Lewis Carroll’s favourite uncle, Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge (“Uncle Skeffington”, paid the ultimate price in his job as Commissioner in Lunacy, on a visit to Fisherton House Asylum, near Salisbury in Wiltshire. Former asylum gardener Jeremy Moody tells the story. He has also provided the wonderful images at the bottom of this post.
“Fisherton House Asylum, which became known as The Old Manor Hospital, is an establishment with a fascinating history. My father Jack Moody had gained employment there as a sign writer in 1962 and it was my pleasure to listen to the many wonderful stories that some of the older patients had related to him – some of them had been there since the 1930s.
“I followed Dad and became head gardener at the asylum/hospital in 1988, a position that gave me immense satisfaction because the grounds had been landscaped to a very high standard – indeed, they had remained virtually the same since Victorian days.
“Some years after I had been working at the establishment, a book was produced featuring old photographs of the hospital that had been kept in a large plastic bag. I was asked to help find additional material and spent many a happy hour researching newspapers, books and archives. I learnt how the underground tunnels, running from one end of the hospital to the other, had been put in place to segregate the female patients (who walked through the grounds) from the male patients (who walked through the underground tunnel). Probably one of the most intriguing stories that my researches uncovered was that of a patient named William McKave.
“By 1873, McKave had been confined in Fisherton House for more than twenty years, prior to which he had been incarcerated at Bedford Asylum for more than seven years. McKave was said to be haunted by a woman named Mary Taylor, with whom he had once cohabited – he was under the delusion that she was still visiting him at the asylum. These delusions were the only reason McKave was being detained and he was not considered to be a dangerous patient.
“Notwithstanding this, the Salisbury Journal reported that McKave “it appeared, was a troublesome patient”, their rather intolerant reasoning being that ‘he had repeatedly applied for liberty, and had stated that it was his intention to do something of a nature that would, as he was tired of Salisbury, ensure his being sent to some other place of confinement’.
“William Corbin Finch, the proprietor of Fisherton House, said, ‘I have heard him repeatedly ask the Commissioners [in Lunacy] for his liberty, and heard him express a wish to be removed to Broadmoor, the government asylum for criminal patients. He was not considered to be a dangerous lunatic, although he was in the habit of threatening.’
“McKave had made numerous appeals to Finch and, more importantly, to the inspectors of the Lunacy Commission. The Commission, created in 1845 by the Lunatics Act, consisted of six professional inspectors (three physicians and three lawyers) whose full-time job was to make unannounced inspections of the 177 lunatic asylums in England and Wales. As well as passing judgment on these establishments, the inspectors also had the authority to discharge patients who had been inappropriately admitted.
“On 21 May 1873 two Commissioners, Dr James Wilkes and Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, arrived to inspect Fisherton House. McKave’s frustration and anger at constantly having his appeals rejected had now reached boiling point. When the inspectors arrived at Ward 17, where McKave was incarcerated, he pretended to be asleep until such time as they moved to leave, when he leapt forward and struck Lutwidge in the temple. McKave had been concealing a nail in his right hand, the point of which penetrated Lutwidge’s skull, such was the force used by McKave.
“Lutwidge was helped to the house of William Corbin Finch, where he was attended by a Salisbury doctor, William Martin Coates. He was then transferred to The White Hart Hotel, Salisbury. Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson [pictured below], upon being telegraphed, rushed to Salisbury accompanied by the eminent London surgeon Sir James Paget of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Lutwidge rallied a little and Carroll returned to London; but unfortunately Lutwidge’s condition rapidly deteriorated and he died on 28 May. Lewis Carroll recorded in his diary his ‘dear Uncle’s death’.
“In court, McKave pleaded not guilty to murder, but said he did not wish to deny he had dealt the ultimately fatal blow. After hearing all the evidence the judge addressed the jury: ‘I do not know what inference you may draw from the evidence, but surely you are not to condemn a man to death for an act committed in a lunatic asylum, seeing that he had been an inmate of it for twenty-one years, and an inmate also of another lunatic asylum for six or seven years previously, and seeing that he has suffered during all that time under chronic mania, and that a gentleman who appears as a witness for the prosecution, and who has been familiar with the prisoner’s conduct, his habits, and with the sad disease under which he labours, tells you his opinion is that the prisoner is not responsible for his actions? I think, whatever further evidence may be forthcoming, it will be for you to consider whether you could pronounce a verdict which would consign him to the gallows after the evidence which has been laid before you. If, on the evidence, you think he is not responsible for his actions, and that he was in an unsound state of mind on 21 May, it will be your duty to return a verdict of not guilty, in which case he will be kept in confinement during Her Majesty’s pleasure. If you desire, however, that the case should go further, do not let anything that has fallen from me prevent you from hearing additional evidence.’
“After a brief deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the grounds of insanity.
“Lewis Carroll and his uncle were extremely close friends, despite a thirty-year age difference. They shared many interests, including the study of insanity, and Carroll is said to have accompanied his uncle on visits to asylums. Many scholars have commented on the prominent theme of madness in Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, both written in the decade before Lutwidge’s death.
“Little more than a year after the death of his uncle, in July 1874, Carroll began writing what many consider to be his most famous poem, ‘The Hunting of the Snark’. Ever since the poem’s first publication, it has intrigued and baffled scholars. Many believe it is an expression of his grief at the loss of his uncle, closest friend and intellectual companion – a poem about the Lunacy Commission and the death of Lutwidge following his visit to Fisherton House Asylum.”
© Words, and pictures below, Jeremy Moody, www.timezonepublishing.com
Fisherton House Asylum in the 1840s; and below, boarded-up. Bottom: the tunnels that run beneath the site.
