Restless Places - Asylums and Mental Hospitals in the Dundee Area

I have seen the Asylum they lately have made,
And approve of the plan, but indeed I'm afraid
If they send all the people of reason bereft
To this Bedlam, but few in the town will be left.
For their passions and drink are so terribly strong
That but few here retain all their faculties long.
And with shame I must own, that the females, I think.
Are in general somewhat addicted to drink!

   The above was the comic remark of the English poet Thomas Hood during a stay in Dundee in 1815. Although there was recognition that mental illness had to be treated with care there is evidence enough of ill treatment before, during and after its onset. Here's a haunting record of a nameless inhabitant of a mental institution in Dundee in the early 19th century which says something about the conditions in society during his age:

A boy, fifteen years of age, was admitted an inmate of  the Dundee Lunatic Asylum, having become imbecile from fright. When twelve years of age he was apprenticed to a light business, and some trifling article being one day missing, he was, along with others, locked up in a dark cellar. The children were much alarmed, and all  were let out, with the exception of this poor boy, who was detained until past midnight. He became from this time nervous and melancholy, and sunk into a state of insensibility, from which he will never recover. The missing article was found on the following morning, exculpating the boy from the guilt with which he had been charged.

[On Superstitions Connected With The History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (London, 1844), p. 100.]

    Hundreds of people, nameless or barely remembered now, passed through the doors of asylums, orphanages, institutions for the impoverished and the like over the decades.

     Prior to the establishment of separate facilities for those who had psychiatric disorders, those afflicted were confined in a little room in an upper flat of Dundee's Town  temporarily before being sent to Montrose Asylum*.  According to James Myles (Rambles in Forfarshire (Dundee, 1850), p. 52) at least one of those incarcerated there committed suicide, dashing his brains out against the walls.

Dundee Lunatic Asylum

Dundee's Lunatic Asylum was formed as part of the infirmary in the first decade of the 19th century, funded by voluntary contributions, and formally established in 1820 as a  separate entity, with premises in Albert Street.  Subscriptions were first raised after a meeting of the infirmary in 1800, with contributions being raised, including £100 from the town magistrates.  Building was certainly underway bu 1812. 

   In 1824 there were upwards of 70 patients in the asylum. Their living conditions were described as being at least humane:

None are confined to their apartments, in fine weather they are generally found in the airing grounds, pursuing those avocations and amusements to which they are directed by their former habits and taste.  Some are engaged in reading; some in playing on musical instruments; some in drawing; some are employed in manual labour in the garden; here a party is seen at cards; there a couple are intent at backgammon; some females are sewing; some knitting or spinning; some voluntary engage in the work of the house; while it must be added with regret that there are others from whom the eye of the keeper must not wander.

[History of the Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum, Davie Rorie (Dundee, 1912), p. 19.]

   In 1833 it was recorded that almost all patients were usefully occupied.  The female patients made clothes for themselves and for the male patients.  Male patients were mostly employed weaving cloth for use in the establishment or for sale locally, or picking oakum, plus gardening activities.  

   Among the surprising visitors to the asylum was the American dwarf and entertainer General Tom Thumb.  Rorie reports:

This remarkable little Yankee dwarf delighted many of the patients. Some of them thought he was a doll and were anxious to touch him that they might be satisfied whether he was or not.

Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838 –  1883), 'General Tom Thumb'

   In 1875 the institution became the Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum.  A year previous to that the directors purchased Westfield Farm in Liff to establish a new asylum.  The area covered was around 110 acres.  Gowrie House and Westgreen were established on the site. The public part of the facilities could accommodate up to 400 patients, while the private asylum (Gowrie House) had room for 62 patients. Dundee District Lunacy Board operated Westgreen from 1903 onward, but Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum at Gowrie House continued as a separate entity. 

 In 1959 the District Asylum (Westgreen) and the Royal Asylum (Gowrie House) were amalgamated, and became known as the Dundee Royal Mental Hospital.  The Westgreen body became Royal Dundee Liff Hospital in 1963.  Following opening of psychiatric wards at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee in 2001, Liff was closed.  

