PhD process

The Asylum Libraries Catalogue: process

In my last post, I wrote about the three library catalogues that have provided me detailed information about exactly what was on offer for patients at the Crichton Royal Institution, the Murray Royal Asylum, and the Royal Edinburgh Asylum. These sources have been invaluable - but they were also incredibly unwieldy! Getting them into a shape where I’d be able to analyse their contents was a very long process.

An example page of the Crichton Royal Institution’s library catalogue. Dumfries and Galloway Archives and Local Studies, DGH1/6/17/1 (digitised by the Wellcome Library).

An example page of the Crichton Royal Institution’s library catalogue. Dumfries and Galloway Archives and Local Studies, DGH1/6/17/1 (digitised by the Wellcome Library).

First, there was the task of simply transcribing the catalogues. How long could it possibly take to turn approximately a hundred pages of book titles into a workable format? It turns out, quite a long time. For a while, I felt that I’d lost all sense of the meaning of the letters of the alphabet. I’m only glad that I was working with printed sources, and ‘only’ just under four thousand items, rather than the incredible numbers some of my fellow book historians have worked on (for example, Henning Hansen’s 18,000 items from a bookshop in Gothenburg!)

It turned out that it was after the transcription that my work would really begin. Unfortunately for me, cataloguing practices in the asylums of the nineteenth century were sadly not particularly uniform!

M. W. J., cataloguer of the Murray Royal Asylum’s library, scores a solid 9/10 for consistency. They separated their library’s contents into various useful genre categories, nearly always provide an author, and frequently include a publication date. The catalogue is helpfully arranged with books of the same genre by the same author appearing together. The 1863 copy is nicely laid out, with columns for each piece of information about the nearly 750 titles in the library. The Crichton Royal Institution’s catalogue provides a slightly more haphazard insight into the asylum’s holdings. Like the Murray Royal, it splits the library by genre: however, it provides little detail about the books. It eschews publication date, shortens titles considerably, and avoids giving author names almost entirely. With over 1500 items, this made identifying Crichton’s books with such minimal information a considerable task. The Royal Edinburgh Asylum’s catalogue, compiled by Assistant Physicians John Sibbald and T. S. Clouston, took cataloguing chaos to new heights. In an alphabetical system, should an item be catalogued by the author’s name, the book’s full title, or the key word in the title? As it turns out, Clouston and Sibbald appear not to have made this decision - or at least not discussed it with each other. Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker’s History of New York appears under ‘K’, ‘I’ and ‘N’, to provide one example of many.

A spread from the Murray Royal Asylum’s library catalogue, compiled by M. W. J. and published in 1863. University of Dundee Archive Services, THB29/11/2/1 (digitised by Google Books)

A spread from the Murray Royal Asylum’s library catalogue, compiled by M. W. J. and published in 1863. University of Dundee Archive Services, THB29/11/2/1 (digitised by Google Books)

Clouston and Sibbald threw rather a wrench in my plan of looking at titles where multiple copies or editions of one text were kept - with it impossible to tell whether there genuinely were three copies of everything in the asylum’s library, or whether it was down to miscommunication on the part of the cataloguers, for now I’m focusing simply on the titles available. Removing ‘duplicate’ (or potentially duplicate) items from the catalogues reduced my standardisation workload a small amount, and also resulted in a revealing portrait of the asylum libraries. The Murray Royal lost only five titles to duplicate removal (good work, M. W. J.); Crichton’s library was reduced by 45 items (not bad - probably genuine examples of where the asylum held multiple copies); but the Royal Edinburgh’s library was reduced by a staggering 35%, from 1426 items to 925. This raises a question which is difficult to answer: was the catalogue accurate, or an inflation of the library’s true holdings? And was it accidental, or deliberate? I’m yet to find out.

