https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10721787/Women-committed-Britains-criminal-lunatic-asylum-revealed-grisly-new-book.htmlGruesome crimes of Broadmoor's first female patients: Author delves into the lives of Victorian women sent to the psychiatric hospital from a housewife who drowned her baby to a strangler who killed her husband with his braces
Broadmoor Women tells stories of seven women treated in the criminal asylum
The author uses patient files and historical records from Broadmoor archive
In first years of existence after opening in 1863 one in five patients were female
Tells the story of farmer's daughter in her 20s who shot dead her own mother
Includes the tale of a middle-class housewife who drowned her baby daughter
By Monica Greep For Mailonline
Published: 10:49, 18 April 2022 | Updated: 11:48, 18 April 2022
rom a farmer's daughter who shot her mother to a wife who strangled her husband with his trouser braces, a new book tells the shocking tales of Broadmoor's first female patients. The high-security psychiatric hospital, in Berkshire, first opened its doors in 1863. At the time, one in five patients were women, many of whom were committed after being found not guilty of heinous crimes by virtue of insanity. The very first patient to walk through the doors was a woman, whose name has not survived, who was admitted after killing her own children. She was described as 'feeble minded', which reflects the underdeveloped understanding of mental health conditions. In her new book Broadmoor Women, author Kim Thomas uncovers the stories of the first women treated in the 'asylum' and explores Victorian medical understanding of what today would be considered mental illness. Using patient files and historical records from Broadmoor archive, the author pieces together the lives of different women across nineteenth-century society, including a middle-class woman who drowned her baby and a mother who tried to slay an elderly woman.
Here, FEMAIL reveals the real life stories of some of the first women admitted to Broadmoor...
BLANCHE BASTABLE: FARMER'S DAUGHTER WHO SHOT HER MOTHER DEAD
Eliza Blanche Bastable was born in the village of East Orchard in Dorset in 1852 to George, a dairy farmer, and Elizabeth, the daughter of a grocer who worked as a dressmaker before marriage. Blanche was one of eight children and at the age of ten was sent to study at a small private boarding school in Shaftesbury a move made by George and Elizabeth to prevent their children getting the 'taint of pauperism'. After school, 19-year-old Blanche became a teacher, but tragedy struck when her older sister and close confidant Mary Anne died of tuberculosis in 1870 when she was just 20. In the years that followed, Blanche would begin experiencing mental illness in the form of religious mania and within five years of losing her sister, she was admitted to a mental asylum in Bristol. At Brislington House which was founded by a Christian Quaker she received 'moral' therapies, taking part in gentle activities such as exercise, gardening and music during her stay. She returned home after a year in the asylum, but her family were still concerned about her mental state and so hired a farm hand, William Lodge, to mind her. Despite William feeling Blanche wasn't a risk to others, her condition deteriorated, and by late October 1877 her father said she had become 'more depressed, and at times excited and morose'. The family planned to move Blanche to the Fisherton House Asylum in Salisbury, with local doctors becoming incredibly concerned about the young woman's mental state. On Monday, November 5th, 1877, William left Blanche sewing while he helped out with some farm work. Elizabeth had been baking and went into the garden to go look for her daughter. While Elizabeth searched, Blanche crept up behind her and shot her from seven yards away in her head. Her mother fell and died instantly. One of her sisters, Emma, was in her mother's bedroom when she heard the gunshot and passed Blanche as she left the crime scene recalling how she 'passed me without saying a word, and went on to her bedroom'.
William recalled later that Blanche had no concept of what had happened, saying to him: 'Let me lift her up; she is not dead; she only sleepeth; she will rise again' a quote from the Gospel of Luke.
However when asked by the doctor why she did it, Blanche replied: 'Well, the law must be fulfilled, all the wicked shall be abolished off the earth.' She then went on: 'She will live again in Jesus.'
At the inquest, the verdict of the jury was murder, and Blanche was arrested before being formally committed to trial for wilful murder at Dorset Assizes while remanded to the county prison in Dorchester. However she would never stand trial, with the secretary of state at the time deciding she should go straight to Charminster Lunatic Asylum, where she stayed for a few months before moving to Broadmoor. Her admission record that the cause of her insanity was unknown, but her main delusion was that she 'believes herself called on by God to destroy some person or persons'.
