| Author |
Message |
    
Erin Sigler
Police Constable
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 12:31 am: | 
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One of the main objections I and several writers on the subject have had to Kosminski's candidacy as the Ripper has to do with his transfer to Leavesden, which we're told was an asylum for "imbeciles," which I've taken to mean mentally retarded but otherwise harmless individuals. However, as I was reading James Tully's book on Jimmy Kelly I ran across a very interesting passage detailing a letter sent to the Daily Telegraph, signed "X" of St. Albans. It states that an "inmate of the lunatic asylum at Leavesden" had escaped a year before, and that "the local paper warned females against being out at night in the neighbourhood, as this man was dangerous only to women[emphasis added]," (172).
Now, I realize that this inmate could not have been Kosminski, but I think it's instructive to note that authorities considered this "imbecile" enough of a threat to warn the local female population. So perhaps these "imbeciles" were more dangerous than we've been led to believe. If true, this could make Kosminski a bit more viable as a suspect.
If anyone can find the original report that supposedly appears in the Telegraph, please let me know. Also, I'll try to do some research into Leavesden and what exactly the various designations (such as imbecile) actually meant. |
Peter Sipka
Police Constable
Username: Peter
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 4:54 pm: |
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Even if your doubts about his asylum whereabouts were answered, Kosminski showed no evidence of violence towards women anyway. His candidacy places him at the bottom of the list as being very weak. |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Chief Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 531
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 5:51 pm: |
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Hi Erin
Kosminski's candidacy as JTR arose, as far as we know, out of MacNaughten's notes. Needless to say these are of dubious value. He calls Kosminski a homicidal maniac with a great hatred toward women. Sugden investigated Kosminski's alleged proclivity for violence in his book and concluded that he had no violent tendencies. The only sign of violence he ever showed was when he picked up a chair and tried to strike an attendant. This incident occurred at Colney Hatch.
During his twenty-five years at Leavesden he exhibited no signs of violent behavior.
We can't ignore the highly unreliable posturings of that incompetent cop, Sir Robert Anderson and his sidekick Swanson. Sugden calls Anderson and Swanson's theories 'a world of wish dreams' and an attempt to turn a harmless lunatic into the most infamous killer in history. (See Sugden 423; generally 397-423)
I would be interested in getting the page of Tully's book which you mention.
I would expect that the letter Tully quotes would be another piece of unreliable correspondence from the public. If your researches prove differently please be sure to post whatever you find.
All The Best
Gary |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Chief Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 532
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 5:54 pm: |
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Ignore that request for the page number as I see it in your post. Apologies.-and to reach the twenty five word minimum I will know reveal to the world the name of the killer... |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2130
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 8:54 pm: |
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Hi all
I suppose at least we can say that if anyone did indeed "escape" from Leavesden then, violent or non-violent, the escaper can't have been as imbecilic as we'd have thought.
Robert |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Chief Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 534
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 9:13 am: |
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Hi Robert
If a so called imbecile could make plans to leave, even if by just wandering away, and remain at large for more than a year-then clearly not all imbeciles at Leavesden were created mentally equal.
I remember when I was a teenager in the 70's, the terms used to describe people with different degrees or gradations of mental deficiency were rather blunt and unkind. I recall there were three distinct categories of moron. The high grade moron, the mid-grade moron and the low grade moron. Somewhere below that came the idiot and so on. I'm sure we have kinder terms for these poor souls today.
All The Best
Gary |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2132
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:59 am: |
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Yes, Gary, I suspect (though don't know) that these terms - imbecile, moron, cretin etc - were originally clinical terms which were taken over as terms of abuse.
I believe "spaz" is still in use amongst some - not to denote a spastic person but simply as an insult.
I do wonder about some of the LVP diagnoses though. James Kelly survived remarkably well for a lunatic!
Robert |
Erin Sigler
Police Constable
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 6
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 10:17 pm: |
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Thanks for the great responses everyone. I think this is a fascinating topic, even if Kosminski wasn't the Ripper, because it gives us some insight into the Victorian attitudes toward mental illness and how it was treated at the time.
Anyway, I found the following passage regarding life in Leavesden from someone who worked there during the 1960s--a long way from 1888, I know, and I'm sure things changed quite a bit in the interim, but I think it's still pertinent to our discussion. The source is http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/4_13_TA.htm#Leavesden
"Leavesden was a grim place that looked like a Victorian workhouse, on both sides of the main road with a tunnel going under so that people didn't get run over. . .I was on the easier side, away from the more secure part.
