Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

MADNESS AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 107after 1750 the population of France rose by 22 per cent, from 22 million to nearly27 million; in the United Kingdom population increased 36 per cent, from 10million to 16 million. 26 In each of the two countries the conditions of the ruralpoor were harsh and worsening. The great majority of French peasants werelandless or had insufficient holdings, oppressed by feudal dues, tithes, taxes andinflation. 27 In Britain, the enclosure of common lands in the eighteenth centurydeprived cottagers of their subsistence and drove increasing numbers intoagricultural wage labor that provided meager and intermittent compensation. Theresult was destitution for many and an increase in applications for poor relief.Taxes for relief-the poor rate—more than tripled between 1760 and 1801 inBritain, and nearly equaled the entire cost of English national government,excluding the army and navy. 28Holding back the onset of the Industrial Revolution, argues British historianT.S.Ashton, were social resistance to change and the lack of skill and adaptabilityof the workers. 29 But as the population grew, the mass of the landless poorswelled and the ranks of beggars, vagrants and unemployed increased, thediversion of laboring men, women and children into industrial wage workbecame possible. “It was not the least of the achievements of the IndustrialRevolution,” writes Ashton, “that it drew into the economic system part of thatlegion of the lost, and that it turned many of the irregulars into efficient, if overregimented,members of an industrial army.” 30 In France, by way of contrast, theRevolution so far improved the condition of the peasants that the flow of“landless free labourers merely trickled into the cities” and the “capitalisttransformation…was slowed to a crawl.” 31Some of the “irregulars” in Britain, were less readily “regimented” than others—the insane among them. What was to be done with those who would not, orcould not, work? In striving to hold down the cost of poor relief the policymakers of the early Industrial Revolution became obsessed with the need to force“the very great number of lazy People to maintain themselves by their ownIndustry.” Obligating applicants for relief “to submit to the Confinement andLabour of the Workhouse.” 32 was one such measure. The number of psychoticand mentally deficient people confined in poorhouses in England and Wales,however, became considerable—4,000–5,000 by 1789, estimates KathleenJones. 33 Many more were confined for vagrancy in jails and Bridewells (houses ofcorrection), and others were maintained on outdoor relief. 34 Hospitals and asylumswere few. Bethlem in London had existed since the twelfth century, and twohospitals were opened through voluntary public subscription in the 1750s—theManchester Lunatic Hospital and St Luke’s in London. In most areas, however,those lunatics who were unmanageable in workhouses and jails were transferred,at public expense, to private madhouses. The number of these privateestablishments was increasing, and 30–40 licensed houses existed at the end of theeighteenth century. 35 The York Retreat was one such.