Shortly after her arrival in Broadmoor, Blanche fell ill, and in 1879 records state she was 'seriously ill suffering from consumption' and 'spitting blood' but that she is 'supplied with everything her condition requires.'
By January 1880 Blanche had died from tuberculosis aged 27. Her father did not remove her body for burial and it's unknown whether family attended her burial at St John's Church in Crowthorne.
MARY ANN MELLER: ATTEMPTED TO SLIT AN OLD WOMAN'S THROAT
Mary Ann Neal was born in 1840 Southwark, South London, where she spent the majority of her life before being sent to Broadmoor to a coal carman father called James. By the time she turned 11, James was a coal merchant employing 34 men and boys, making the family affluent enough to send their five children to school, where they learnt to write. However both Mary Ann and her brother Thomas showed signs of mental illness from childhood with a young Mary Ann once writing a letter to her parents pretending she had had taken her own life. In 1859 she married William Meller, a self-employed stonemason who was fourteen years her senior. She once again began displaying symptoms of insanity one of which was defecating on her husband's portrait. The couple had their first child, Rosetta, in 1860 which was rapidly followed by three more; William (1862), Charles (1863) and Selina (1864). Mary Ann also suffered several miscarriages. After her fourth child, Rosetta tried to kill herself once more. She began excessively drinking and at one point even tried to kill her husband. In 1866, Mary Ann's younger brother Thomas died of tuberculosis shortly followed by her sister Emma in 1867. They were both aged 20. The year Emma died, Mary Ann tried again to take her own life by taking ammonia and her husband William was warned by doctors that his wife was seriously mentally unwell. With officials worried that Mary Ann would try and kill one of the children, William hired a widow named Mary Cattermole as a live-in carer while he tried to place her in an asylum. The widow had known the family for several years and had even helped Mary Ann in childbirth - however on November 1st, 1867, the mother carried out a horrific assault on the elderly woman. Mary Ann had tricked Ms Cattermole into coming upstairs by telling her that William wanted his breakfast before dealing a 'dreadful blow' to the widows head and cutting at her throat with a razor. Speaking at Mary Ann's Old Bailey trial, Ms Cattermole said: 'The prisoner [Mary Ann] was then at the table, she came before me and cut me across the throat, and said, 'What is that, Mrs. Cattermole?' I said, 'Oh murder!' She then cut me on the other side. I went to get the kitchen door open but found it was fastened – she pulled my hair and said, 'You don't go alive.' She turned round to get the broom, and I got to the street door and found the chain up. She tore my hair I got out of the house into the street, and was taken to a surgeon's and from there to the hospital. My hand was also wounded when I put it up to save my throat'. With some understatement, she concluded: 'I considered the prisoner very odd at times.'
Despite being severely wounded, Ms Cattermole survived the attack and recovered after several weeks of treatment at the nearby Guy's Hospital. At her trial for assault in 1868, her doctor, William Randle, who had known her for eight years, testified that she was 'in a state utterly beyond self-control'. He said the bout of insanity was due o the 'frequency of having children and the frequency of miscarriages'. Mary Ann was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity and when she arrived at Broadmoor, was seven months pregnant. She gave birth to her fifth child, Henry, inside the hospital before handing the child over to William to raise. Over time at Broadmoor, her insanity appeared to improve - with staff describing her as 'free from any known delusion. cheerful and well conducted, employed at needlework'.
She improved so much that after only two years she was conditionally discharged however after giving birth to two more children, it wasn't long before Mary Anne turned to alcohol once more. In February 1873, William wrote to the Broadmoor staff member responsible for the female patients asking for advice about how to curb Mary Ann's drinking, revealing she had began pawning their possessions for alcohol. While there is little more known about the fate of Mary Ann before her premature death at 37 from tuberculosis, a revealing letter uncovered in the book revealed that a domestic abuse could have been a driving factor of her mental illness. 'Written to Broadmoor superintendent William Orange, the letter reads: 'Will you kindly call at my house 101 Falmouth Rd. I am miserable and unhappy and require your assistance and as I shall be in receipt of two pounds per week very shortly and Mr Meller threatens to send me away from home and has I believe broken the bone of my nose and blackened my eye. I would rather be under your care & have be & has ill used my servant informs me. He received a letter from the Secretary of State kindly requesting your attention and I remain yours.'