Probably 60% of the patients I dealt with (about 60-80 altogether I think) would have been considered mentally handicapped by today's standards, but not enough to be institutionalised, better dealt with in a special needs educational class. There was one woman who was referred to as a 'burnt out' psychopath who had been transferred from Rampton, and did have violent tendencies. There were a few who had been caught for various kinds of sexual misconduct when they were kids, and then there were a few who seemed perfectly normal intelligence-wise, but just a bit 'off' or easily agitated. I think there was probably some truancy or what would now be considered attention deficit and/or hyperactivity disorder. It was really hard to tell, given that these people had been locked up for 40 years or more.
By the way, 'high grade' was a term used by the patients themselves. I seem to remember some of the 'high grades' reading the paper, and they were certainly capable of carrying on a conversation, although often repetitive. Probably bored half to death!
I remember the staff doing the best they could mostly. Our patients didn't get, or seem to need, much in the way of psychiatric help other than some antipsychotics here and there, so the day was spent keeping an eye on them, providing some sort of entertainment, three meals a day plus snacks, and the bathing routine which involved three or four patients at a time, all in very large bathtubs in a huge bathroom, and a lot of clothes-darning and repair done by the staff. It seems really archaic looking back. . . ."
P.S. Rampton, which opened in 1910, was a state-run institution for "mentally defective people considered dangerous," according to the same site listed above. I wonder where they were sent before 1910? I'll do some more checking.
(Message edited by Rapunzel676 on February 21, 2004) |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 876
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 5:22 am: |
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It is a difficult area of discussion this, for we are bound to pollute it with our modern thinking on the subject - a point I have been making elsewhere on this site - and I suppose that it is difficult for us to grasp that such harmless occupations as masturbation were viewed as ‘mental illness’. This in turn does neatly beg the question of if this was the way a simple act of private sexual gratification and release could be treated by the institutionalised mechanisms of the LVP with what horror must they have actually greeted the act of copulation between a whore and her client? Even further, what would have been the institutionalised attitude towards a man or woman who had syphilis or some other sexual transmissible disease? Despite my fertile imagination I could see a situation developing where some poor innocent might drop into an institution to have his or her ‘pox’ sorted out and then find themselves locked away for the rest of their lives.
A rewarding thread this, and I certainly would like to know a lot more about the institutions and their attitudes and methods towards patients who had been tarnished by sexuality in some form or manner.
I believe Broadmoor to have been the chosen institution for the more dangerously insane at that time period; records relating to this time period should I hope be available in the near future and will provide us with a wealth of material, particularly in regard to one or two named suspects.
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Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 308
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 11:04 am: |
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There are records available on how people were treated and some I have actually studied - in particular St Bernards in Hanwell which was linked to Colney Hatch and which pioneered
humane treatment of the "patients".Dr John Conolly who I have mentioned on another thread previously was so innovatory in his treatment of the mentally ill that many of his ideas still guide thinking and attitudes towards the mentally ill today [radical transformations led by Conolly took place from 1838-1844-main changes were a system of non-restraint ,the encouragement of games and outdoor recreations,including supervised outings and the introduction of a bazaar where patients could sell work they had produced in therapeutic activities[or took orders for needlework/wooden toys/basket making, etc. Hanwell asylum [not far from and connected to Colney Hatch]was really a self contained town.Patients worked under supervision of experienced tradesmen;there were horses pigs,cows,poultry, etc; the belief was that those who could should be engaged in useful work.Therefore facilities included a brewery,dairy,laundry,kitchens and workshops for the upholstery, basketmaking, furniture repair, carpentry, dressmaking, tailoring and shoemaking that was carried out by the patients.[Ealing and Hanwell past by Peter Hounsell-Historical publications].
Come to think of it there seem to be places where people are "detained" currently that dont compare too well with some of the Victorian Asylums!
Best Natalie |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 878
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 1:15 pm: |
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Thanks for that Natalie.
I suppose all institutions had their positive and negative sides, but your post does show that there was a great deal of humanity going on in that primitive world of despair, and yes perhaps you are right, some of the institutions of that time could have been far more forward looking than some of our present day ones. Personally I blame Freud for the whole debacle, his influence had not yet percolated through to the LVP, but once it did, everyone was painted with the same brush and got the good old electric shock therapy to cure them of their Oedipus complex or whatever.
I'm sure there was a dark side to these institutions as well though, especially where that concerned what they perceived as sexual misconduct.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2147
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 1:27 pm: |
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I am only going from vague memory here, but was there not a case that came to light a few years ago, of a woman spending decades in an asylum simply because she had been a teenage unmarried mother?
