Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:40:21.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Windham Case

The Enquiry held in London in 1861 into the state of mind of William Frederick Windham, heir to the Felbrigg Estate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Kingsley Jones*
Affiliation:
St. Andrew's Hospital, Norwich

Extract

The Public Enquiry into William Frederick Windham's ‘alleged lunacy’ is well documented and the evidence of 140 witnesses provides a uniquely full history. The case is of interest as a diagnostic problem, a study in mid-nineteenth century psychiatric thinking and methodology, and in the then prevailing attitudes to mental illness. It was a significant event in psychiatric history, as the scale and expense of the trial brought the method of public enquiry into bad repute. Thus the case represented one of the steps away from legal management in psychiatric illness and towards medical management.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. An Inquiry into the State of Mind of W. F. Windham Esq., of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk before Samuel Warren Esq., Q.C. and a Special Jury. London: W. Oliver, 13 Catherine Street, Strand.Google Scholar
2. The Times. December 1861January 1862.Google Scholar
3. ‘The life and death of W. F. Windham.’ By the Editor of the Norfolk Argus. The Norfolk Handbook 1866.Google Scholar
4. Felbrigg—The Story of a House. Ketton Cramer, R. W. London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1962.Google Scholar
5. Munk, W. (1878). Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Google Scholar
6. Bucknill, and Tuke, . A Manual of Psychological Medicine. 2nd Edition 1862.Google Scholar
7. Leigh, D. The Historical Development of British Psychiatry. Vol. 1. 18th and 19th Century. Oxford 1961.Google Scholar
8. ‘Personality adjustment in boys with cleft lips and palates.’ Watson, C. G. Cleft Palate Journal, 1, 130–8. January 1964.Google Scholar
9. ‘The Windham Case—by A Member of the Bar.’ The Medical Critic and Psychological Journal, Vol. 2. 381423. July 1862.Google Scholar
10. Jones, K. (1960). Mental Health and Social Policy 1845-1959. Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
11. Phillips, C. P. (1858). The Law concerning Idiots and Persons of Unsound Mind. Butterworth, p. 270.Google Scholar
12. Conolly, J. (1849). A Remonstrance with the Lord Chief Baron touching the Case of Nottidge versus Ripley. Churchill (Third Edition).Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.