Tag Archives: Lunatic Asylum

“A friend of the lunatics”

October 18, 1900

Archival Moment

The Waterford Hospital was once known as the Lunatic Asylum

The Waterford Hospital was once known as the Lunatic Asylum

Walking past the “Lunatic Asylum” (now known as the Waterford Hospital) citizens were gladdened that officials were “endeavoring to get a water supply to the building’  but upon closer inspection they were  not so happy to discover that it was the “poor unfortunate inmates” of the hospital that were doing the work!!

The lot of the ‘lunatics” in the early 19th century was not a happy one. They were often confined to basements, attics and jails under the most wretched conditions and it was only with the founding of the St. John‘s public hospital in 1813 that a separate ward was established for them.

With the opening of the ‘Lunatic Asylum’ on Waterford Bridge Road, St. John’s in 1854 as the Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases it was thought that the lot of the lunatics would improve. “A friend of the Lunatics” in October 1900 was not so confident that advances had been made.   In a letter to the Editor of the Evening Telegram he wrote that he was walking past the hospital and “was troubled to find that its poor unfortunate inmates, are compelled to dig from early morning till late at night, endeavoring to get a water supply to the building.”

He was so appalled at the situation that he demanded “that the Board of Works institute an enquiry into the management of the Lunatic Asylum.”

He wrote “Is it fair to the inmates of that institution to have them wading in water, digging over half a mile for this supply.  I say it is not, and the person in charge ought to be brought to account for his conduct.”

The initiatives that were coming under criticism were likely instituted by Dr. Lawrence Keegan who believed that having the patients working was a positive and effective form of occupational therapy, he felt that some patients did benefit from working especially the able-bodied.  Keegan who had been on tour of asylums in Great Britain, England, Scotland and Ireland in 1899 and had consulted with British experts that saw value in physical work.

The ‘friend of the Lunatics’ concluded his letter to the Editor of the Evening Telegram:

“We have an engineer who is competent to improve the method of said water supply.  Why should the doctor (Lawrence Keegan) be consulted, he is not there for that purpose. Let him attend to the strawberry beds and try to help the revenue in that way, but leave the water supply to Mr. (Hubert C.) Burchell, (Newfoundland Government Engineer from 1884 to 1905) who I am certain, who is not in favor of employing lunatics to take the bread from the mouths of taxpayers.”

The practice was soon discontinued, the new administrator of the Asylum, Dr. James Sinclair Tait believed that this type of occupational therapy was ineffective and fiscally unsound and had such new initiatives cancelled.

Recommended Archival Collection: Search the online data base – https://www.therooms.ca/collections-research/our-collections use key words – lunatic and Waterford.

Recommended Reading: Out of Mind, Out of Sight by Patricia O’Brien: A History of the Waterford Hospital. St. John’s: Breakwater Books; 1989.

Old Word: Middle English: from Old French lunatique, from late Latin lunaticus, from Latin luna ‘moon’ (from the belief that changes of the moon caused intermittent insanity)

Denomination division of the civil service

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

AUGUST 28, 1917

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives Division: C 1-207; House of Assembly in Session. Colonial Building, Military Road, St. John’s. Edward P. Morris, Prime Minister 1909-1917

On  28 August 1917 Archbishop Edward Patrick Roche, the Catholic bishop of St. John’s wrote Prime Minister Edward Morris of Newfoundland with some concerns that he had concerning the “denominational division of the civil service” in the country.

Archbishop Roche noted in his letter that he was not happy with the decision reached by Government with respect to the appointment of an Inspector General of Police. It appears that a Catholic had held the position (John J. Sullivan) but it had been decided to give the position to a Protestant. (Charles H. Hutchings).  The Archbishop wrote “I cannot but regard it as the passing out of Catholic hands an important position in point of honour, influence, and emolument.”

Church officials from all denominations staunchly defended positions in the Newfoundland civil service for their flock.  They were following an entrenched principle of “denominational representation in government and the civil service” established as early as 1865. Also known as the principle of “denominational compromise”   it was  generally accepted that positions in the public service, from the Supreme Court bench to ferry men  should be allocated in such a way that each denomination received a proportionate share of both jobs and the salary budget.

The principle essentially meant that all patronage and government jobs should be distributed upon a perfectly fair denominational basis with the amount of patronage given to each denomination representing their share of the population.  Essentially 1/3 of the jobs went to The Roman Catholics, 1/3 to the Anglicans and 1/3 to the Methodists.

SCRUTINIZING THE CIVIL LISTS

The leaders of all of the churches each year scrutinized what were referred to as the “civil lists” to insure that their denominations were well represented.  These “civil lists” identified officials in all departments of government giving the salary and religious denomination of each.

The analysis of the” civil lists” by church leaders was quite detailed. In his letter of 28 August, Archbishop Roche also observed “The salary of the superintendent of the Hospital (Protestant) is more than the Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum (Catholic); the salary of the Inspector General (Protestant) is more than the Superintendent of the Penitentiary (Catholic).

The principle of “denominational compromise”  was well entrenched until 1934 when  it came under review by the Commission of Government (1934-1949) they dropped old political and religious criteria in the hiring and promotion of civil servants making merit the sole basis for promotion. (It is interesting to note that when the commission of government was established in 1934, the positions for the three Newfoundlanders were allocated on a denominational basis: Alderdice (Anglican), Howley (RC) and Puddester (UC).

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Provincial Archives Division at The Rooms see GN 2.41 This series consists of the names, occupations, dates of appointments, terms of office and religious denominations of civil servants of St. John’s and Newfoundland.