ABSTRACT
It is no surprise that it was in London that the first English receptacle for lunatics had emerged. After all, the medieval City had become the nucleus of trade and manufactures, the focus of faith, the home of Parliament and of the Court. Throughout the Tudor and Stuart centuries, it expanded at an astonishing rate. Around 50,000 people were living there in 1500, but by the accession of Charles II in 1660 London's population had increased perhaps tenfold, and by 1800 it was already nearing a million. 1 London had become, by 1750, the largest city in Europe and probably the world - by 1820 it may have been the first 'million city' the world had seen.2