After all of that, my next step was to get my combined catalogue in a state fit for analysing the contents of the three asylum libraries. I’ve probably provided a huge percentage of WorldCat’s site visits over the last few months, as I looked up every one of the remaining 3204 items in an attempt to identify missing authors and fill out vaguely-recorded book titles. Then came standardisation: turning every ‘W. Scott’, ‘Sir Walter Scott’, ‘Walter Scott’, and ‘Sir Scott’ into ‘Walter Scott’; wrangling wordy nineteenth-century titles and their alternatives into something manageable; making sure publishers were accurate, and assigning each text its new, standardised genre. I now have a spreadsheet (which yes, probably should be a database - but I haven’t had time yet, even in lockdown) so monstrous that my laptop audibly groans whenever I open it. After six months’ work, it’s ready for analysis!

The Asylum Libraries Catalogue: sources

It’s clear that asylums took differing approaches to distributing the material that their libraries held: some developed more formal reading rooms where patients could access their collection, or took to spreading books and periodicals around shared areas of the asylum; others required patients to make requests for reading material to the chaplain or other staff members; several institutions instituted their own versions of 'circulating’ libraries, whether freely accessible or in a designated bookcase under lock and key. But one of the most difficult aspects of the asylum library to research is exactly what material was available to patients via these various means. What could the patients actually read? Staff often liked to talk about how patients should read, but less often give examples of such ‘ideal’ reading. Piecing together examples of the asylums’ library holdings has required combing through hundreds of years’ worth of reports written by medical and pastoral asylum staff, patient magazines, and financial records such as invoices.

Some asylums, though, were more dedicated to library practice than might be assumed. The Cornwall County Asylum’s Chaplain, William Iago, officially took on the title of Librarian, and the Chaplain at the Bristol Asylum was required to act as such as part of his general duties.1 At the Dundee Royal Asylum, an ‘intelligent epileptic patient’ took the role of Librarian, and is noted to have ‘marked and catalogued the books’ as well as recording the books issued to other patients.2 The Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell had its own printing press, which by 1846 was used by patients to produce “almost every printed form required in the Asylum.” 3 As at Dundee, patients produced a catalogue for the library; they also printed it themselves to be “kept in every Ward, so that Patients can make their selection at leisure.” 4 Unfortunately, these productions do not appear to have survived. However, the seeming tendency of Scottish asylums to keep everything has proven a huge benefit to my project. (Whilst Dundee’s catalogue did not survive, a section of graffitied wooden window frame remains in the archive.)

A spread from Easterbrook’s scrapbook. Dumfries and Galloway Archives and Local Studies, DGH1/6/17/1 (digitised by the Wellcome Library)

During his time as the Superintendent of the Crichton Royal Asylum, Dr. Charles Cromhall Easterbrook took the time to collect a huge number of historical items relating to the asylum and its history. A scrapbook he compiled contains over six hundred pieces: it features newspaper cuttings relating to the asylum, its staff and patients; photographs and illustrations of the building and grounds; hospital records and forms; and various ephemeral pieces produced at the asylum’s press, such as playbills. Among these items is also the small pamphlet forming the library catalogue of the institution, dated to Spring 1853 by Easterbrook. As at Hanwell, the pamphlet was printed by a patient, W. Shields.5

The catalogue for the Murray Royal Asylum seems to have been interesting enough to make its way out of the asylum and into various libraries around the world: copies of it are held at the National Library of Scotland, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Widener Library at Harvard, and McGill University in Montreal, as well as at University of Dundee Archive Services with the rest of the Murray Royal’s archive. It was not printed at the asylum, but by Robert Whittet, a successful Perth printer, in 1863. The catalogue was compiled by ‘M. W. J.’; the use of semi-anonymising initials suggests that they may have been a patient.6

Sir Thomas Smith Clouston, photogravure after G. Fiddes Watt, 1909 (Wellcome Library); Sir John Sibbald, photogravure by Swan Electric Engraving Co. after Sir G. Reid (Wellcome Library)

