Family Strategies and the Institutional Confinement of "Idiot" Children in Victorian England

Abstract

This article examines the role of families in the institutional confinement of idiot children in Victorian England. First, it surveys the changing historiography of mental hospitals, showing how historians of medicine are increasingly looking to paradigms of familial strategies and household structure to understand why people were committed to asylums. Second, it contributes to the growing literature on the characteristics of patients by examining the results of admission records for more than 2,000 children admitted to one philanthropic institution—the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. Third, it selects a sample of 400 inmates to investi gate more extensively the geographical location of the "institutionalising " family and the occupation of guardians. Last, this article applies the technique of nominal record linkage to medical records and census enumerators'schedules to discover any demographic factors involved in families' decision to commit children to the Earlswood Asylum.