Cure, Containment & Curiosities
Introduction
Below you will find a timeline based upon the Scottish Cure, Containment and Curiosities, from 1800 – 1893.
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1800
Aberdeen Lunatic Asylum opens and is constituted through a royal charter and an act of parliament. I...Read more
1802
Birth of Hugh Miller (1802 – 1856) Geologist, Folklorist, Evangelical Christian and Political Refo...Read more
1804
The Royal Northern Infirmary, Inverness, is opened, whilst in Glasgow the Blind Asylum opens on Cast...Read more
1805
Birth of Mary Jane Seacole (1805 – 1881) Nurse and Heroine of the Crimean War and the daughter of ...Read more
1808
The County Asylum Act becomes law. Counties in England and Wales are permitted to build institutions...Read more
1809
Birth of Louis Braille (1809 – 1852) Teacher....Read more
1810
Montrose Lunatic Asylum receives a royal charter, whilst the third Royal Charter Asylum for Lunatics...Read more
1811
Birth of Sir James Young Simpson (1811 –1870) Doctor. In 1847 he discovers the anaesthetic proper...Read more
1812
William Wull inherits the position of Town Drummer for Prestonpans. ‘The new town drummer was a st...Read more
1813
Scotland’s fourth royal charter lunatic asylum opens in Morningside, Edinburgh. The first patients...Read more
1814
The Highland Clearances begin...Read more
1815
A hostile article by the anatomist John Gordon is published in the Edinburgh Review, denouncing phre...Read more
1816
There is disquiet about the growing number of private ‘madhouses’ and their variable provision. ...Read more
1817
A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, whilst Laurent Clerc, a deaf teacher born in Labi...Read more
1818
Publication of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Go...Read more
1819
The Glasgow Society for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb is established at Townhead....Read more
1820
The Royal Lunatic Asylum opens at Stobswell near Dundee. It is the fifth Scottish asylum to be finan...Read more
1823
Glasgow Blind Asylum states its aim of providing a residential school for blind boys and girls betwe...Read more
1824
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg is published anonymously. Th...Read more
1825
The Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh purchases a series of fifteen oil paintings, by Charles B...Read more
1826
Robert Owen (1771 – 1858) writes The Social System – Constitution, Laws, and Regulations of a Co...Read more
1827
The eponymous Murray Royal Lunatic Asylum opens in Perth. Although it has a royal charter, the hospi...Read more
1828
Publication of ‘A general view of the present state of lunatics and lunatic asylums in Great Brita...Read more
1829
Execution of William Burke (1798 -1829) Cobbler. From November 1827 to October 31, 1828 Burke and hi...Read more
1832
Cholera outbreaks occur in Edinburgh, Dundee, Inverness and Dumfries, from which came the Cholera Ac...Read more
1833
John Alston (1778 – 1846), the Honorary Treasurer of the Glasgow Asylum for the Blind, modifies Fr...Read more
1834
“A statute of quite uncommon Callousness.” The Poor Law Amendment Act comes into force in Englan...Read more
1835
Elgin Pauper Lunatic Asylum opens....Read more
1836
Dundee Eye Institution is established by Dr Cocks, a practitioner in the city, to provide a free ser...Read more
1837
Five lectures by phrenologist and medical superintendent of Montrose Lunatic Asylum, William A.F. Br...Read more
1838
Patients are admitted to the Crichton Institution, Dumfries, the first asylum established south of E...Read more
1839
The Crichton Institution is described by the Saturday Magazine as “surpassing everything of the ki...Read more
1840
The Scottish economy falters and it becomes apparent that the demand for poor relief is growing and ...Read more
1841
A Chartist demonstration in Glasgow is addressed by Fergus O’Connor...Read more
1842
Disabled Trade Unionist and son of a former slave, William Cuffay, is elected to the national execut...Read more
1843
Scotland’s first ‘Hydropathic’ institution opens. ‘Dr Paterson’s Glenburn House at Rothesa...Read more
1844
The Poor Law inquiry (Scotland) report notes ‘that in Scotland the people entitled to parochial re...Read more
1845
The Scottish Poor Law Amendment Act (The Amendment and better Administration of the Laws Relating to...Read more
1846
James Loch, MP and agent for the Duke of Sutherland, in a letter on the developing potato famine sta...Read more
1847
There is a Cholera epidemic in Glasgow, and the last ‘Beggars Badge’ is issued in Scotland. Mean...Read more
1848
There is further outbreak of cholera in Dundee whilst 59,465 people are recorded as being in receipt...Read more
1849
The outbreak of cholera in Dundee continues....Read more
