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

most other witnesses at the 1815/16 enquiry, considered 'a strait-waistcoat a much better thing
than irons'. Indeed, Monro's testimony indicates that the employment of irons at lunatic hospi-
tals was justified more on the basis of class and economy, than on medical grounds; suitable only
for the sensibilities of the pauper insane and only 'in a hospital [where] there is no possibility of
having servants enough to watch a great number of persons'327.
The use of the strait-waistcoat at Bethiem may, in fact, throw some light upon some unan-
swered questions of psychiatric historians as to 'when it was introduced' and when it came into
more general usage328 . The first record found by Hunter and Macalpine of the strait-waistcoat
being employed, was in Bethnal Green madhouse upon Alexander 'the Corrector' Cruden in
1738, while the same historians also observed how it had descended into popular literature by
the 1750s and 608329. The standard assumption has been that the strait-waistcoat was employed
first in private madhouses and adopted by public hospitals only towards the latter part of the
century, and there is little to contradict this impression in the Bethlem archives. The two 'long
sleived', 'strong', 'Ticking Wastcoat[s]' bought for William Steel in the space of six months,
during 1728, at a cost of 17/ each, and the two 'long sleived duble Wastcoate[s]' bought for per-
son(s) unnamed, in 1731, at a cost of 12/ each, may conceivably denote early strait-waistcoats,
which certainly had long sleeves and were 'made of ticken, or some such strong stuff' 330 . No
patient in Bethlem at this time, however, appears to have been called William Steele, although
it is unlikely that Steele was a member of staff, or that these coats were merely those ordi-
narily provided for servants by the hospital 331 . Subsequent entries in the Stewards' Accounts
it ia, perhaps, no surprise that he supported Haslam's opinion of the strait waistcoat; see 3rd Report, 174. Yet,
as Scull observe,, Haslazn's view continued to be echoed by a number of eminent writers and practitioners over
the ensuing decades. See Scull, Social Order, 70.71.
327 Thid, 1st Report, 96.
328 See Hunter & Macalpine, Psychia try, 449.
329 See Ibid & Cruden, The London-Citizen Exceedingly Inj.red, title page & 8.
Indeed, the fixed charge for an ordinary 'coat' for a male patient was 14/, prior to 1734, not 17/ or even
12/. See BSA, 11-18 May & 21-28 Sept. 1728, & 13-20 Feb. 1731, fol, 329, 348 & 474; BCGM, 22 Jan. 1734,
fol. 325, & Hunter & Macalpine, Psychiatry, 449.
There was a pnvate patient in Bethiem called Richard Steel, of Croydon, Surrey, who was admitted on
9 Oct. 1725 azid died on 14 May 1728, coincidentally with the first mention of the purchase of a waistcoat m
surviving Stewards' Accounts. Yet Richard Steele was already dead by the time mote waistcoat, were bought
for William Steele and others unnamed. See BAR, fol. 88. The purchase of servant,' coats was not normally
recorded in the Stewards' Account., however.
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