Liff Hospital in the late Victorian era

Strathmartine Hospital

The history of Strathmartine Hospital, just north of Dundee, is intimately linked with Baldovan House, which was close by it.  While the latter property has, in the past few decades, been demolished in a piecemeal fashion, the structure - or rather the shell - of Strathmartine lingers on, wholly derelict, a prey to arson and vandalism.

   Baldovan was home to a branch of the Ogilvy family and the original house was built in the early 18th century, though extensively remodelled during the following century.  The first name of the institution on the site was Baldovan Hospital. 
  
   The plaque on the foundation of the institution reads:

The Foundation Stone of this Building, erected by

Sir JOHN and Lady JANE OGILVY,

As an Asylum for the Treatment of Defective Children,

was laid on the 7th day of July, 1853, by

The Grand Lodge of Scotland;

John Whyte Melville, Esq., of Bennochy, Deputy Grand Master Mason,

officiating,

Assisted by all the lodges in Dundee.

Architects - Messrs. Coe and Goodwin, London.

Builders - Charles and Alexander Cunningham, of this parish.

   
 The orphanage on the site opened on 30th November 1854 (housing 30 children) and the Asylum opened on 6th January 1855.  As an orphanage , hospital, and indeed a haven for 'imbecile' children it was unique in Scotland and only the second such establishment in Britain.  






   In 1856 there was a change of name to Baldovan Asylum and eleven years later the asylum concentrated its attention on the care of mentally handicapped children. It ceased to function as an orphanage because it was thought the presence of mentally ill inmates would have a detrimental affect on the children.  By 1879 there were 70 children living there. At the start of the 20th century the buildings were expanded, housing 160 children in 1904, and in 1925 the trustees established an incorporation to manage the hospital to serve the children from the countries of Angus, Kincardine, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire.  Strathmartine Hospital, as it became in 1959, was brought into the NHS in 1948 and there was further expansion and rebuilding in the early to mid 1960s.  Indeed, as late as 1980 two new wards were opened.  But decommissioning of  began in the 1980s and it was closed completely in 2003.  Its subsequent sale to a development company resulted only in decay and dereliction.  Fires were repeatedly set in the building, notably in 2016, resulting in partial destruction and demolition. 

  Baldovan House had a physical decline comparable to the adjacent hospital.  It was sold to developers in the late 20th century by Sir David John Wilfrid Ogilvy, but the intended development never occurred.  The deterioration continued through the 1970s and beyond.  A 13 year old boy playing in the building tragically died there by accident in 2002 and the range of buildings was subsequently demolished.  

    Those interested in further material about Strathmartine can read Jimmy Laing's book Fifty Years in the System (1992).  Another resource, this time dedicated to the hospital, is the website Strathmartine Stories

*A previous post looked at the history of Sunnyside Hospital near Montrose, whose most famous patient was the father of Arthur Conan Doyle (story here).

King Crispin and Corpus Christi in Dundee and Montrose

A Confusion of Festivals?

This article end with a discussion of St Crispin's Lodges, part of a fraternity network which flourished for a while in the 19th century.  In Angus, there were lodges in both Montrose and Dundee (the latter had two lodges at one point).  The devotion to this saint was a feature of the Shoemaker or Cordiner trade, and in Dundee at least, prior to the Reformation, their allegiance was to the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.  The Crispin link to Montrose is less clear, though I personally suspect the earlier local devotion to the Holy Rood was transformed at a later stage in history to St Crispin.

The Feast of St Crispin and St Crispianus - 25th October

The Feast of Corpus Christi (Dies Sanctissimi Corporis et Sanguinis Domini Iesu Christi) - Thursday after Trinity or the Sunday after the Most Holy Trinity as its proper day (usually May/June).

The Feast of the Cross - 14th September.

