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

were paramount as never before. She was henceforth to make daily inspections to ensure that
women patients were 'regularly Shifted and Sheeted'; to keep accounts of patients linnen to
prevent it being purloined and to check every Wednesday that it was properly sterilised and
washed, and to take care that patients were kept clean and their 'Straw...changed when Damp
or Dirty'. She was to ensure that the stove room fire was punctually lit and the designated
patients removed there in good time; that the 'low Spirited and Mopish be Obliged to get up',
ejected and locked out of their cells; that the 'Lewdly given be Confined' and allowed visitors
solely under chaperonage by a maid-servant; that the sick, in particular, were properly cared
for and removed to the infirmary if necessary, and was to acquaint the Physician whenever any
patient took to their bed 'without particular Sickness'. Finally, she was to ensure an that each
maid had charge of a fair distribution of confined and working patients, and that those patients
who were 'Capable' were employed, rather than 'Idle"96.
Men and maid servants (along with assisting patients) were indubitably the dogs-bodies of
the Bethlem work force. Their manifold duties included 'dressing'(i.e. cooking), 'cutting out'
(i.e. dividing into bowls) and serving, patients' meals; cleaning the hospital and patients' bodies,
cells and clothing; conducting visitors; 'shifting' [i.e. dressing] patients; restraining unruly pa-
tients (men and women) and quelling disorders when they arose, both day and night; assisting in
the barbering, bleeding & bathing of patients; administering patients' physic; fetching and car-
rying provisions; delivering patients, or letters concerning patients, to their sureties, and taking
various other messages as instructed by the Committee, Treasurer, Clerk or Steward. Duties
deemed of a greater responsibility were largely reserved to the basketmen. Basketmen alone
were asked to deliver hospital correspondeiice and attend on Committees, while maid servants
(barring the cook) were also excluded from the actual apportioning of food and drink. While
the role of men-servants was considerably more extensive in terms of keeping order amongst
the patients, maids were more widely employed in domestic chores. Maids, exclusively, were
required to clean the Committee Rooms, and other areas in the centre of the house, and to
perform (or latterly, to help in performing) the hospital laundry work. The shifting of female
patients, however, seems to have been relieved from the maids, following the appointment of a
Nurse (whose duties are dealt with in chaps 3 & 4)197. By 1736, basketmen took turns in being
in charge, either of the beer and its distribution from the hospital cellar, or of the apportioning
of provisions, and the latter duty was restricted to dairy products. In 1765, these duties were
entrusted to the newly created office of assistant basketman, who was also given charge of the
196 Thid, 20 June 1765, fo1 135-6.
i&ad, 6 May 1736, lol. 391.
367