Description
The hospital opened as the 'City of London Pauper Lunatic Asylum' in 1866. The term 'pauper lunatic' referred to patients who were admitted to any public or local authority 'asylum' (early forms of psychiatric hospitals) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A patient was referred to as a 'pauper lunatic' if the Poor Law Board of Guardians was required to make any financial contribution towards their admission and in-patient treatment. If a patient could afford the full cost of treatment, they were referred to as 'private patients'. Some 'asylums' admitted both 'pauper' and 'private' patients, others were 'pauper lunatic asylums' only.
The hospital began taking paying patients from 1892 and the income earned from these private patients enabled expansion and improvement of the hospital's facilities. From 1924 it was known as the 'City of London Mental Hospital'. It passed to the National Health Service in 1948, when it was renamed Stone House Hospital, and plans for the hospital's closure were initiated in 2003. The Bedford Lemere daybook records that the St Pancras Ironworks were responsible for the veranda shown here.
Sources: Hilton, Claire (2022), ‘Pauper Lunatics were not Paupers’, Royal College of Psychiatrists website, accessed 08/08/2024.
Roberts, Andrew (1981), Glossary - Mental Health History Words: ‘Pauper Lunatics’, Middlesex University, Archived 2007, accessed 08/08/2024.