1850
Birth of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894)...Read more
1851
Donaldson’s Hospital for the deaf is founded in Edinburgh by James Donaldson (1751–1830), publis...Read more
1852
Whilst confined in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum artist Richard Dadd completes a portrait of Sir...Read more
1853
Sir John and Lady Jane Ogilvie establish “an orphanage or hospital for orphans and imbecile childr...Read more
1854
The American social reformer, Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-1887), known as ‘the champion of the insane...Read more
1855
A Royal Commission is appointed to enquire into ‘The Asylums and Lunacy Law of Scotland’, whilst...Read more
1856
The Parochial Board of Dundee opens the East Poorhouse on a five-acre site acquired from the Craigie...Read more
1857
The Lunacy and Asylums Bill Scotland establishes a General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scot...Read more
1858
A ‘Communication addressed to the Secretary of State’ raises concerns about ‘the treatment of ...Read more
1859
A survey by the Edinburgh Review finds that the single biggest cohort in ‘Female Lunacy Wards’ i...Read more
1860
Two-fifths of all deaths in Glasgow are due to respiratory diseases and tuberculosis. The Hospital f...Read more
1861
The American Civil War results in widespread physical impairment on a massive scale. During the war ...Read more
1862
The Lunacy in Scotland Act is passed, regulating the care and treatment of lunatics, and the provisi...Read more
1863
Dr Henry Littlejohn becomes Glasgow’s first medical officer, and the Scottish National Institution...Read more
1864
The Morayshire Combination poorhouse is built at Bishopmill to the north of Elgin. The two wings of ...Read more
1865
One of the most physically remote asylums in Britain opens at Ladysbridge, Banffshire and an ‘Inst...Read more
1866
Opening of an asylum for the Haddington district. “Near the town stands the County Lunatic asylum,...Read more
1867
The Anatomical Museum is transferred to Edinburgh University, whilst the Public Health (Scotland) Ac...Read more
1868
Edinburgh’s St Cuthbert’s parish opens a new hospital and a poorhouse with separate sections for...Read more
1869
Sophia Jex-Blake is in the first group of female medical students to attend Edinburgh University, an...Read more
1870
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary is built on Lauriston Place, whilst Alexander Drysdale provides funds to b...Read more
1871
The national census now includes a column about impairment and also asks if an individual is a “lu...Read more
1872
Govan Poor House is extended to include a new 240 bed general hospital and 180 patient lunatic asylu...Read more
1874
Attendance Officers report that many disabled children rarely if ever go to school. In response, Wil...Read more
1875
Opening of the Barony Parochial Asylum for ‘pauper lunatics’ on the Woodilee estate near Lenzie ...Read more
1876
Poor Relief Applications for 1876 include: Mary-Ann MCKARDLE Record No. 163. Applied on 27 Mar...Read more
1878
One of the worst outbreaks of anthrax in Scotland occurs at the Adelphi horse-hair factory in Glasgo...Read more
1879
James Paul (1848 -1919) a former pupil at the Glasgow Institution for the Deaf founds the National D...Read more
1880
First Boer War. The Army Medical Corps discovers that a high proportion of men presenting for servic...Read more
1881
In this year, the Report of The General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland in the Journal...Read more
1882
The last of the patients from the old Royal Asylum in Stobswell are moved to a new purpose-built a...Read more
1883
In the Barony Parish, Glasgow, the occupants of wards 141 (skin diseases) and 142 (sexually transmit...Read more
1884
A new medical school is established at Edinburgh University....Read more
1885
Anna Adler establishes a printing house in Moscow which produces the first-ever Russian language Bra...Read more
1886
This year saw the publication of Robert Louis Stevenson’s best-selling novella, The Strange Case o...Read more
1887
This year saw the birth of Edwin Muir (1887 – 3 January 1959) Poet, Novelist and Translator....Read more
1888
‘Colonies for epileptics’ begin to be established in different parts of Scotland and England in ...Read more
1889
In this year, a House of Lords debate proposes notices of rights for people detained in asylums and ...Read more
1890
In this year, the British Deaf Association is formed by Francis Maginn to protect sign language and ...Read more
1891
A Grand Christmas Bazaar raises £6,000 to build an ‘Institute for Adult Deaf’ in Glasgow and th...Read more
1893
A Departmental Committee is established “to enquire into the best mode of dealing with habitual dr...Read more