Sir Thomas Smith Clouston, photogravure after G. Fiddes Watt, 1909 (Wellcome Library); Sir John Sibbald, photogravure by Swan Electric Engraving Co. after Sir G. Reid (Wellcome Library)

The Royal Edinburgh Asylum provides the final located library catalogue. A small booklet, it is kept as part of a collection relating to the Superintendents of the asylum rather than the main archive. This is possibly due to the fact that it was compiled by John Sibbald and Thomas Clouston - two very significant names in nineteenth-century psychiatric history - in 1861, whilst they were mere Assistant Physicians at the asylum. Sibbald left the asylum shortly after the catalogue’s publication to take up a post as Superintendent of the Argyll District Asylum; he later became a Commissioner of Lunacy for Scotland. Clouston departed for a post at the Carlisle Asylum, but returned to the Royal Edinburgh in 1873 to serve as Superintendent for the next thirty-five years.7 A catalogue is first being mentioned as being produced at the Royal Edinburgh as early as 1849, “prepared and printed by the inmates,” before being reissued in 1855 (8) - but Sibbald and Clouston’s work seems to have supplanted the earlier efforts by patients.9

In the next post: some haphazard cataloguing, suspicious duplicates, and a monster spreadsheet.

1 William Iago, Chaplain’s Report, Annual report of the Cornwall County Asylum for the year 1865, p. 9; Henry Oxley Stephens, Superintendent’s Report, Annual report of he Bristol Asylum for the year 1869, p. 11.

2 Annual report of the Dundee Royal Asylum for the year 1854-55, pp. 9-10.

3 John Conolly, Physician’s Report, Annual Report of the Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell for the year 1846, p. 27.

4 Catherine M. E. Macfie, Matron’s Report, Annual Report of the Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell for the year 1860, pp, 58-59.

5 [Catalogue of the Library of the Crichton Royal Institution] (Dumfries: Crichton Press, [1853]), Dumfries and Galloway Archives and Local Studies, DGH1/6/17/1; digitised by the Wellcome Library.

6 Catalogue of the Library of Murray’s Royal Institution, Perth, compiled by M. W. J. (Perth: Robert Whittet, 1863), University of Dundee Archive Services, THB29/11/2/1; digitised by Google from the Harvard original.

7 Details about Clouston and Sibbald’s careers are found in David Skae’s Physician’s Reports, in annual reports for the Royal Edinburgh from the years 1857, 1861 and 1863.

8 Earlier mentions of the first library catalogue can be found in David Skae, Physician’s Report, Annual Report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the Year 1848, p. 30, and Statement of works, Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the year 1855, p. 40.

9 Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum (Morningside, Edinburgh: Royal Asylum Press, 1861), Lothian Health Services Archive, GD16/52.

Network Analysis at DHSI

This June I was grateful to receive a scholarship to attend the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, held at the University of Victoria in Canada. I first attended in 2017, whilst I was still studying for my Master’s degree in Book History and during the very early stages of researching asylum libraries. This time round, I had more of a handle on my project and its needs, so it was great to go back with a real purpose.

DHSI is a wide community - it brings together historians, librarians, literary scholars and academics from other disciplines - and it’s sometimes affectionately referred to as ‘summer camp for nerds’. It’s a great place to learn about the potential that Digital Humanities holds for research, and it also forms a hub for some very important discussions about approaching these methods in ways which are ethical and accessible, and acknowledge the many inequalities which currently exist. (The #RaceDH, #FemDH, and #QueerDH class hashtags on Twitter form an excellent resource).

