Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Friern Hospital
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|Title= Ionia State Hospital
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|Body= Built to ease pressure on the first Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell, which was severely overcrowded, the second pauper asylum for Middlesex opened in 1851 at Colney Hatch. It had 1250 beds and was the largest and most modern asylum in Europe. The intention was that the Hanwell Asylum would take patients from west London and the Colney Hatch Asylum those from east London. (However, this proved administratively impossible as no-one had devised a scheme as to how east London patients already in Hanwell could be transferred to Colney Hatch. Hanwell remained overcrowded.)
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|Body= The building of the Ionia State Hospital was authorized in 1883 and was opened under the name of the Michigan Asylum for Insane Criminals in 1885. It was found that this name was objectionable as not all of the patients in the hospital were criminals, so the name was changed by legislative action to Ionia State Hospital. The patients committed to this hospital were insane felons, criminal sexual psychopaths, insane convicts from other prisons, patients transferred from other state institutions that had developed dangerous or homicidal tendencies and persons charged with a crime but acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Initially the hospital patients were housed at the site of the Michigan Reformatory.
  
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The 119 acre site had been chosen because the Great Northern Railway was being constructed to pass alongside it (similarly, the Hanwell Asylum had been built beside the Grand Junction Canal, so that bulk supplies such as coal could easily be brought in). The foundation stone was laid by the Prince Consort in 1849 and the building was completed in the record time of 19 months on November 1850. Even while it was under construction, it had been enlarged to accommodate 1250 patients instead of the originally planned 1000. Furnishing and staffing of the Asylum took a further six months.
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The hospital was called the North Branch and the farm located on Riverside Drive was called the South Branch. When a large fire broke out at the hospital, all of the rooms were needed to house prisoners, so all of the hospital patients were sent to the South Branch farm. Since that time, the hospital has been located on the grounds of the Riverside Correctional Facility. The hospital was used to treat the mentally ill as well as the criminally insane until 1972, when civilians were removed from the hospital. In 1977, the Legislature transferred the operation to the Department of Corrections when it began operation as a correctional facility. The facility was closed with the reopening of the Michigan Reformatory.  [[Ionia State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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The original cost of the Italianate-style building, with its ventilation towers and central cupola, had been established at £150,000, but the true cost proved to be double that - £300,000. At £240 per bed it was the most expensive asylum ever built. It was also the longest - 1884 feet (about 600 metres) - as the Commissioners in Lunacy wished that it be no more than two storeys high (although the sloping nature of the site meant that the wings were three storeys high). Within the buildings were six miles of corridors. The estate had its own water supply and it own farm of 75 acres, on which many of the patients were employed. It also had its own cemetery (which was in use until 1873) and a chapel.  [[Friern Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 04:56, 5 May 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Ionia State Hospital


Ionia.jpg

The building of the Ionia State Hospital was authorized in 1883 and was opened under the name of the Michigan Asylum for Insane Criminals in 1885. It was found that this name was objectionable as not all of the patients in the hospital were criminals, so the name was changed by legislative action to Ionia State Hospital. The patients committed to this hospital were insane felons, criminal sexual psychopaths, insane convicts from other prisons, patients transferred from other state institutions that had developed dangerous or homicidal tendencies and persons charged with a crime but acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Initially the hospital patients were housed at the site of the Michigan Reformatory.

The hospital was called the North Branch and the farm located on Riverside Drive was called the South Branch. When a large fire broke out at the hospital, all of the rooms were needed to house prisoners, so all of the hospital patients were sent to the South Branch farm. Since that time, the hospital has been located on the grounds of the Riverside Correctional Facility. The hospital was used to treat the mentally ill as well as the criminally insane until 1972, when civilians were removed from the hospital. In 1977, the Legislature transferred the operation to the Department of Corrections when it began operation as a correctional facility. The facility was closed with the reopening of the Michigan Reformatory. Click here for more...

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