   The medieval and early modern cult of St Crispin in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain has been, possibly purposely,  confused with the earlier Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.  The feast was popularised in western Europe in Liege during the 13th century and became widespread during the next century.  Apparently the feast was known in Scotland in 1327, at the tail end of the reign of Robert I.  By the 15th century the festival involved, in northern England, processions and elaborate plays, which again spread into Scotland.  Another import (but via Flemish rather than English sources) was the feast of the Holy Blood, which was particularly popular in towns among the mercantile population.  The Holy Blood procession in Bruges claimed to have been imported there following the Second Crusade.  There was confusion, in Scotland as elsewhere, between Corpus Christi and the saints Crispin and Crispianus, though the latter two were honoured as associated saints.  In October 1506 and October 1507  James IV made an offering of forty shillings for 'bred' and 'lichts' for 'Saints Crisipine and Crispianes'.

  There were several festivals associated with the Holy Rood which became popular in Scotland and more widely in the British Isles.  September 15th was designated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, or Holy Rood Day.  The celebration was supposed to have been instituted to mark the recovery of the Cross by the emperor Heraclius in the year 629.  

   In our area, Montrose notably maintained a pilgrimage centre focused on the blood of Christ, which attracted significant numbers of pilgrims from the region on holy days.  Regarding the site of the church of the Holy Rood in the town, James Mackinlay quotes J. G. Low's The Church of Montrose as follows:

Occasional references are made to a chapel, named the 'Rood Chapel.'  Whether this chapel stood adjacent to the Parish Church, or was erected in that portion of the common links now covered by streets and houses, and extending between the foot of the School Wynd and the south end of the Pier Wynd, is now a matter of conjecture.  Certain it is, that in this district various places bore names indicative of the proximity of a building dedicated to the Holy Rood.  Between the points mentioned we find the 'Rood hill,' which from early times was crowned with  the 'Rood mill,' and which stood in the neighbourhood of Hill Street.  At the foot of Lady Balmain Street stood the 'Rede wallie,' or Rude well, for supplying the burghers with water before the introduction of water from Glenskaino.

    The same author also highlights the Rood Fair that was held in the burgh in May. Rood Day, incidentally, was an auspicious time to ask to supernatural intervention to prevent ill luck.George Black reports: 'In Angus, on the evening preceding Rood-day (May 3rd), a piece of a branch cut and peeled and bound round with red thread was placed over the byre-door, to avert the evil eye.'  

Early Records of Corpus Christi in Dundee

   

Unlike many of the other tightly knit trades in the burgh the Cordiners, or Shoemakers, did not have their own altar in the burgh kirk.  Their devotions centred initially on Corpus Christi, the Holy Blood, and this affiliation was transmuted over the course of time into St Crispin.    The crafts guilds were tightly knit bodies, whose sense of identity went beyond mere mutual economic self interest.  In may places and cases they lived and worked closed together.  So in Dundee we had the Cordiners and Tanners occupying the evocatively named Wooden Land in the Overgate.  

 A list from St Mary's Church in Dundee, apparently dated (but probably 16th century), itemises the paraphernalia needed for the procession in the burgh records of Dundee give some idea regarding the complexity and scope of the event and also how much religious iconography was incorporated into the procession:

sixte of crownis, six pair of angel reynis  [wings], three myteris, cristis cott [coat] of lethyr with the hoses and glufis, cristis hed, thirty one suerdis, thre lang corsis of tre [wood], sane thomas sper, a cors til sane blasis, sane johnis coit, a credil and thre barnis maid of clath, twentie hedis of hayr, the four evangellistis, sane kathernis wheil...sane androwis cros, a saw, a ax, a rassour, a gully [large] knyff, a worm [serpent] of tre, the haly lam of tre, sane barnaras castel, abraamis hat and heids of hayr

   This procession was enacted every year on the Thursday after the feast of Trinity.

   While the attitude of the reformed religion obviously frowned upon the veneration of saints and iconography, it seems that the cult of Corpus Christi was not transformed into the more acceptably secular King Crispin (or even the halfway St Crispin) overnight.  

Another Religious Cult Pageants in Dundee - St Osbert

Religious pageantry in Dundee is poorly evidenced compared with some other burghs unfortunately and the secular plays and revelries which took place in the Playfield on the western side of the ancient town will be considered in a following post.

