jun 23, 1808 - Lunatic Paupers or Criminal Act
Description:
48 Geo. III, c. 96
«Certification of pauper patients dates from amendments to the 1808 County Asylums Act, a permissive act allowing for the creation and financing of county asylums. To summarize, this Act allowed magistrates to erect a county pauper asylum based on local rates contributed by each parish. Magistrates from more than one county could also combine to erect ’joint
asylums’. The precise route of pauper confinement, and the wider definition of the ’insane’, were laid out in this Act and an Amendment Act of 1811. Overseers of the Poor were to send to the county magistrate an
application for the ’conveyance’ of a ’Lunatic, insane Person, or dangerous Idiot’ to the county asylum with a certificate in writing from one ’Medical Person’. The magistrate would then issue a ’Warrant’ for the conveyance if he was satisfied with the application. He could also order his own medical examination, or he could refuse the application if the insane person was not dangerous.» (Wright, 1998, p. 172).
Added to timeline:
Mental Health Legislation (England and Wales)
Date:
