Tue Brook Villa was established in the year 1839 as a private asylum for the treatment and care of insane cases occurring in the middle and upper classes. The house was about three and a-half miles from the town of Liverpool and situated in West Derby, in the vicinity of the estates of Lords Sefton and Derby and Newsham Park, where, in fine weather, able patients would take their walks in these parks, and those who were unable to walk so far were driven. The Villa was licensed to receive fifty-two patients; twenty-six of each sex. Patients were received at rates from thirty shillings and upwards, according to character of case and accommodation required. Private rooms and special attendants could be had on special terms. Several of these rooms were detached from the parts of the building where the general patients lived, and as so were very quiet and undisturbed. It was run by Dr. Harold Owen, physician and surgeon, who was born in Liverpool in 1923, and who lived there with his wife Julia Ann and their children. When he was aged 38 he was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England.
The terms, blank certificate, and all particulars could be obtained on application to the Medical Superintendent. In the summer-time patients were often taken to the river-side at New Brighton, or to Southport, for an afternoon, and to many other places in the country, The Asylum grounds in themselves were extensive with the main drive from Green Lane being over a quarter of a mile long. There were thirty acres of land, with fields being under cultivation for the maintenance of the farm. The gardens were prettily laid out in lawns, shrubberies and thickets and the grounds generally were well wooded. There were several tennis lawns and a bowling-green, with also part of a field being laid down for the purposes of cricket. Any improvements to the ground were undertaken by the attendants and gentlemen of the Asylum as male patients were induced to employ themselves in light garden work. The ladies, when the weather rendered it possible, were encouraged to take vigorous exercise in walking. Indoors needlework, mat-making and embroidery occupied the patients during the time not taken up in other ways and evenings were devoted to recreation and amusements,such as music and dancing. The 1871 census shows the origins of patients including Thomas Herdman son of artist WG Herdman and it took patients into the 1930s. The managers were apparently very keen on prompt payment and Dr Rankin also had his own private nursing home.
 |
| Map of 1849 showing Tue Brook Villa |
The following is a description of a visit to the Tuebrook Villa Mental Asylum by Dr. Charles F. Folsom of Boston, Massachusetts in 1875. Dr. Folsom's point was that in England patients were not restrained as they would be in American asylums :- "Reaching Liverpool, and not having much time to spare there, I at once called upon Dr. Owen at his private asylum for the treatment of mental diseases. When I went to see him 2 years ago I thought that by mistake I had strayed into some gentleman's private grounds. The gate was swung wide open, there wasn't a fence in sight over which I could not have easily vaulted, the hospital in the distance had an attractive home-like look, and the well-trimmed hedges and newly mown lawn looked only the more picturesque with the herd of Ayrshires and occasional groups of men and women here and there. As I got nearer, I found in the faces of the people unmistakable evidences of mental disease. Some were strolling about, or sitting under trees, entirely alone, under parole, that is, having the liberty of the grounds, provided that they kept within certain limits. In other cases, one attendant looked after a group of cases or a single person, according to the severity of illness. Inside the hospital, the pleasant sitting rooms with their open fires ( which are really not an atom more dangerous than gas burners, sharply-pointed scissors, knives and forks, and steep stairways ) had a quieting influence which is not got from opium or choral. Those of the fifty patients who could control themselves sufficiently dined with the doctor's family, a privilege which they appreciated highly, and to gain which they had exercised a great deal of self-control. This daily stimulus to their self-respect had a really wonderful effect; and as I sat at the table conversing with one after the another, the windows open wide enough to throw out a wheelbarrow, and the doors all unlocked, I had time to prepare myself for Dr, Owen's statement, based upon an experience of over twenty years, that in building a new asylum he would have only such doors and windows and fences as are found in a gentleman's private house and grounds. Dr. Owen has one assistant physician and twenty-five attendants, whom he can employ in case of necessity, although so many are not always needed; that is, he treats individuals, and not wards or galleries."
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2025/01/liverpool-hospitals-mill-road-hospital.html
No comments:
Post a Comment