I started off with Making Choices About Your Data, an excellent introductory class from Paige Morgan and Yvonne Lam. I spent most of my week working on data for the Asylums Map, tidying up and exploring some mapping software which might make it a little more stylish than good old Google Maps might be able to (watch this space). My second week was spent learning about Network Analysis with Jessica Otis, who introduced us to (some of) the mathematics behind networks, and how they might be useful for humanists. We got through the maths, we figured out how to structure data properly for network analysis, and we practiced collecting data and making networks using Samuel Pepys’ diary as a source. We chose a single week to work with and mapped Pepys’ social network. From Monday 23rd June to Monday 30th June 1662, Pepys did manage to get some work done - but he also spent a fair bit of time gossiping over drinks, getting boats around London, and having musical meet ups with his friends. He also encounters an unpleasantly wormy fish at dinner, and in true Pepys style, sexually harasses an employee. My classmate, Julia King, posted the network we made in class on Twitter (see left!) When I got back to my dorm room that evening, I couldn’t help but continue messing around with the data - looking at directionality and coding the nodes with Pepys’ social relation to the person. Gephi wasn’t having it that day and the colours are a little incorrect, but overall a really fun way of visualising social networks in a way that’s difficult to do in plain writing.

Each edge’s colour represents a different kind of social interaction; each node’s colour represents a different social relationship Pepys holds to that person. Edge weight (and arrow size) represents the number of interactions between Pepys and that person; edge arrows also represent the directionality of the interaction (for example, whether someone is gossiped about or does the gossiping, owes or is owed money.)

As anyone who works on asylum history knows, there’s a lot of potential for collecting data. The nineteenth century loved statistics (though often in an extremely problematic way). Asylum doctors collected a wealth of information about their patients, filtered through their own preconceptions, and took great care in collating and presenting it. This can be very useful for those of us who want to study asylums, but sometimes those numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt. However, it’s not just the numerical data which is interesting for Digital Humanities techniques. Social networks, like Pepys’ above, show that qualitative data can work well too.

As I’d worked on the Asylums Map data during the previous week, I’d been reminded of some patterns which I thought might be nice to produce networks of: one of these patterns was the connections between asylums and their architects. I took a small sample of English asylums to work with, and produced a small network showing the overlap between architects and asylums. It’s a pretty rough visualisation, but it does pick out some of the major players in nineteenth-century asylum architecture - for example, Albert Edward Gough and John Giles, who worked together, and George Thomas Hine. Others, such as William Lambie Moffat, would pop up as more data is added to the network - Moffat designed the Stafforshire County Asylum in England, but later designed several Scottish asylums including the asylum at Montrose.

Pink nodes represent architects, green nodes represent asylums. Here, node size represents the ‘degree’ - i.e. how many connections the node has to others. I’d have liked to only apply this to the architects’ nodes.

My next plan is working on visualising the network of asylum libraries. Which periodicals, books and authors pop up most frequently in asylum libraries? As I’m working with my data, I can pick out a few that I think will be influential (Scottish asylums are stuffed full of Walter Scott) - but it’ll be interesting to run some analysis on the data too.

Many thanks to the DHSI organisers, our generous instructors, and the community who made it a productive couple of weeks!

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Mapping public asylums

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Detail of the Asylums Map, January 2019.

Detail of the Asylums Map, January 2019.

The number of public asylums in Britain and Ireland increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, owing in large part due to legislation which required counties to provide care for those deemed ‘pauper lunatics’, who could not afford to pay themselves. It quickly became clear that to study the development of library provision and the facilitation of reading in asylums of this era in the three-year time frame of the PhD, I’d need to use case studies. My central aim for developing my sample was to ensure that it was as representative as possible: covering not just England but also Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with an appropriate number of case studies per country, and as geographically diverse as possible.

With well over one hundred asylums to choose from, I began by mapping the rough locations of each asylum in Google Maps, to visualise the spread of asylums across Britain and Ireland and assist in choosing a varied set from across the countries. The number of asylums included in the study for each country roughly relates to the ratio of the number of public asylums in that country to the number of public asylums in the whole of the British Isles during the nineteenth century. My aim is that through these case studies, I will be able to provide a more complex picture of the ideologies at play and practices utilised in proto-bibliotherapy across the British Isles.

