Monday Lecture: The Lunatic Asylum in the 19th Century

The Victorian lunatic asylum is often seen as a grim place of incarceration and the site of Gothic horror. However, reforms to the asylum system during the period improved the care of patients and provided impetus to the new discipline of psychology, while the buildings themselves were modelled on country estates intended to be seen as a place of respite. This lecture will explore the positive as well as the darker aspects of the nineteenth-century asylum in England.