This incarceration would have occurred in the second half of the twentieth century.
Robert |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 621
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 1:49 pm: |
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Hi, all:
Interesting and valuable discussion here on Leavesden Asylum. That there is a lot of easily accessible information about this and other Victorian asylums on the Net - e.g., see Leavesden Asylum.
It is clear that masturbation as a cause of insanity was widely accepted in the mid to late Victorian period, although it appears to have been viewed more as an outward manifestation of other psychological problems rather than in itself the cause of insanity (although, admittedly, that was generally overlooked in the popular guides to healthy, moral living).
We should note that being an asylum for what were termed "imbeciles" did not mean that the patients were not dangerous. The newspapers at the time of the hunt for the Ripper reported the escape of a "dangerous" patient from Leavesden (albeit, it seems the man, it turned out, was not dangerous).
The inpatients of such an asylum were "imbeciles" only in the sense that they were incapable of looking after themselves in the real world in any meaningful sense, which is subnormal, but subnormal is not the same thing as not being dangerous. Probably the contrary I should think.
Best regards
Chris George
Associate Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
(Message edited by admin on February 22, 2004) |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 622
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 2:08 pm: |
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Hi, Robert:
What you are talking about, the incarceration in an asylum of an unmarried mother, while I am not familiar with the particular case to which you refer, sounds as if you might be referring to the scandal that came to light in 1999 about the Catholic church in Ireland in the 1950's and 1960's putting the babies of unmarried mothers up for adoption and making the girls work like slaves in the Magdalene laundries around the land. Such abuses were the subject of a recent film, which was covered in a 2003 CBS news story on "The Magdalene Laundry." Could that be the reference you meant?
All the best
Chris |
Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 310
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 2:34 pm: |
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Hi Chris,I tried to get onto the site you rfer us to and was told there was an "error".
I"ll try again later.As regards these terms that seem to change rather a lot every decade or so .It may be that the stigma of mental illness
has had this effect.But I think that when people have been sectioned for one reason or another
other people start to develop prejudices about them and the terms used come to have a pejorative meaning. Best Wishes Natalie |
Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 311
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 2:49 pm: |
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Hi AP No doubt there were!
I wonder too how someone such as Charles Cutbush would have made out in such an institution.Maybe he"d have concentrated on "raising awareness" of Fenian atrocitiesetc through the performing of plays like the Marquis de Sade did! |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 198
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 2:56 pm: |
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Natalie Severn
The problem with the link was that a space had somehow crept in before the "www".
Try this instead:
http://www.institutions.org.uk/asylums/leavesden_asylum.htm
(Two more words needed.)
Chris Phillips
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2148
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 3:09 pm: |
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Hi Chris
Thanks very much for that link. Yes, that could be the one I meant. Amazing to think that this kind of thing was happening until recently.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 313
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 3:36 pm: |
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Hi Chris Many thanks.Very useful to have it for reference in the future.I worked briefly in such a place when my mother had an operation and I took over her Art class for her for six weeks.
Best Natalie. |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 624
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 9:41 am: |
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Hi Natalie
I'm glad the information I provided was useful. There was a slight error in the URL for the Leavesden site which has now been corrected courtesy of the intrepid Mr. Ryder. Thanks to Stephen, and to you, Natalie, for your patience and support.
All the best
Chris |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2149
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 10:04 am: |
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Hi all
Aaron wasn't sent to Leavesden until 1894. This would seem to indicate either that he was a borderline case - on the fringes of being imbecilic - or that his condition deteriorated to the point where he became imbecilic. But he doesn't seem to have been an out and out congenital imbecile.
Robert |
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 405
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 1:25 pm: |
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The terms "imbecile" and "idiot" are archaic technical medical terms. In Victorian times these words would have had precise definitions, and would not have been used in a general sense. Perhaps someone could check an old medical dictionary from the latter half of the 19th century and give us a precise definition.
Decades later these words lost their technical precision when they fell into common use as insults directed toward people who were actually sane.
Andy S. |
Alex Chisholm
Detective Sergeant
Username: Alex
Post Number: 76
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 5:17 pm: |
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Hi Andy
“A Dictionary of Terms Used in Medicine” by Richard D. Hoblyn, MA, Oxon. 12th Edition (with additions by John A. P. Price, BA, MD, Oxon.) London 1892 gives the following definitions:
IDIOT (a private person; one not engaged in public affairs). A term characteristic of Greek life; from its primary use, as applied to a private or unofficial person, it came to signify an ignorant person, unqualified for office; eventually, it denoted a person whose mental powers were not merely unexercised, but positively deficient.
