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

acting on reports from persons unnamed, but probably servants, visitors or individual gover-
nors themselves). Governors generally visited patients almost by the way, on occasions when
they came to Bishopsgate in connection with property owned by the hospital. While 'viewers'
were annually elected out of their ranks, forming, by the 1630s, the 'Committee for building
and reparacions', which was responsible for most matters that required amendment on the sites
of both hospitals, committees of governors were summoned in an ad hoc fashion, to deal with
problems as they were reported 90 . For much of the seventeenth century, Bethlem suffered as
the poorer partner of Bridewell, much removed from the attention of governors who had only
assumed its custody in 1557 and whose courts and major business continued to be conducted
at, and concerned primarily with, Bridewell. While, of necessity, the Governors became more
vigilant over affairs at L3ethlem, after the dismissal of Crooke and during the troublesome Stew-
ardship of Langley, it was only temporarily, when overseers of provisions were appointed, that
a regular requirement to visit the hospital obtained. It was one of these overseers, in 1638,
who discovered a number of patients 'recov[er]ed of theire Lunacy', and delivered 'a noate' of
their names to the Court91 . Although 'some of the Governo[rs]' were 'intreated', 'from time to
time...to oversee the carriage of business', or 'to goe [there] as often as they can', and gover-
nors who lived nearby the hospital might 'especially' be encouraged to attend more regularly,
clearly months often passed before patients themselves were actually inspected by members of
the Board.
Until the 1630s, the Governors had been happy to leave affairs at Bethiem largely to the care
of the Keeper, and Allderidge has graphically illustrated the evidence of neglect and indiscrimi-
nate reception of patients that greeted the Governors on some of their rare visits to the hospital
in the period 1547-1633. The discovery on one such visit, in 1624, of eleven patients 'not fitt
to bee kepte'; three of whom were variously described as merely 'Idiot', 'simple' or 'something
idle headed' and were to be removed; three of whom were suffering only from 'physical' ailments
and were sent 'to some other hospital'; and six of whom were either sufficiently recovered, or
for whom no payment was being received, and were to be returned from whence they came94;
90 For this diicu,ion, ee BCGM, ep. 20 Feb. 1600, 31 July, & 7 & 21 Aug., 1629, 16 April & 28 May 1630,
18 Feb. 1631, 12 March & 13 July 1632, 15 March 1633, 21 June & 16 Aug. 1637, (oh 144, 137-40, 183, 188,
217, 270, 289, 320, 125-7 & 134; chap. 5, aaprl, & Ailderkige, 'Management and mi*rnanagement'.
91 BCGM, 22 Aug. 1638, fol. 193.
92 Ibid, e g. 3 Dec. 1641, 16 May 1655, (oh 359 & 702.
Ailderidge, 'Management & mhmanagement'.'
JIIid, 152-3; BCGM, 1624, (oh. 368.
437