Catalogue description Royal Commission on the Law Relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency (Percy Commission): Minutes, Papers and Reports

The appointment of the Royal Commission on the Law Relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency, comprising representatives of the medical and law professions and under the chairmanship of Baron Percy of Newcastle, was announced in October 1953 and made by royal warrant of 23 February 1954. Its terms of reference were to inquire, as regards England and Wales, into the existing law and administrative machinery governing the certification, detention, care (other than hospital care or treatment under the National Health Service Acts 1946-1952), absence on trial or licence, discharge and supervision of persons who were or were alleged to be suffering from mental illness or mental defect, other than Broadmoor patients; to consider, as regards England and Wales, the extent to which it was, or should be made, statutorily possible for such persons to be treated as voluntary patients without certification; and to make recommendations.

The report of the Commission was published in 1957 (Cmnd. 169, 1957), following up the work of the MacMillan Commission of 1924-1926, leading in time to the passing of the Mental Health Act 1959 which followed broadly the main recommendations of the Royal Commission.