Louisa Lowe and the Bastilles of England
How one woman won against the State
In the later part of the 19th Century, concern began to be voiced about the detention and treatment of lunatics. These unfortunates were housed in large asylums — run by County authorities — , or in private madhouses and licensed houses wherein the wealthy (some insane and some not) were kept at considerable expense, often in abominable conditions. Novels such as those by Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White) and Charles Reade (Hard Cash) were widely read, and occasional celebrated court cases served to arouse some degree of public scepticism about the way in which the law was administered and the treatment delivered.
The government was not troubled by any whispering that all was not well. For sure there might be a miscarriage of justice here and a poor medical superintendent there, but they could reassure themselves that they had appointed a special Lunacy Commission whose duty was to inspect and approve such premises and deal with any serious misdemeanours that might occur. And to bring added authority to its work the longstanding chair of the Lunacy Commission, Lord Ashley, was a man of unimpeachable integrity and the utmost moral rectitude. If anything was amiss — and he assured Parliament that nothing was amiss — then he would surely put it right.
A bomb was detonated in this complacent world by the publication of a book, The Bastilles of England, written by one Louisa Lowe.
Louisa Lowe’s troubled life
At the time that she wrote and published the book, in 1883, Louisa was in her fifties and had endured considerable problems in her own life. Born Louisa Crookenden in 1820, she married the Reverend George Lowe who was the vicar at a rural village called Upottery in the county of Devon. According to Louisa “something terrible” happened on their wedding night which she alluded to but would never elaborate on. Perhaps it affected her mental wellbeing or perhaps the fact that her husband had a longstanding relationship with their servant unsettled her. Louisa and her husband had eight children, four of whom died in infancy. Later, Louisa would allege that her husband had abused his seven-year-old daughter.
Whatever it was that disturbed her peace of mind Louisa certainly became depressed and attempted suicide by drinking opium. Then, in 1869, when she was staying at the Clarence Hotel in Exeter, George Lowe arranged for his wife to be removed by force and taken to Brislington House, an asylum in Bristol. The superintendent there, Dr Fox, diagnosed that she was suffering from “Subacute mania, restlessness….and…perversion of moral sentiments” — not the most convincing of medical complaints it must be said. When she was visited by one of the Lunacy Commissioners — one Robert Lutwidge (just out of interest he turned out to be the uncle of author Lewis Carroll) whom she informed about what had gone on, he responded “We always advise ladies to keep quiet.”
Louisa Lowe was not going to keep quiet, however. She spent eighteen months in three different asylums before being declared completely sane and set free. She decided to use her own experience and some of the knowledge of other difficulties that had arisen to go on the attack.
The Bastilles of England: Indictment of the Lunatic Asylums
The Bastilles of England is a book written of deep conviction and passion, often with a lawyerly tone to boot. The title Lowe chose deliberately summons the iniquities that preceded the French Revolution and her method of attack is one of power and purpose. Louisa confronts the government and accuses the Lunacy Commissioners through the compilation of case after case and iniquity upon injustice. She goes so far as to accuse specific commissioners of corruption by demonstrating from her evidence that no other explanation is possible.
How could it be, asks Lowe in her book, that the relatives of one Sir Samual Fludyer, evidenced as quite sane by his solicitor not long previously, could be taken and locked in a private madhouse for years even when others who visited him could find nothing wrong? And what of Mrs Bowden, completely sane, a quiet hard-working widow in Cheshire, whose sister was both jealous and controlling. How could this sister arrange for Mrs Bowden to be incarcerated for so long and even persuade the vicar to sign forms supporting the detention? The forging of documents and the withholding of letters by the medical superintendent were also in evidence in this as in some other cases.
On and on pressed Louisa Lowe, pointing to the financial incentives that would lead doctors to work together with private madhouses to keep hold of the so-called insane, whether they were mad or not. And to counter the point that the law itself was very clear — that a person could only be detained in an asylum if they were a danger to themselves or others — Lowe quoted Dr Christie, superintendent of the Indian Asylum in Ealing when she herself was a patient there: when being reminded about a legal requirement by an assistant-matron he responded, “Oh, we do not care for the law.”
Lowe pointed specifically to two of the Lunacy Commissioners who, she claimed, had visited numerous individuals and asserted that there were no grounds for their discharge from the madhouse. When others had no doubts as to the sanity of those same individuals the inescapable conclusion was that the commissioners were in receipt of bribes to ensure that the wealthy patients, whose relatives paid so well for their upkeep, never loosed their shackles and gained their freedom.
At the close of her book, Lowe presents a lengthy outline of the ways in which the law required alteration. She put her knowledge and experience to positive and constructive use and outlined the necessity that doctors should never have a pecuniary interest in the detention and treatment of their patients. They must be disinterested. The private madhouses must be abolished and local inspectors be appointed — females for female detainees and male for male. Permission for letters from and to patients must be ensured. Attendants should be properly trained. And proper processes of appeal should be in place.
Reaction and reform
The Victorian conscience was, finally, pricked. Recognition that “out of sight, out of mind” was a very dangerous philosophy finally prevailed and serious attention was given to the ever-growing numbers of people locked up in asylums and madhouses. Lord Ashley was evidently rocked by the revelations. The tide of approbation for incarcerating people gradually turned to scepticism and eventually into downright disgust. In 1890 the government passed an Act incorporating many of Louisa Lowe’s recommendations, a number of which have continued to be a mainstay of the law today.
Louisa Lowe, with her experiences her convictions and her passion, had taken on the establishment and emerged victorious.
