ABSTRACT
The rise of the asylum forms part of a much larger transformation in social control styles and practices which took place in England roughly between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Prior to this, the control of deviants of all sorts had been an essentially communal and family affair. The amorphous class of the morally disreputable, the indigent, and the helpless-including such elements as vagrants, minor criminals, the insane and the physically handicapped-was managed in essentially similar ways. Characteristically, little effort was made to segregate such ‘problem populations’ into separate receptacles designed to keep them apart from the rest of society. Instead, they were dealt with in a variety of ways which left them at large in the community. Most of the time, families were held liable to provide for their own, if necessary with the aid of temporary assistance or a more permanent subsidy from the community. Lunatics were generally treated no differently from other deviants:4 only a few of the most violent or troublesome cases might find themselves confined in a specially constructed cell or as part of the heterogeneous population of the local gaol.
