0000267_18400905_022_0002)
[viii] Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 05 September 1840 (BL_0000267_18400905_022_0002)