IDIOTCY or IDIOCY. Extreme imbecility of intellect, in which the faculty of reason has never been developed, owing to congenital imperfection of the brain. See Lunacy.
LUNACY (luna, the moon). A term sometimes employed as synonymous with mania, but the affection is characterized by lucid intervals. Unsoundness of mind is perhaps the most accurate definition of the present legal meaning of the term that can be given. The term is derived from an idea that the lunatic is affected by changes of the moon. See Idiotcy.
IMBECILLITAS (imbecillus, weak). Debility; “uniform exhaustion of all the organs of the body without specific disease.” This term, originally denoting feebleness of the body, is applied, popularly, to weakness of the mind or intellect.
Imbecile itself does not appear and, given the general vagueness of some definitions, I’m not sure how authoritative Hoblyn’s dictionary was thought to be at the time.
Best Wishes
alex
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Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 409
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 1:10 am: |
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Thanks, Alex.
I must admit that I'm surprised at some of the definitions. For example, yes I knew that "idiote" was a Greek term for a "private person", i.e. one not holding public office. BUt I thought it had a more specific medical definition in the 19th century.
Andy S. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2152
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 6:16 am: |
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I feel that unless the doctors administered reasoning tests to each inmate - which given the Victorians' passion for economy I doubt - the precise classification of the inmates would have been very much at the whim of the individual doctor.
I note that Leavesden made provision for "excitable" patients.
Robert |
John Cullwick
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 7:04 am: |
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Is a list of inmates available? I am trying to follow up a Richard BOWLES, who was at Leavesden, aged 62, widower, born Mile End, a watchman, in the 1881 census.
The Richard Bowles I am reseraching was, according to his family, a dock labourer who became a left wing agitator and was sent to prison for his views.
Could they be one and the same, I wonder.
Bw John Cullwick |
Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 958
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 12:33 pm: |
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John
In my experience the usual problem in looking people up in certain institutions is that they are only listed by initials.
This may limit the info you can find
Chris
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Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 959
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 12:43 pm: |
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In the 1881 returne the Richard Bowles you mention is listed by full name.
"Metropoliton District Asylum" Leavesden"
Richard Bowles
Patient
Widowed
Aged 62
Born Mile End
Watchman
A full list of patients is available for that year
he is still listed as a patient in Leavesden in 1891 as follows:
Richard Bowles
Patient
Age 72
Cellarman
Place of birth: Not known
L (This signifies the patient is designated a Lunatic)
Hope this helps
Chris
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chris john lamb
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 2:33 pm: |
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hey, my name's chris. i dont know how old this post is, i just found it searching on the internet. I live in Leavesden, about a 2 minute walk from the Asylum. I thought i may aswell let you that the asylum was converted into FLATS about a year or so ago, how weird is that? Well anyway, there is a graveyard near by where "jack the ripper" is buried. This is a very eerie place, covered by huge trees, with alot of intertesting grave stones. In a few days time im going to try my best to find his stone, if i do, i will submit pictures for you. Something strange about this graveyard is that there are a series of sunken shallow graves, where the inmates of the asylum were buried in hessian sacks instead of coffins, about a few feet underground. Quite a disturbing sight. if anyone has any questions or anything, please email me, i would be glad to help. hope this made some sense to someone. |
Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 379
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 3:23 pm: |
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Hi Chris,This seems to be quite common-converting these places into flats.St.Bernards in West London
has been "refurbished" likewise.
I was interested in this local knowledge that someone who may have been Jack the Ripper was buried there.As you"ll see above Kosminski would have been who they were meaning,though its now
thought possible that there was a mix up between two "inmates" Kosminski and David Cohen and this may have happened because both were being watched by different police[the Met and the City of London police who apparently didnt liaise too well
over it all -hence one thought they had the ripper in Kosminski while the other thought they
had theirs in David Cohen.Of the two its possibly more likely to have been David Cohen as he was so violent and was incarcerated just after the last of the canonical five murders.He died I believe at Colney Hatch in 1889.Do let us know then if there is a date on the grave you mention.
Ofcourse who the ripper actually was is still not known[see suspects thread].
Many thanks for the information and look forward to hearing from you again.
Natalie.
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Lisa Turner
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 7:30 am: |
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Dear Chris
This graveyard sounds fascinating. However Aaron Kosminski was definately not buried in or anywhere near Leavesden.
It would be great if you could take some eerie pictures there and post them for us.