MARY FRANCE: MURDERED HER NEWBORN SON
Mary Bramwell was born into extreme poverty in Wigan, Lancashire in 1847 to young parents, Thomas, a coal miner and Jane, who had been a cotton weaver before marriage. After Mary was born, Thomas and Jane had seven more children: James, Ellen, Thomas, Nancy, Jane, Alice and Henry. Their children James and Thomas died shortly after birth. It's unlikely Mary went to school and by 14 she was working as a a reeler in a factory before giving birth to an illegitimate son called James in 1868. The baby's father is unknown. She continued to live with her parents after the baby was born, with a lodger named George France, aged 20, also living in the house. Mary and George married in 1871 and she quit work to live in extreme poverty off his salary as a miner. Their first child together was born in April 1872 however she died of convulsions the following year. George and Mary lost two more children from respiratory diseases, while three of Mary's other children survived. Tragedy struck Mary once again when her father died in 1880, aged 57. In 1886, the four surviving children welcomed a new sibling called Ellen - however George would later tell staff at Broadmoor that after Ellen's birth, she became 'altered in manner and sleepless'. Her notes at also revealed that Mary suffered from Grave's disease an autoimmune condition causing muscle weakness, sleeping problems and anxiety. She began exhibiting signs of religious mania shortly after the birth, and on December 18th, told her husband she could see Jesus, but that Satan 'was holding her back from touching him'. That day, Mary slashed baby Ellen's throat and fled to Bolton, where she gave herself up to a policeman while she still had blood on her hands. She was convicted of wilful murder and sent to Broadmoor shortly afterwards. During her time at Broadmoor, Mary made a gradual recovery and in September 1892, Mary was issued with a warrant of conditional release into the care of her husband.
JULIE SPICKERNELL: MOTHER WHO DROWNED HER DAUGHTER AFTER SPEAKING TO THE DEVIL
Born in a small rural village in Hertfordshire in 1852, Georgiana Julia Edwards was the daughter of a shopkeeper called William who owned confectionary store. One of six children, in her early childhood the family were well off enough to to employ a 12-year-old servant called Mary Smith. By the time she was ten her father had switched careers and worked as a police officer, with Julia herself eventually moving to east London, where she worked as a domestic servant. Seven years later Julia married Frederick Henry Spickernell, who was working as a telegraph clerk, and moved to Islington, where she went on to have six babies in eight years. Her first child, Emily Violet, was born in October 1880, followed by Frederick James (1882), Alfred George (1883), Maude Mary (1884), Edith Florence (1886) and Mabel Constance (1888). Both Alfred and Maude died shortly after birth, with Alfred dying of diarrhoea at ten weeks, and Maude of acute bronchitis at three months. By the birth of their last child, Mable, the family were living in a three-storey house in Stoke Newington where Julia would commit the crime that landed her inside Broadmoor. It was on Christmas Eve that Julia began to feel 'very peculiar' and started experiencing pains in her head and back. She had been complaining that she was worried about her daughter Mabel's bronchitis and decided to go downstairs into the kitchen and wash one of the children's nightdresses. However when Julia was intercepted by Frederick, who told her not to in case she caught a chill, she 'flew at his throat' and warned, 'Oh Fred, I will murder you; I will murder you and then I shall be a murderess'.
Days later, the mother took three of her children down to the basement where she drowned her youngest daughter in a bucket of water. After the horrific murder, Julia knocked on her neighbour Mary Ann's door and told her she had something to show her, before ordering her to 'Give me Mr Goldring's razors' and screaming.
Mary Ann was alarmed and called their other neighbour, Lucy, to watch Julia while she ran to find the local doctor. Lucy's account of what happened next, given at Julia's trial, read: 'I sat her on a box by the side of the drawers, and she said, 'I have done it; the devil made me do it; he has been following me about up and down stairs the last five weeks'. I asked her what was troubling her she said the work had been troubling her a great deal; she tried to do the work and could not she seemed very excited after a few minutes she got quieter, and I then went into her room. I there found the child in a pail of water placed head downwards, and covered by the water; I took it out and laid it on the bed it was fully dressed.'
