Speaker
Amy Milne-Smith, History, Wilfrid Laurier University
Title
Eccentricity on Trial in mid-Victorian Britain: Courts, Medicine, and Popular Opinion
Abstract
William Frederick Windham was the picture of a wild young Victorian gentleman. He failed to get a degree at Eton, he was sent home from a European tour, he married a courtesan and was quickly draining his fortune. Such behavior was not unknown among the British aristocracy. However, Windham seemed to push the boundaries of eccentricity. Companions complained that he screeched like a cat at all hours. He rarely bathed, ran around the house naked, and cried like a baby. He had a fascination with trains to such an extent he often dressed as a railway guard, herding passengers onto trains, and at least once even drove the train himself. Family members wondered if maybe the young boy wasn’t wild… he was mad.
A lunacy enquiry began in December in 1861 and became the longest and most expensive lunacy trial in history (34 days, 140 witnesses, £20,000). This paper will explore popular debates surrounding madness, and see how this case tapped in to larger discussions of wrongful confinement and the “lunacy panic” of the 1860s. This trial highlighted the serious divisions between the medical and legal communities’ perceptions of madness.
The detailed and expansive coverage of the case also allows a unique glimpse into popular ideas of mental illness. This paper will explore what the particular flashpoints of debate, and try to understand why the public took such a negative view of the Chancery process in general.
Bio
Amy Milne-Smith is an associate professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University. She studied British cultural and gender history at the University of Toronto. Her first book explored the late-Victorian gentlemen’s clubs of London. Her current research focuses on the intersections of masculinity and mental illness in popular culture.