ABSTRACT
Bethlem was first and foremost an institution for the poor insane. The majority were supported on the poor rate and committed by parish officers; in lesser but significant numbers, they were poor individuals, provided for by friends, relatives or their own meagre funds, too poor to afford private care but not poor enough to qualify for parish relief. As a Royal and a City Hospital, Bethlem also received insane individuals committed by order of government in its widest sense (royal, Parliamentary, church and municipal) and by courts of law; or recommended by other civic hospitals, boards and companies. This last class formed a motley collection of poor criminals and disturbers of the peace, vagrants, pensioners and the lower ranks of the military (see Chapter I9). For much of the period, the Hospital's administrators referred to patients as 'the poore' or 'the poore Lunatikes', while provision for them was spoken of as charitable 'relief', of which medicine, diet, lodging, maintenance fees and even cure itself were conceived of as a part. From the I 63 os, parochial and private patients were admitted on petitions detailing the circumstances of their poverty. It was primarily on these grounds that assessment was agreed of the weekly charge for patients and of the bond requiring securities to fulfil certain conditions for their maintenance and removal.
