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SUMMARY:Asylums at War: the Lancashire lunatic asylums and the Great War\,
  1914-1922 - Claire Deligny (MFO/Paris)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20250410T110000
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20250410T120000
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/98ad88ee-fbcf-4710-b93c-143a479cb094/
DESCRIPTION:Although World War I is commonly regarded as a pivotal moment 
 in the history of psychiatry\, there has been limited research into the im
 pact of the war on civilian lunatic asylums\, both during the conflict and
  in the immediate aftermath. Building upon the expanding body of literatur
 e on this topic\, including Claire Hilton’s seminal work on civilian lun
 atic asylums in London (2020)\, this paper seeks to focus on the war’s i
 mpact on the care and maintenance of lunatic patients at the six Lancashir
 e asylums at Lancaster (1816)\, Rainhill and Prestwich (both opened in 185
 1)\, Whittingham (1873)\, Winwick (1902) and Whalley (1915). Based on ongo
 ing research on national\, regional and local sources\, including minutes 
 from the Lancashire Asylums Board\, Board of Control and asylum annual rep
 orts\, casebooks and the local press\, this paper examines how the interna
 tional crisis arguably both triggered and accelerated changes that were al
 ready underway in the management and care of the insane patients as well a
 s in the working conditions of the asylum staff. It will particularly focu
 s on the disruption produced countywide as the asylums at Winwick and Whal
 ley were taken over by the War Office in 1915\, followed by the Annexe at 
 the Whittingham asylum in 1917. The subsequent repeated transfers of patie
 nts to already overcrowded institutions in a context of major shortages in
  staff and material goods profoundly altered life in the asylums during th
 e war. On the other hand\, the continuing debates on the structural flaws 
 of the “Poor Law of Lunacy” (Peter Bartlett) as the war hospitals were
  slowly returned to the asylum authorities from the War Office in the earl
 y 1920s also encourage further historiographical reflection on periodisati
 on in asylum history.\n\n*Claire Deligny* (PhD) is a senior lecturer in Br
 itish history at the Université Paris Nanterre (France). Her research mai
 nly focuses on the social history of psychiatry in the long nineteenth-cen
 tury in Great Britain. A member of the CREA research group (Université Pa
 ris Nanterre) and EuroHealthHist COST network\, she is currently a Visitin
 g Fellow in the History of Science\, Medicine and Technology at the Maison
  Française d’Oxford (Trinity term 2025). She is currently writing a boo
 k on the history of the Lancashire asylums in the long nineteenth century 
 and has been co-organising a series of international conferences on the hi
 story of psychiatry in the English-speaking world (Who Cares Conference se
 ries 2025-2027: https://whocares.hypotheses.org/). \nSpeakers:\nClaire Del
 igny (MFO/Paris)
LOCATION:Maison Française d’Oxford\, 2-10 Norham Road\, Oxford OX2 6SE
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/98ad88ee-fbcf-4710-b93c-143a479cb094/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Asylums at War: the Lancashire lunatic asylums and the Gr
 eat War\, 1914-1922 - Claire Deligny (MFO/Paris)
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