ABSTRACT
The moral reform of the poor at Bath exploited both the physical environment in which patients and servants were housed and the social relations in which they engaged. Constructed in the style of a classical mansion with five windows on each side of the door and a central pediment resting on four Ionic columns, the building exemplified the architectural austerity of many Georgian voluntary hospitals. Complementing the influence of the physical environment were the socio-political relations of hospital confinement. In his classic sociological study of Asylums, published in 1961, Erving Goffman argued that in the ‘total institution’ reward and punishment, together with ‘processes of mortification’ or humiliation, were used to teach the inmate the ‘house rules’ and to induce ‘radical shifts in his moral career’. Since supervision by the governors was largely confined to the intermittent calls of house visitors, the implementation of their rational plan was heavily dependent upon paid employees.
