Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

Like Swift, Mackenzie, in his The Mon of Feeling (1771), portrays the archetypal Bethlem
keeper as vulgar and insensible, bragging about the entertainment value of the 'fierce and un-
manageable patients' under his charge, and badgering visitors to see them, in the style 'of those
that keep wild beasts for a shew'456 . Yet, as we shall see (chap. 5), the uniformly poor image
of Betblem servants has been appreciably overdrawn.
Undoubtedly, much of the energy of Bethiem staff was diverted from their responsibilities to
the patients by their duties as visitors' guides and by their interests in visitors' purses. Speaking
of the benefits of curtailing visiting in his Spital Sermon of 1789, the Reverend Boyer claimed,
validly enough, that 'the Servants [are] less interrupted in their Attendance'457. As the 1815/16
Commons enquiry and the first hand view of Urbane Metcalf reveal, however, many patients
suffered more harshly under the closer attention of staff and further removed from the watchful,
restraining eye of the public458.
Understafflng was plainly a considerable problem at Bethiem, nevertheless. Prior to 1770,
guided tours of the hospital by staff were the exception rather than the rule for visitors, owing
to their disproportionate numbers. Visitors themselves, like the correspondent to The World
of 1753, complained that the masses were 'unattended', and moreover, were not attended by
'proper persons'459 . At old Bethiem, staff must have been better able to conduct the smaller
ntinthers of visitors. Literary scenarios of visits in this period normally involve some degree of
supervision, even if keepers bemoan their 'busie charge' and must occasionally leave their guests
alone460. The Board was not oblivious to the escalation of the problem at Moorfields, adding
another servant to the staff in 1681 owing to the increase in the numbers of both patients and
visitors46t . Yet, staffing remained grossly inadequate for coping with the mounting influx to
456 0p. cu, 30, 33-4. Much earlier, Dekker had portrayed the 'Sweeeper' at Bethlem drawn into collusion with
the visitor., and asking them to 'say nothing' to the Master 'that I tel tales out of schoole'; Honest Whore, p1.
I, V, ii, Is 107-50.
A Paalm of Thnkagiving...jTiJ A tr.e Report of the great N*mer of poor Children, and other Poor People,
maintained in the several IlospiMis, under the pioas Care oJ the...Lord Majror...etc. (London, 1789).
Madhonse Committee Report; Metcalf, Interior of Bethlehem hospital.
World, lxiii, 138.
460 See e g. Changeling, Ill, iii, 1. 166-8 & 200-5; honest Whore, pt. I, V, ii, 1. 241, & Norlhwood Ho, IV, iii,
1. 54-5.
461 'And that the service of the...hospitall may be the better performed'; BCGM, 22 April 1681, fol. 217. For
a more detailed account of underataffing and absenteeism at Bethkm, see chap. 5, infra.
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