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

late 1740s, represented the female keeper of her anti-heroine 'Peggy' (committed to Bethlem
by her parents as a melancholic) in a much softer light, as dutiful and attentive, and actually
instrumental in the patient's recovery330.
The story of recruitment and conduct at Bethlem, continued throughout the period, however
(especially where the lower ranks were concerned), to underline the difficulties of finding reliable
staff and of effectively overseeing their behaviour. The bark of the Governors' disciplinary
proceedings against staff was generally worse than the bite, and achieved very limited success
in deterring inveterate abuses. Salutary initiatives, such as the ruling of 1677, which sought to
establish an ascending scale of fines for (less serious) misdemeanours, culminating in dismissal
for a third offence, were simply not (or not strictly) enforced 1 . Ultimately, the overwhelmingly
negative assessments of contemporary visitors to the hospital are difficult to dispute. Again and
again visitors castigated the brutality of its staff towards patients. While one must be at pains to
acknowledge the polemic of accounts like that of an Irish gentleman, who visited Bethiem in 1752,
and described a collection of 'poor creatures. ..kept under such discipline that they tremble when
they see any of the officers belonging to the house' 332 ; there is little evidence to contradict the
general impression that it was 'terrific' discipline rather than care which epitomised treatment
of patients by staff at Bethiem.
Terenia Con*tantia Phillip., Apology... (London, 1759; IM edn, 1748-9), 71-89.
331 BCGM, 30 March 1677, fol. 361. I have, in fact, found no evidence whataoever that any Bethkm servant
w ever fined for a misdeineanour.
332 See N.rraii,e oJ Ike Joarney of sn Irish Genlleni.n Thrung& Englsni in Ike peer 17fl (ed.), Henry Huth
(London, Chiswidc Press, 1869), 93
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