I also hope to develop the map further, to include private, charitable, and subscription institutions and to increase functionality, in order for it to be potentially useful to other researchers. If there is an asylum you’d like to see added to the map, please email l.e.g.blair@qmul.ac.uk!

Twenty asylums make up my anticipated case studies (these are marked with a star icon on the map):

  • Wales: North Wales Counties Asylum, Denbigh; Joint Counties Asylum, Abergavenny

  • Ireland: Londonderry District Lunatic Asylum; Belfast District Asylum; Limerick District Asylum; Richmond District Asylum, Dublin

  • Scotland: Inverness District Asylum; Montrose Lunatic Asylum; Perth District Asylum; Glasgow Royal Asylum; Royal Edinburgh Asylum; Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries

  • England: Birmingham City Asylum; Bristol City and County Lunatic Asylum; Isle of Ely and Borough of Cambridge Asylum; Cornwall County Asylum; Essex County Asylum; Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Asylum; West Riding Asylum, Yorkshire; London County Asylum, Hanwell

Why asylum libraries?

By design, the focus of research for a PhD is niche. As most PhD researchers will know, mentioning your topic to anyone outside academia will very often get you an ‘oh! That’s very… specific!’ Even talking to other academics, I’m always curious about how they ended up researching their subject. “But how did you get here?” is what I want to ask everyone I meet.

I come from a family fascinated by history. However, obviously, as a teenager I immediately resisted the idea of following in anyone’s footsteps. This, coupled with the fact that my history teacher routinely had me shaking in my seat with terror, led to me abandoning the subject the moment I had the chance. But in the intervening years, history wrapped itself around my life, working its way back - and now, here I am, doing a PhD in History. Starting my Master’s degree three years ago, I was convinced I’d end up studying the contemporary or the medieval, and nothing in between. I’ve ended up a Victorianist (albeit one who dedicatedly lurks the goings-on over at Medieval Twitter).

So, why asylum libraries? The blame can be traced to one William Chester Minor. Missionaries’ son, Yale graduate, US army surgeon, ‘lunatic’, killer and… one of the most significant contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. Following a breakdown and a period of admission to the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington DC, Minor moved to London in 1871. Here he continued to suffer from delusions of persecution, which eventually led to his fatal shooting of George Merrett, a father of seven with no connection to Minor, who was simply on his way to work. Minor was found not guilty by reason of insanity and detained in Broadmoor.

Illustration of Broadmoor from an 1867 Illustrated London News (Wellcome Collection. CC BY)

Illustration of Broadmoor from an 1867 Illustrated London News (Wellcome Collection. CC BY)

I was fascinated to find out that during his near forty-year stay on Broadmoor’s Block 2, Minor was allowed a host of privileges. In particular, he was given the use of an additional room as a ‘day room’, where he amassed his own library. It was from this library that he came across James Murray’s 1879 appeal for volunteers to assist with the creation of what would become the first Oxford English Dictionary, and set about contributing.

Whilst Minor clearly benefited from his rank, class, and diagnostic category (he maintained a US Army pension, financial support from family, and was apparently not deemed dangerous), it was a surprise to me that a 19th-century patient in Broadmoor would be allowed such ‘luxuries’, particularly given the cultural conception of the Victorian asylum we are exposed to in contemporary society. I was hooked on the idea that reading might have been allowed and even encouraged in asylums of the period, and after a few months camped in the archives at the Wellcome Library and the Lothian Health Services Archive (with the invaluable help of the excellent and endlessly helpful archivists and librarians) I had thousands of words of primary material on asylum libraries and very clearly not enough room in my MA thesis.

So, here I am. Over the next three years I’m going to be looking at the records of asylums across the British Isles, researching how and why reading and writing were used in the asylum system of the nineteenth century. Hopefully (for everyone’s sake) it’ll be an interesting journey!