Kaye Jones

In the first part of this article , I looked at how the infamous institution, Broadmoor, came into being and the sort of asylum that it was when Christiana arrived there in July 1872. (If you missed it, you can read it here ). In this post, I'm looking at life for Christiana once she was admitted and as under the care of Dr William Orange, Broadmoor's resident superintendent. All of our knowledge of Christiana's time in Broadmoor comes from her medical file, a document filled out by Dr Orange and based entirely on his observations. As you can imagine, her file makes for interesting reading, not just because of its contents but because it is one of the few impressions of Christiana that remains in existence. According to Dr Orange, Christiana confirmed her diagnosis of insanity in the first few weeks of her arrival at Broadmoor. Though she was a "quiet and orderly" in her behaviour, she showed no remorse for the crimes that she had committed nor did she offer a...

On this day - 5 July - in 1872, Christiana Edmunds was transferred from the Sussex Country Prison to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Berkshire. Built in 1863, Broadmoor was England's answer to the long-standing question of where to house the criminally insane. Previously, the provision for such people was haphazard and generally inadequate, with many criminal lunatics housed in ordinary asylums or prisons. By 1860, it was felt that such provision was undesirable, as stated by a Select Committee of the House of Commons: To mix such persons, that is criminal lunatics, with other patients is a serious evil;  it is detrimental to the other patients as well as to themselves. In the same year, the government passed the Criminal Lunatic Asylum Act which authorised the creation of Broadmoor and gave the Home Secretary control over its management and the admission of patients. Construction began shortly after and, three years later, on 23 May 1863, Broadmoor welcomed its first ...