Historical Geography Of Scotland Research Articles

Critiques, ideals and blueprints in the historical geography of Scotland’s lunatic asylums, 1857–1872

ABSTRACT The historical geography of Scotland’s nineteenth-century lunatic asylums has only been lightly researched to date, and particularly under-studied is what might be termed Scotland’s ‘Asylum Age’ – c.1857 into the 1870s – when publicly-funded and purpose-built district asylums started to appear across the Scottish landscape. This was a period of therapeutic optimism about what these asylums could achieve, as curative institutions buttressed by medical and moral ideas about how lunacy should be treated. Using Annual Reports of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland over a fifteen-year period, 1857–1872, this paper explores ‘expert’ criticisms directed at the perceived geographical failings of the pre-1857 establishments housing lunatics (royal asylums, private licensed houses and Poor Law facilities). Attending to the macro and micro-geographies discussed in these Reports, the Commissioners’ ideal for asylum location and architecture is reconstructed, noting how this became a geographical blueprint for the emerging district asylum system. Over the fifteen-year study period, ideas about the ideal site and building shifted once more as lunacy numbers increased and money dwindled, suggesting that the ideal was soon to be overtaken by a more pessimistic turn less sure about the curative benefits of rural sites or homely buildings.

Turnock, Historical Geography of Scotland

Turnock, <i>Historical Geography of Scotland</i>

The Historical Geography of Scotland Since 1707 (review)

Reviewed by: The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707 Ian D. Whyte The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707. By David Turnock. Pp. 11, 352. ISBN 0 521 89229 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004. £22.99. The first point that anyone who is considering buying this book should note that it is a paperback reprint of the original 1982 edition. Occasionally a book becomes a classic and this status justifies keeping it in print without any revisions. One of the most celebrated examples must be W.G. Hoskins' Making of the English Landscape, first published in 1955 and still immensely readable after 50 years because of its style, erudition and enthusiasm, even when it is clear that many modern ideas about the evolution of the English countryside have changed markedly. It is certainly good to see Dr. Turnock's book available as a paperback although the price of £22.99 hardly makes it a cheap one. Reprints should perhaps, however, carry an academic health warning for there are pitfalls in reissuing such a book without allowing the author any revisions after nearly a [End Page 151] generation of scholarship has passed. There are pitfalls too for the unwary undergraduate, hurriedly preparing material for an essay, in using a book which is not as up to date as the year of publication might suggest. I reviewed this book when it was originally published. I liked it then and I still do: but how have my reactions to it changed after twenty-three years? How well has it stood the test of time? In some ways it is a book very much of its time. When the author originally wrote it there were a number of other historical geographers working on Scottish themes, myself included. The last quarter of a century has witnessed something of a decline in their numbers. In addition, historical geography itself, in Britain at any rate, has taken a strong cultural turn which has steered it into exploring unexpected and challenging new directions. At its best, the scholarship of this approach can be appreciated in books like Charles Withers' Geography, Science and Identity: Scotland since 1520 (2001)—but this is a very different kind of historical geography. It is also true that there have been several areas within the scope of Dr. Turnock's book where major advances have been made in the last two decades or so. The most recent books in the bibliography date from 1979. Whole research careers have ripened and come to maturity since then. One immediately thinks of the contribution of Robert Dodgshon to our understanding of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Highland agriculture, settlement, and the Highland economy in general, and of the work of Christopher Smout and his environmental history colleagues at St. Andrews on Scottish woodlands. The structure of the book, with its focus on the North East, an area in which Dr. Turnock carried out much detailed research, comes out as a refreshing change to what has sometimes been called the 'Lothiancentric' approach to Scottish history. After an introduction to pre-Union Scotland the book divides into three main chronological sections, breaking at the Napoleonic and First World Wars. Each section contains a general review and then more specialist chapters on themes which the author considers to be especially significant for that period: agricultural improvement, planned villages and whisky manufacture for the eighteenth century for instance. The last section of the book finishes in the mid 1970s. Since then there has been so much change in the geography of Scotland that the most recent sections are now historical geography themselves. One only has to consider trends in industry, housing, the re-invention of Glasgow and the appearance of Scotland's first national parks, to mention only a few themes. It is a shame that the author has not been allowed at least a new postscript. Ian D. Whyte Lancaster University Copyright © 2007 Edinburgh University Press

Book Review: The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707: Geographical Aspects of Modernisation

Book Review: The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707: Geographical Aspects of Modernisation

An Historical Geography of Scotland.

An Historical Geography of Scotland.

G. WHITTINGTON and I. D. WHYTE (eds), An Historical Geography of Scotland. (London: Academic Press Inc. Ltd.: 1983, pp.282. £9.80.)

G. WHITTINGTON and I. D. WHYTE (eds), <i>An Historical Geography of Scotland</i>. (London: Academic Press Inc. Ltd.: 1983, pp.282. £9.80.)

DAVID TURNOCK, The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1982, pp.xi, 352. £25.00.)

DAVID TURNOCK, <i>The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707</i>. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1982, pp.xi, 352. £25.00.)

An Historical Geography of Scotland

An Historical Geography of Scotland

D. Turnock, The historical geography of Scotland since 1707: geographical aspects of modernisation

D. Turnock, <i>The historical geography of Scotland since 1707: geographical aspects of modernisation</i>

The Historical Geography of Scotland Since 1707

The Historical Geography of Scotland Since 1707