Light and darkness in an Edwardian insitution for the insane poor - illuminating the material practices of the Asylum Age

Natural light and its provision within asylum and other buildings is a neglected aspect of the historical archaeology of institutions. An Edwardian asylum in the north of Ireland is analysed for the management of natural light through the siting of buildings, window design and placement of interior glazing. A close reading of selected contemporary literature relating to natural light is employed to assess the significance of light provision within institutions of this period and contemporary discourses are in turn illuminated by the material practices recorded in the case study.

Liberty and individuality: the colony asylum in Scotland and England

This paper analyses the buildings, spaces and interiors of Bangour Village public asylum for the insane, near Edinburgh, and compares these with an English asylum, Whalley, near Preston, of similar early-twentieth-century date. The village asylum, which developed from a European tradition of rendering the poor productive through ‘colonisation’, was more enthusiastically and completely adopted in Scotland than in England, perhaps due to differences in asylum culture within the two jurisdictions. ‘Liberty’ and ‘individuality’, in particular, were highly valued within Scottish asylum discourses, arguably shaping material provision for the insane poor from the scale of the buildings to the quality of the furnishings. The English example shows, by contrast, a greater concern with security and hygiene. These two differing interpretations show a degree of flexibility within the internationalized asylum model which is seldom recognized in the literature.