The Role of Institutionalization

When, in 1858, the Crown took over the political administration of British India, it was also to take charge of public institutions previously established by the East India Company. The Company's legacy of jails, penitentiaries, hospitals and dispensaries (and to a lesser extent of orphanages, workhouses and schools) was impressive. There existed also several lunatic asylums. The provinces of Bengal, Bombay and Madras each boasted an asylum for the reception of Europeans, whilst nearly every district had its own ‘native lunatic asylum’. Further institutions for the mentally ill had been established in more recently annexed areas, such as Burma, the Punjab and Sind, as well as in the coastal centre of Sri Lanka and in such remote territorial acquisitions as Penang and Singapore. In addition to these specialized receptacles, lunatics ‘up-country’ in inaccessible and desolate areas could be locked up for shorter periods in the more ubiquitous local jails and in cells adjoining dispensaries and regimental hospitals. The British Empire of the nineteenth century was thus, it would appear, well provided with institutions for the confinement of deranged Europeans and Asians.

The Company's provision for European lunatics extended back into the colonial motherland itself. In England, Pembroke House, a privately managed madhouse, specialized in the treatment of insane Europeans sent home from India by the East India Company. This was not the only institution in England for returned lunatics.