Regards
Lisa Jane} |
Kathy Vernon
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, September 05, 2004 - 5:37 am: |
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Dear Chris,
Just been on the message board for Leavesden asylum and read your email as we have been looking at local history of Leavesden. We also live a couple of minutes walk from the old asylum graveyard. I had been to the graveyard once before and found it very eerie, and so took my wife there yesterday to see what she thought.
There was no doubt that there was a strange atmosphere there. On doing some internet research later, we were quite shocked to read your email, that 'Jack the Ripper' was possibly buried there. We also noticed the dips in the graves but had no idea why! what a strange place, i'm not sure we will go back!
Thanks for the info,
Jon and Kathy Michael |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1118
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 6:07 pm: |
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Hi Jon and Kathy,I think Aaron Kosminski was given a very traditional Jewish funeral by a firm of Undertakers whose address was very close to the Great Synagogue in near Mitre Square ,Aldgate.
It would seem that his family took his body away from Leavesdon so they could pay their respects to him.
Natalie |
DARK_INTENT
Sergeant
Username: Dark_intent
Post Number: 18
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 5:37 pm: |
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I've been reading this thread with some interest even though its been a while since anyone posted. I have a family connection with regard to the provision of mental-health care and consequently have a limited insight into some of the matters discussed here.
I see Rampton mentioned. As far as I am aware this was a Victorian institution and was used as a centre for the violently mentally ill. I aware from my relative of harrowing trips to Rampton with those who became unmanagable at lower grade institutions. I doubt that the system was any different in Victorian times.
My understanding of 'imbecile' (although I may be wrong) is someone who has become physically exhausted (i.e. bodily exhausted) as a result of mania. This can lead to someone being mentally 'burned out'. It is interesting to speculate (and I stress speculate) as to whether a violent lunatic, following great stress and extended mania, ultimately turns into a harmless imbecile who is not a threat to anyone? A mere shambling husk of his former self?
It is not widely known, but during Victorian times and well into the 1960s, it was practise to use asylums as places to send individuals who were adjudged for one reason or another as mildly socially dangerous or unable to look after themselves in one way or another. Often these were people who today would be able to live perfectly well on their own. In many such instances those who sent such people to asylums were seen as doing them a favour and operating a form of social care.
I am aware, for example of one individual who was incarcerated in an asylum in the early years of the century and was still there in the late 1970s for being caught apple scrumping. He was described as simple, but having met him, I would not describe him as such.
Individuals of this nature who behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner (sometimes to a relatively mild degree) would often be sent to such institutions, particularly where relatives could not curb this behaviour. There are many known cases, particularly from the Victorian period of women being incarcerated simply for committing adultery.
In short it would be dangerous to generalise about an institution or the range of inmates that it might have, particularly in the less enlightened Victorian era. I am convinced that some residents of the Leavesden asylum would have been no more than petty criminals, whilst some might have been extremely dangerous, albeit to specific groups on the outside.
All the best
D_I
P.S. I had a relative in Colney Hatch apparently, although certainly not JtR
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3898
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 7:21 pm: |
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Well, DI, according to this "Times" article, July 18th 1883, people did sometimes come out of Leavesden :
Robert |
DARK_INTENT
Sergeant
Username: Dark_intent
Post Number: 19
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:29 pm: |
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Robert
Interesting article. I'm not sure I said that they didn't come out, just that some shouldn't have been there in the first place. Some of course were able to leave and some spent a lifetime in these institutions. Your article reminds me that places like Leavesden were probably a sight better than the Workhouses!
Cheers
D_I |
Cheryl Alleyne
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, March 07, 2005 - 9:43 am: |
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For Chris Lamb or Kathy Vernon
Can you give me details of where the old asylum graveyard can be found. I live in the area and would like to explore it. I found some photos in my research on the graveyard at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gallery.aspx?guid=94b520ab-6ce9-48d9-9af7-f0944660c568
showing such things as the 1886 lychgate and also (the rather blunt) 'Dan in the mental graveyard' but can't see where it's located as it doesn't appear to be near the new apartments.
Many thanks to whoever can help me!
Cheryl |
Cheryl Alleyne
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 12:33 pm: |
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Hi,
Re: Posting above
Have found the cemetery's location - will drag the husband off there this weekend to do some exploring as on the site mentioned above they all say it's a bit eerie!
Cheryl |
Barry
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 12:40 pm: |
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Did you find the cemetery Cheryl? I was there this afternoon. I think it's quite a melancholic place if you think of all the totured souls that are buried there.
It's more eerie in the winter, when all the vegetation has died back rather than in summer when the photos in the link were taken. |
