Learning disability and the New Poor Law in England, 1834-1867

Scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the role of the state in the provision of accommodation for the learning disabled before the twentieth century. This paper addresses this by investigating the fate of pauper 'idiots' in Victorian England. As this paper illustrates 'idiots' and 'imbeciles' fell under two overlapping jurisdictions-the Poor Law Board and the Lunacy Commission. The tension between the two systems led to a call for a different type of asylum-a hybrid of the country asylums and pauper workhouses-that was eventually consitituted under the authority of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1867. This paper illuuminates the local negotiations which resulted in the congregation of 'idiots' and 'imbeciles' in poor law union workhouses, and explores the nineteenth century idelogy of 'moral treatment', which devalued the learning disabled as 'incurable' and thus unworthy of expensive specialised state provision. [AJ].