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Catalogue description PRIVATE ASYLUMS
This record is held by Surrey History Centre
| Reference: | QS5/5/ |
|---|---|
| Title: | PRIVATE ASYLUMS |
| Description: |
Under an Act for regulating Madhouses, 1774 (14 Geo.III, cap.49), Justices of the Peace were empowered to grant annual licences at Quarter Sessions to keepers of private houses for the reception of lunatics. Such licensed houses were also to be inspected by two visiting justices and a physician, the reports of the visitors to be entered in registers maintained at the house and by the clerk to the visitors. Within the Cities of London and Westminster and a seven mile radius of the same and within the County of Middlesex, the Royal College of Physicians was to appoint five commissioners to issue licences and carry out inspections. This legislation was repealed in 1828 and replaced by a succession of Acts (9 Geo.IV, cap.41 of 1828, 2& 3 Will.IV, cap.107 of 1832, and 8& 9 Vic., cap. 100 of 1845) which retained the systems of licences and visitors but established a central authority (titled the Commissioners in Lunacy under the 1845 Act) and ordered that no person should be admitted to a licensed house without an order of the committing person and a medicalcertificate. Notices of orders, certificates, removals and deaths were to be sent to the Clerk of the Peace as clerk to the visitors and also to the Commissioners. By the 1845 Act the visitors were to visit a licensed house at least 4 times a year and the Commissioners in Lunacy were also to visit twice a year. The Lunacy Act 1890 (53 Vic., cap.5) essentially continued the system outlined above but began the phasing out of private asylums by ordaining that, although licences might be renewed, no licences for new private asylums were to be issued. Licensed houses noted in Surrey include: Name: Great Fosters, Egham first noted: 1774 last noted: 1865/6; Name: Lea Pale House, Stoke next Guildford first noted: 1774 last noted: 1879; Name: Frimley Lodge, Frimley first noted: 1799 last noted: ?; Name: Weston House, Chertsey first noted: 1815 last noted: ?; Name: Church Street, Epsom first noted: 1846 last noted: 1933; Name: Timberham House, Charlwood first noted: 1856 last noted: 1861; Name: Canbury House, Kingston first noted: 1879 last noted: 1895; Name: Woodcote End, Epsom first noted: 1880 last noted: 1882; Name: Croshams, Sutton first noted: 1881 last noted: 1889; Name: Sutherland House, Surbiton first noted: 1884 last noted: 1897; Name: Chalk Pit House, Sutton first noted: 1889 last noted: 1908; Name: Abele Grove, Epsom first noted: 1908 last noted: 1914. |
| Date: | 1774 - 1933 |
| Held by: | Surrey History Centre, not available at The National Archives |
| Language: | English |
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