Out of time: the asylums of Nottingham

Sneinton asylum opened where King Edward Park is today on Carlton Road. Because only 56 ‘lunatics’ were thought to be in the county, the building could house only eighty patients when it opened in October 1811. Although, it was a year later before the first patients, six paupers from St. Mary’s were admitted. Admission reasons were varied, with some listed as: grief, religious excitement, hereditary disposition, anxiety of the mind, epilepsy and congenital defects. It didn’t seem to take much, especially for women, as Ann Ward, of Bulwell, was admitted in 1872 after throwing a stone through the window of her tenant’s house after he refused to be evicted or pay rent. Her mother admitted in court she had ‘a weak mind’ and she was sent to the asylum. 

Care and hygiene at Sneinton were considered above average for an era when care could be cruel. By the time of the Lunacy Act of 1845, methods such as bleeding, purging, leg locks and straitjackets were discredited. Sneinton did have padded rooms, chairs and straitjackets, though. Nurses provided clean rooms and made beds, and the grounds had room for exercise. Men and women were separate at all times, including outside.

As Sneinton struggled with overcrowding, the Coppice, designed by  T.C. Hine, the notable architect of the Nottingham Park Estate, opened in 1859 for wealthier patients. The poor remained at Sneinton. Mapperley Hospital was built in 1880 to accommodate poor patients, but it was so empty at times that patients from London and Hastings were temporarily housed there. Despite other locations, Sneinton’s had 400 patients, and the building was deteriorating by 1900. Saxondale, originally called the Radcliffe Asylum, opened in 1902. Sneinton’s remaining patients were transferred, and it closed. The grounds were divided and sold, and thieves tore apart the dilapidated building, which was sold in 1908.

Radcliffe/Saxondale was in striking contrast to Sneinton and opened with 399 patients: 202 males and 197 females. Their occupations included engine drivers, lace makers, labourers, clerks, farmers, and colliers. It was a little community with its own recreation hall, church, sports facilities, even a farm that provided food for staff and patients. The recreation hall stage featured pantomimes, cinema nights, prize-giving balls and dances. The wards had newspapers and cheap publications available for patients. It could be a generational thing too - the hospital maintenance manager in the 1980s even grew up on the grounds as his father was a nurse there.

Despite this, the work was tough. The nurses worked long hours in difficult situations with challenging demands. They were also viewed as inferior to nurses in general hospitals. In 1922, nurses at what was now called Nottinghamshire County Mental Hospital (Radcliffe) led a strike demanding the County Council abandon plans to increase hours and decrease wages. Thirty-eight nurses barricaded themselves in wards with patients and kitchen staff. After a four-hour battle, the nurses were evicted, and sixty-six staff were sacked.

During the First World War, many hospitals had to make space for shell-shocked soldiers. Radcliffe was renamed the military hospital as it took in injured men. Around thirty servicemen died at the hospital between 1918 and 1919. Many never recovered from the war. Charles Smith, a blacksmith, was brought to Radcliffe after he thumped on the door of a post office; he reported he was a millionaire after smashing up his home and threatened to ‘carve’ his wife. His son said he had never been the same after the war. Curiously, Smith was found with five broken ribs, bruises and a black eye, but no explanation was given, only that he died from mania and general paralysis in 1928.

Staffing levels were affected as many men left to fight in the war, including Medical Superintendent Dr McKinley Reid, who left in 1914 to fight in Italy. He returned safely but left again to join the merchant navy in 1939. He was killed as he attempted to cross Wilfred Street during a blackout and was hit by a trolley bus in 1943.

Over the years, the hospital added X-ray machines, occupational therapy, libraries, shops, and a staff social club. The hospital was renamed Saxondale in 1949.

It wasn’t just Saxondale that opened in the early 1900s; Rampton Criminal Lunatic Asylum opened in 1910. It could house 570 men and 185 women. The hospital would later house Ian Huntley and Beverly Allitt, as well as Frank Mitchell, the Axe Man. 

Mitchell and another man escaped from Rampton in 1957 using a set of keys they made from bed springs. PC Bernard Briddon received reports that the men were spotted on the way to Newark and quickly set up roadblocks, knocking them off their motorbike. Mitchell turned a sawn-off shotgun on Briddon, who disarmed him before arresting him. Briddon, from Worksop, didn’t know Mitchell had a gun as he thought he only had a hatchet on him. While on the run, Mitchell attacked the owner of a house he broke into and was given a nine-month sentence. He told the judge: “There is not a lock I can't undo. If you send me back to any mental institution then I promise you I will escape.” 

He did just that from Broadmoor a year later. This time with a key he had made and a hacksaw. The public were warned that he was dangerous and not to approach him, as he may kill if cornered. He took an elderly couple in Wokingham hostage with an axe before stealing their car. After he was recaptured on a coach to London, he was given a life sentence at Brixton Prison, but his friends, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, helped out to break him out of Dartmoor Prison after he was transferred there in 1966. Unsure what to do with him, the pair shot him in the back of a van, then dumped his body in the English Channel. 

By 1961, many of the Nottinghamshire Asylum days were numbered, as Health Minister Enoch Powell suggested phasing out large mental illness hospitals in favour of community care. Although it would take another twenty years, and a Thatcher government, to implement this amid mental health reviews. Coppice closed in 1985, Saxondale closed in 1988 and Mapperley in 1994, but Rampton is still open today.