   There is a fairly faint record of annual devotion to another saint who was patron of the Baxter or Baker profession.  This was the annual 'St Osbert's Pastime' which occurred in no less than five east coast burghs:  Dundee, St Andrews, Perth, Haddington, and Edinburgh.  The scant record of this devotion comes only from the minute books of the Perth kirk session, from 1577-8 when the Protestant authorities were outlawing such idolatry.  The record alludes to someone on horseback, a drummer, and another participant wearing 'the devil's coat', with stern admonitions against the mumming observed in the procession apparently.  A record from Dundee dated 16th August 1486, states that John Richardson, Deacon of the Baxter Craft of Dundee, and others, bought from Thomas Turnour of Sanct Johnstoun, a new mass book, which they offered to 'Sanct Towbart’s Altar', in the church of Dundee. In local records of the next century the saint's name had altered to Sanct Cobortt, an evident confusion with St Cuthbert.
   
   Osbert was a saint, and bishop of Dunblane (or Strathearn), who died in the year 1231.  Possibly coincidentally, he is known to have attended a church conference in Dundee in 1230.  Whether his link with the town began then or soon afterwards is not known, but it would be pleasant to think he was remembered locally after this visit.  I do not know the reason why he was specifically honoured by the Baxter profession.

The Later Dundee Procession of King Crispin

The Cordiners, or Shoe Makers, one of the Nine Trades of Dundee were the group particularly associated with the cult of Corpus Christi and linked with the procession of it in the town.  The 18th century oil painted frieze, 35 feet in length,  detailing the annual event was displayed on the wall of the guild's room within the Trade's Hall in Dundee.

   According to a letter (by someone signing themselves as R.) in the Dundee Courier on Tuesday 5th May 1874, the painting commemorated the St Crispin's Procession as held on 25th October 1787:

The painting was begun by Mr Methven, a house painter by profession. He was also an artist of considerable ability. Mr Methven died, leaving his picture incomplete, and it was finished by the late Henry Harwood. When the Clydesdale Banking Company purchased the Trades Hall property, they made considerable alterations on it, and the Crispin painting was cut from the walls, and deposited, I believe, in the art department of the High School. Is the painting of sufficient value or interest to claim a place in the Albert Institute? and would it be worth employing a competent person to examine and restore the painting?

   Happily the picture was saved and now resides in the city's McManus Gallery service. Alexander Methven's original work was begun in 1787 and the frieze was completed  by Harry Harwood around 1825.  The depiction of the procession shows the Earl Marshall on a black horse and the King's Champion in armour and on a white horse, then King Crispin, with four pages holding his royal train.  Then comes the Convenor and the Deacons of trades, then the Craftsmen, wearing satin coats and knee breeches.  While the procession is undoubtedly set in Dundee (with the Law, Auld Steeple and Tay protrayed in the background), as the scenery in the background shows, it seems that some of the costumes at least came from afar.  Another character in the procession appears to be the turbaned Auld Mahoun, the Saracen.  

  The Trades Hall incidentally was opened only a few years before the date of this procession and previously the representatives of the ancient trades all met in specific areas of the Howff graveyard in the town.  

   

   A. H. Millar states that there was no procession held in Dundee between 1787 and 1822, though this is not certain.  He quotes the Dundee Advertiser of 3rd October 1822, describing the revived procession which took place in the burgh the previous day:

The rarity of the procession attracted the curious and the idle, and the High Street was crowded to excess for upwards of two hours. From the want of previous arrangement to keep off the excessive crowd, the procession advanced with difficulty and labour hard, and only the equestrians, such as the Champion, the Earl Marshal, and a few other grandees were visible above the mass of heads.  As the procession moved up the Overgate, a pedlar contrived to perch his person upon a table in front of his shop.  But no sooner did His Mock Majesty appear than the table broke down, and the fall of the pedlar was construed into a profound reverence to Crispin.

