Women’s journeys and experiences of historic mental health institutions have long been grouped within statistics of asylum growth, development, and deterioration. Little attention has been afforded to the individual women, who, whether said to be insane or weak-minded, endured day to day life in nineteenth century mental institutions. When researching asylum history, a wider narrative is being ignored. For many, admittance to an insane asylum was not the first, nor last, chapter in their mental ill-health care journey. Rural areas, such as Selby, had a number of facilities to offer treatment, care, and support to those who would be typically found in the county asylum. Union workhouses and charitable and voluntary organisations played a role in creating a sense of community care and spirit that stood the test of time in Selby and prevented some women from journeying through asylums. Others experienced care and treatment from more than one source. In addition to asylums, Union workhouses feature in individual women’s mental ill-health stories. This is reflected in this project by highlighting the various levels of care for women living in the Selby Union in the nineteenth century and demonstrating a more accurate narrative of their journeys and experiences with mental ill-health. This also provides the opportunity to look at the dynamics at play between these institutions when treating and caring for insane or weak-minded women in nineteenth century rural Yorkshire. When looking into those who had the power to choose where a person received care, or which institution they were admitted, it is clear that there remains a ruling male elite who were very much in control of the finances and futures of the town and its people. Although shedding more light on individual women’s experiences of nineteenth-century rural mental health institutions, it is clear that those institutions were still used and controlled by those who sought to develop Selby for their own gains. The following thesis forms what is collectively the Women of the West Riding project and amounts to the Master of Arts by Research in Public History, Community Heritage, and Oral History for which it is being submitted. There are three sections to the overall project which are interlinked and support each other in presenting the topic of research, the public history output based on this research, and the assessment and evaluation of this output to determine the importance of public history as a whole. All three sections are collectively linked and inform each other and shows the process of creating and producing public history from start to finish and the importance of doing so. Each section has its own introduction and summary so as to present findings and arguments respectively. However, where appropriate, the three sections are referred to and linked to each other in order to show the overall process and development of the project.
| Date of Award | 12 Jun 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Robert Ellis (Main Supervisor) |
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