Charles Dodgson’s “Uncle Skeffington” was the man who drafted the landmark lunacy legislation of 1845, which remained in place until the 1890 Lunacy Act. Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge was a lawyer and had been appointed secretary to the Commissioners in Lunacy inspectorate, later becoming a full Commissioner.

This memo of 1847 was his response to the problems that could arise when somebody mentally ill was being transported to an institution on public transport. An alarming incident in the September, on the Brighton to London railway line (see the newspaper cutting beneath the memo), had prompted this circular, which was sent to all the nation’s asylum superintendents to warn them that such removals must never alarm the public or distress the patient.