Bedlam

17 Mar, 2016 360 Social problems and social services

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the early years of Bedlam, the name commonly used for the London hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, described in 1450 by the Lord Mayor of London as a place where may “be found many men that be fallen out of their wit. And full honestly they be kept in that place; and some be restored onto their wit and health again. And some be abiding therein for ever.” As Bethlem, or Bedlam, it became a tourist attraction in the 17th Century at its new site in Moorfields and, for its relatively small size, made a significant impression on public attitudes to mental illness. The illustration, above, is from the eighth and final part of Hogarth’s ‘A Rake’s Progress’ (1732-3), where Bedlam is the last stage in the decline and fall of a young spendthrift,Tom Rakewell.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • Hilary Marland No other episodes
    Professor of History at the University of Warwick
  • Justin Champion 11 episodes
    Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London and President of the Historical Association
  • Jonathan Andrews No other episodes
    Reader in the History of Psychiatry at Newcastle University

Reading list

  • The History of Bethlem
    Jonathan Andrews, Asa Briggs, Roy Porter, Penny Tucker, Keir Waddington (Routledge, 1997) Google Books →
  • Undertaker of the Mind: Dr John Monro and Mad-doctoring in Eighteenth-century England
    Jonathan Andrews with Andrew Scull (University of California Press, 2001) Google Books →
  • Customers and Patrons of the Mad Trade. The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London
    Jonathan Andrews with Andrew Scull (University of California Press, 2003) Google Books →
  • Bedlam: London and its Mad
    Catharine Arnold (Simon & Schuster, 2010) Google Books →
  • Medicine and Charity Before the Welfare State
    Jonathan Barry and Colin Jones (eds.) (Routledge, 1991) Google Books →
  • A Treatise on Madness
    William Battie (eds. Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine) (Dawsons, 1962) Google Books →
  • The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry, Volume II
    W. F. Bynum, Roy Porter and Michale Shepherd (eds.) (Tavistock, 1985) Google Books →
  • Proceedings of the 1st European Congress on the History of Psychiatry and Mental Health Care
    Leonie de Goei and Joost Vijselaar (eds.) (Erasmus Publishing, 1993) Google Books →
  • Illustrations of Madness
    John Haslam (ed. Roy Porter) (Tavistock/Routledge, 1988) Google Books →
  • Separate Theaters: Bethlem ("Bedlam") Hospital and the Shakespearean Stage
    Ken Jackson (University of Delaware Press, 2005) Google Books →
  • The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and his Visionary Madness
    Mike Jay (Bantam, 2003) Google Books →
  • Bedlam
    Anthony Masters (Michael Joseph, 1977) Google Books →
  • Remarks on Dr. Battie's Treatise on Madness
    John Monro (eds. Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine) (Dawsons, 1962) Google Books →
  • Distracted Subjects. Madness and Gender in Shakespeare and Early Modern Culture
    Carol T. Neely (Cornell University Press, 2004) Google Books →
  • Bedlam in the Light of History
    J. Plumb (Allen Lane, 1972) Google Books →
  • Mind-Forg'd Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency
    Roy Porter (Penguin, 1990) Google Books →
  • Medicine and the Enlightenment
    Roy Porter (ed.) (Rodopi, 1995) Google Books →
  • Madness. A brief History
    Roy Porter (Oxford, 2002) Google Books →
  • Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-doctors & Lunatics
    Roy Porter (Tempus, 2006) Google Books →
  • Bedlam on the Jacobean Stage
    Robert R. Reed (Harvard University Press, 1952) Google Books →
  • The Most Solitary of Afflictions. Madness and Society in Britain, 1700-1900
    Andrew T. Scull (Yale University Press, 1993) Google Books →
  • The Church and Healing
    W. Sheils (ed.) (Blackwell, 1982) Google Books →
  • Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750-1830
    Leonard D. Smith (Routledge, 2007) Google Books →
  • Medicine and Magnificence: British Hospital and Asylum Architecture, 1660-1815
    Christine Stevenson (Yale University Press, 2000) Google Books →
  • Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century
    Charles Webster (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 1979) Google Books →

Related episodes

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

Programme ID: b0739rfg

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0739rfg

Auto-category: 362.2 (Mental health and mental illness)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello, the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem was founded in London in 1247.