 Despite Millar's statement that this was the last showing of the adherents of St Crispin on the streets of Dundee, they did appear in public through the following decades, such as at the opening of the Baxter Park and the marriage celebrations for the Prince of Wales in the 1860s.

St Crispin's Societies in Dundee and Montrose

In 1770 the Cordiners of Edinburgh had some of their processional robes dispatched to Dundee. 

Edinburgh's procession must have been grander than Dundee's or any other.  It was in Edinburgh too that the formal setting up of St Crispin's societies into masonic style lodges was formulated, possibly in the very early 19th century. 

   These trade societies had their own membership criteria and rituals and were constituted as local bodies which looked after the welfare of their members.  It seems likely that they were started during the mid or early 19th century, though they had ceased to be active by the end of the Victorian era. The Shoemaker trade link is evidence in other Scottish communities:  Kilmarnock, Stirling, Falkirk, Dalkeith, Dunfermline, Kelso. The records of the Shoemaker's Friendly Society (St Crispin's Lodge), Montrose, can be found in the Angus Archives. There are other records held in national archives in Edinburgh relating to the lodges in both Dundee and Montrose.

   The records surviving appear to be somewhat sporadic.  There is correspondence sent to Edinburgh St Crispin officials in 1862, referring to an old associate of the Montrose lodge who had been Sir Hugh for thirty years, which tells us something of the longevity of that branch and also that it had its own pageant performances.  But, according to Sandra Marwick:

A reading of the Montrose record for the 1860s gives the impression of a literary and convivial society more than one devoted to Crispianism. Early entries are given over to accounts of papers read by various members; an anecdote of a shoemaker in December 1866 and 'The Duties of Young Men to the Community' in the following month...Much space is given to discussions and descriptions of convivial evenings and St Crispin anniversaries involving decisions about having 'Braddies' [bridies] served for supper.

   Complementing these records, which suggest a rather humdrum sort of club, Marwick notes that the mystical rituals of initiation into the order only survive in handwritten records from Montrose Royal St Crispin Society and Dundee Lodge No. 19.  These relate to entry into the second order, the Knights of St Hugh.  There also exist documents relating to initiations into the third order, the Court of Masters, in Dundee and rules relating to the operation of this order in Montrose.  The mumbo-jumbo contains allusions to Celtic mythology as well as more recognisable 'mysticism' derived from freemasonry.

  

   The Dundee script of the initiation makes it all sound rather harmless and quaint, the last gasp of a tradition that died with the dawning of the twentieth century:

Crispianus:       Who comes?

Inside Guard:    Crispins upon tramp.

Crispanus:         From whence?

Inside Guard:    From the lodge of St Crispin.

Crispanus:         Whither bound?

Inside Guard:    To visit the shrine of the noble St Hugh.

Crispanus:         Indeed!  Dangerous a journey.

Inside Guard:    Yes. These hearts are sealed and protected by the sacred lance of St Crispin.

Crispanus:         Got a passport?

Inside Guard:    No, but I have one for them.

Crispanus:         Then give it to me!

Further Reading

Steve Boardman and Eila Willliamson, The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (Woodbridge, 2010).

George F. Black, 'Scottish Charms and Amulets,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 27 (1892-93), pp. 423-526.

Brian John Hayward, Folk Drama in Scotland, Phd. Thesis, Glasgow (1983).

Cosmo Innes, 'A Few Notices of Manner from the Older Council-Books of Dundee,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2 (1855), pp. 347-9.

James Murray Mackinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, Scriptural Dedications (Edinburgh, 1910).

Sandra M. Marwick, Sons of Crispin: The St Crispin Lodges of Edinburgh and Scotland (Cambridge, 2014).

Alexander Maxwell, The History of Old Dundee (Edinburgh and Dundee, 1884).

A. H. Millar, Haunted Dundee (Dundee, 1923).

Elizabeth P. D. Torrie, Medieval Dundee, A Town and its People, Abertay Historical Society Publication No. 20 (Dundee, 1990).

http://ninetradesofdundee.co.uk/cordiners/