Liverpool Hospitals - Liverpool Lunatic Asylum

 

The plan on the left shows the asylum building highlighted in red, surrounded by the airing courts and gardens. The image on the right shows a sketch of the asylum (University of Liverpool Special Collections & Archives).

The former Liverpool Lunatic Asylum was built in 1792 in what is now Lime Street and owed its foundation to James Currie who was a physician at the Liverpool Infirmary in 1780. He had campaigned against the unsanitary living conditions in the rapidly growing port and for the separate care of people with psychiatric needs in their own hospital. In March 1790 there were 51 lunatics and 15 other inmates in the Liverpool Workhouse and Dr Currie, who took a special interest in the mentally ill, in the late 18th century petitioned through the Liverpool Advertiser for an asylum in the town. He took an enlightened approach to the care and treatment of the insane, insisting that they be accommodated separately from the physically ill and he secured financial support for the building of an asylum for the special care of lunatics separated from the Infirmary. This was all some years before asylums became established elsewhere and his work as a pioneer in this respect attracted some favourable attention in the years that followed. In 1789 a proposal to build a psychiatric hospital, connected to the Infirmary, or 'lunatic asylum' as it was known in the Victorian period, was put forward. The Asylum was built in the Liverpool Infirmary gardens and opened in September 1792 at a cost of £5,918 10s. 7d as a branch institution of the neighbouring Infirmary and took pauper inmates payable for by their respective parishes. Originally the building was able to accommodate 60-70 patients and was run in conjunction with the Infirmary. The design of the Liverpool Lunatic Asylum was adopted by several county authorities in the building of their own institutions.
Temporary 'night asylums' for the reception of the 'houseless poor' had been set up in Liverpool in the winters of 1816 (in a vacant guard house in Chapel Street), 1820 (South Union Street), 1821 (Blundell Street), 1822 (South Union Street), and in 1829 a psychiatric hospital, known as the 'Lunatic Asylum', was erected on Ashton Street, a few streets to the north of Abercromby Square which remained in use until 1881 when it was converted for the use of University College Liverpool. Just below it on Brownlow Hill, Liverpool Parish workhouse was built between 1769-1772 which also housed what were known as 'lunatic wards' alongside other residential wards. 

From an early account of life in the asylum we know that bedroom doors were unlocked at 6.00 am and patients were washed and the state of their skin examined. At 9.00am, following breakfast, they were taken to the airing courts and gardens while the wards were cleaned. Bedtime was at 8.00pm, and patients slept in long rows of beds that were two feet and six inches apart.

Brownlow Hill Workhouse, early 1900s, taken from the corner of Oxford Street (Old Pictures of Liverpool)

 

In 1881 the Liverpool Asylum and its grounds were sold to the London and North-Western Railway Company who intended to construct a new line from Edge Hill to Lime Street station. The new line passed right underneath the building which would have been distressing for the patients with all of the noise and smoke from the trains and so the asylum closed and the 35 patients were moved to other local institutions like Rainhill, or were cared for by City and County Councils. The money from this sale went towards the building of a third Infirmary in Brownlow Street. Here stood the 'House of Industry', a parish workhouse, built between 1769 and 1772 and designed to accommodate 600 inmates but by 1790 there were over 1,200 people in the institution. Men and women were segregated within the workhouse, but there was also accommodation for married couples. Inmates were expected to work 12-hour days, undertaking tasks such as oakum picking (teasing fibres from old ropes) and weaving. From the age of nine children in the workhouse were taught to weave, while also attending school, later becoming bound apprentices to a variety of trades. A chapel was built within the workhouse and there was also a detached building used as a fever hospital, in which female paupers served as nurses. With a hospital 'for the reception of poor persons suffering from infectious diseases' added in 1863, at its peak it was one of the largest workhouses in the UK with an official capacity of over 3000 inmates but sometimes holding as many as 5000. In 1864, Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone funded placements for 12 nurses who had been trained at the Nightingale School in London. Florence Nightingale recommended nurse Agnes Jones to him to act as a Superintendent for this pioneering work. Agnes took the job as the first trained Nursing Superintendent in 1865 and was supported by 18 probationers and 54 female paupers; each paid a small sum. The successful scheme led to all workhouse infirmaries, throughout the country, being staffed by trained nurses.

The Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary at Brownlow Hill

 

In 1860, the Great Tasmania, a 'sailing vessel', had docked at the River Mersey from Calcutta following the Great Indian Campaign. When it set off, the ship was carrying roughly 1000 discharged servicemen, 60 of whom sadly passed away during the harrowing journey back to England. While the remaining servicemen were alive upon arrival, their health was so poor that around 100 of the men were rushed to the workhouse infirmary 'in open carts', as a result of ‘scurvy and associated complications, including dysentery, and pulmonary conditions’. This scandal caught the attention of Charles Dickens, who visited the Brownlow Hill Workhouse in March 1860, to observe and investigate the condition of the soldiers and the cause of their poor health. Dickens went on to use his findings to create the semi-autobiographical short story 'The Great Tasmania’s Cargo' (1860), which featured in 'All The Year Round', as part of the author’s ongoing travel writing series, 'The Uncommercial Traveller'.

Acquired by the Roman Catholic church, the workhouse was demolished in 1931 and the site is today occupied by the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. 

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