A quiet revolution in Brighton: Dr Helen Boyle's pioneering approach to mental health care, 1899-1939.

Abstract

At the close of the nineteenth century, the English lunacy laws in relation to pauper cases made no concessions for acute, temporary, or recoverable cases. They were all located in the asylum along with severe and chronic cases. Dr Helen Boyle worked among London's poor in the 1890s and observed the deterioration of cases of nervous disorder and borderline insanity due to their lack of treatment. The early treatment of borderline cases was the aim of Boyle's charitable hospital, founded in 1905, for nervous disorders in women and girls. Boyle's interest in mental disorder included the mentally defective and she was a founder member of the Guardianship Society which sought to keep those defined as such within the community. The history of the care and treatment of the 'insane' has concentrated largely on the public and private asylums. London-based facilities such as the Tavis-tock clinic and the Maudsley Hospital, which both treated rate-aided patients in the inter-war period, have been given a great deal of attention because of wealthy benefactors and the involvement of high profile individuals. Boyle's unique in-patient facility in Brighton preceded the Maudsley by almost 20 years and as such fills an important gap in mental health history. Boyle's work challenged the lunacy laws and set out to establish a holistic system of care for recoverable conditions outside the asylum system. This essay concentrates on the work of Dr Helen Boyle in Brighton but also highlights other facilities that were available for rate-aided patients, which have been neglected in the historiography of mental health care.