Institutions - An historical overview Highvolume Play Pause Stop

 

Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster c. late 1800s. Example of a Victorian single-block asylum. Its main building consisted of offices, staff accomodation, as well as many wards where people lived.

Courtesy of Lancashire County Council Museums Service

 

Brockhall Hospital c1960s. An example of the colony type institution - a common layout for those institutions built following the 1913 Act. Although opening in 1904, Brockhall underwent a radical building programme during the 1930s. Unlike the Victorian institutions, the colony model kept offices and living quarters separate. The idea was to create a village type environment, with wards placed around green spaces.

Courtesy of Lancashire County Council Museums Service

The large long-stay institutions of Brockhall, Calderstones and the Royal Albert were only a small part of a larger network of similar places across the United Kingdom. Imposing themselves on rural and urban landscapes, the majority of these institutions existed for most of the twentieth century. Each establishment has its own unique history. They are not all the same. However, the history of all these institutions was  shaped by government legislation – especially by the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. This was key to the development of large long-stay institutions for people with learning disabilities.

To understand more about the 1913 Act and its impact on the bigger picture of institutional history, please click on the PDF below.

The PDF is written by Jan Walmsley, who is Visiting Professor of the History of Learning Disability at the Open University. Jan was a co-founder of the Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Research Group. (The written account is taken from her chapter in the book: Johnson K and Traustadottir R (eds) (2008) Deinstitutionalisation and people with intellectual disabilities: In and Out of Institutions London: Jessica Kingsley.)