When Dr Spencer arrived Julia was agitated and aggressive, speaking 'snatches of sentences in a wild and incoherent manner at the top of her voice' before attacking the man. He would later tell the court that he had always found Julia to be 'very fond of the children'. When the police arrived at the scene, Julia asked the police constable 'for a rope with which to hang herself, or a razor to cut her head open'. The jury found that the mother 'was not responsible for her actions' when she drowned her baby and later Julia was found 'guilty, but insane' and admitted to Broadmoor. Julia's file at the hospital contains a handwritten note provided by Frederick, stating that the mother had been 'weakened' from breastfeeding– suggesting that he felt lactation was a possible cause of insanity. When it was discovered that Julia's grandfather had been admitted to Bedford lunatic asylum, the cause of her insanity was described as being both 'hereditary' and 'lactation'. Within a year Julia's 'melancholy' had began to show signs of improvement, and convinced his wife was well again, Frederick felt his she should return home- frequently writing to the Home Office to lobby for his wife's release. The Home Office wrote to Broadmoor four times with Frederick insisting that Julia's health was 'permanent' and that it was 'perfectly safe to return to her home'. After seven years in Broadmoor, Julia was discharged on 5 October 1896 and moved in with her children and husband in the suburbs before having a comfortable retirement with Frederick. In old age, Julia was cared for by her adult children and died in Oster House, a St Albans hospital, in 1944 at the age of 91.
REBECCA TURTON: STRANGLED HER HUSBAND WITH HIS TROUSER BRACE
Rebecca Turton was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1822 to a gunsmith father and an unknown mother. It's not known why in her youth Rebecca decided to move to London, but she appeared in the 1841 living at a house in 22 Rathbone Place, Marylebone and working as a servant. Shortly after arriving in England she married Thomas Turton, with her marriage certificate listing her as a dressmaker while her new husband is listed as a boilermaker. She argued frequently with Thomas, who was eight years her senior and likely from Yorkshire, because according to her own account in Broadmoor he was a drunk who taunted her for being Irish and would often threaten to put her in an asylum. The pair were both drunks, but Rebecca was the louder of the two with neighbours of the couple were not keen on Rebecca, with one describing her as a 'perfect nuisance'. They said she was 'almost continuously intoxicated' and 'was constantly abusing and jangling with her husband'.
He once heard Rebecca tell her husband that he had been 'a whoring'. However he preferred Thomas to his wife, describing her as 'very nosey' and accusing her of 'disturbing everybody in the neighbourhood'.
On midnight on the night of Thursday, April 20th, Rebecca informed her downstairs neighbours that Thomas had taken arsenic. However when police arrived, he was alive. In his drunken state he told officers: 'I have not [died]; I do not know what to do with my wife; she is going mad.'
After police left she stuck her head out the window and asked her neighbour: 'Are you the devil?' before insisting: 'The cats are scratching the graves open.'
The following afternoon the pair were drunk again, rowing because Rebecca had accused Thomas of sleeping with other women. Shortly after their argument Rebecca visited a neighbour and accused Thomas of 'ill treating her'. Shortly after Rebecca arrived home that evening, she strangled her husband with one of his own trouser braces. When the body was discovered Rebecca told her neighbour that she saw fairies and dead people at the side of the road saying: 'Everything is double the size and all the people are going to the next world.'
At trial, the jury found Rebecca not guilty, on the grounds of insanity and she was placed to the criminal wing of Fisherton House in Salisbury, where spent the next seven years before the opening of Broadmoor.
Broadmoor Women Tales from Britain's First Criminal Lunatic Asylum by Kim Thomas, Pen and Sword Books, is available for £14.99
Broadmoor, the UK's oldest psychiatric hospital that housed some of Britain's most notorious killers
Broadmoor is the oldest of three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England. Founded in 1863, the hospital was opened as the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum and first admitted a female patient for infanticide. It now houses up to 210 men after the female service closed in 2007. The average length of stay at the hospital is five-and-a-half years however this is skewed by a few men who have stayed for for more than 30 years. Patients are admitted from prison, court or a medium-secure hospital. However some have not committed an offence but are considered to pose a high risk to society and need to be housed in a secure environment. Therapy and vocational activities along with medication and pastoral care is on offer. Patients are transferred back to the criminal justice system or a lower security environment when they no longer require high-security care.
