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

Fielding, were sharply criticising the bureaucracy, favour and host of conditions, controlling,
and inhibiting, the admission of the sick and insane poor to hospitals like St. Luke's and Beth-
1cm, by mid-century 62 . Indeed, admission to Bethiem was by no means automatic, requiring,
not only the nomination of one or more governors, but also 'expedition' for the officials and
hospital officers who administered such admissions, from JP8 and the I3ethlem Treasurer and
Clerk, down to the Steward and underservants of Bethlem 63 . This was partially, of course,
the old and familiar story of institutional corruption, yet it was also, as the parish officers of
St. Botolph Bishopsgate put it, a matter of expenses 'makeing friends to get [a patient]...into
Bethlem'64 . With 320 'incurable' patients on the waiting list during 1769-76, little more than
of whom obtained admission; and with almost of those admitted forced to wait between five
and nine years for their admissions (see Tables 6g and 6h), patients were effectively competing
for places at Bethlem. By the 1780s, according to Thomas Bowen, there were on average 200
patients every year on the waiting list68 . Although, by the second half of the century, patients
were being admitted at both Bethlem and St. Luke's according to strict rotation from their
waiting lists, patients were occasionally permitted to jump the queue at Bethlem on special
recommendations. At other hospitals, like Guy's, where vacancies were even fewer and further
between, the families and friends of the insane could be forced to go to remarkable lengths to
obtain their admission, particularly if residing at great distance from London66.
This factor of privilege was severely circumscribed, however. While agreeing to lodge
Robert/Edward Phillips temporarily in the Steward's house in 1641, after a letter on his behalf
from Sir Benjamin Rudyerd to the President, the Governors tetchily remarked that Phillips 'is
not any thinge to the D[o]c[t]or for his advice & if there had bene convenient roome in the
62 CGJ, No 44 & 45, 3 & 6 June 1752, 250-51 & 251-5, & accompanying notea. Fielding dearly had the
superior management & stewardship of the Foundling hospital in mind, of which he was a governor & great
patron.
63 See e.g. GIII MSS 6552/2, 25 June 1701; 552/3, 21 June & 8 Sept. 1712; cases of Anne Collingwood,
Thomas Page, Elizabeth Masters, of St. Bride.
64 GIdhall MS 4525/30, fol. 138, case of Elizabeth Gray.
65 Bowen, Historical Accoant, 7.
66 John Morley, for example, a Warwickshire clergyman, prevailed in obtaining a place for his 'poor sister' in
Guy's, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, only after years of waiting, having noticed in the prass that a
patient had died there and riding the very next day to a better connected clergyman he knew in order to initiate
an application. See Warwicksliire Cosntp Record Office MS. CR 2486 4 Mic 142, D,arp of JoAn Morley, 2 Nov.
1797, 30 May & 10 June 1800, 2 & 10 Feb. 1801, & 17 Feb. 1813. I am very grateful to Jan Fergus for providing
me with this information.
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