Aid for the Helpless: Care of the Feeble Urged at Hastings: Under the auspices of the Central Aid council, a meeting in reference to the care and control of the feeble minded was held in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall on Wednesday Evening. Commander J. J. Oldfield, R.N., presided. Others present included: Mrs. Hume Pinsent (of Birmingham), Councillor W. C. T. Beasley … Mrs. Hume Pinsent, in an address, pointed out the inadequacy existing facilities for the care and control of the feeble-minded, four bodies dealt with that question independently of each other – the Board of Education, the Home Office (police), Boards of Guardians, and Lunacy Commissioners, the last being the most effective. There was a break between the control of Education Committees after a child was 16 years of age, and, generally speaking, a feeble-minded person eventually came into the hands of the police or the Guardians through the Workhouses. Mrs. Hume Pinsent gave instances in which two or more authorities had dealt quite ineffectually with the same case. Control should be under ONE CENTRAL AUTHORITY, working through local Committees, these to be Statutory Committees of the Town and County Councils. It would not mean the formation of new Committees. Most of the bodies already had Asylums Committees and it would merely mean a change of title and some extension of powers. At present many rises could not be certified, owing to the terms of the medical certificate not covering them; in the new scheme a new medical certificate would be necessary. From charts and family histories the lecturer showed how mental deficiency in one of the parents was reproduced to the third or fourth generation, generally in increasing proportion. The proposed new scheme might begin in special schools, where they could be assured the special treatment needed, and the feeble-minded could subsequently be transferred to industrial colonies and placed in suitable employment. If these recommendations were adopted the humiliation to parents of the artisan classes in having to apply under the Poor Law in cases where a feeble-minded child in a family could not be provided for would be obviated. The connection between mental defect and crime and inebriety was illustrated by startling statistics. Many people who could not at present be-certified as of unsound mind were not responsible for their actions, and were always in and out of prison, breaking windows and committing petty thefts. The present registration of inebriates was faulty, and in many cases habitual inebriaty was due to mental defect. Sixty seventy per cent of those admitted to Inebriates Homes were mentally defective and incurable. The speaker advocated continuous control in industrial colonies for these. The present circumstances led to enormous expenditure through the offspring of feeble-minded persons, who were very largely unemployed and unemployable: Only six or seven Boards of Guardians throughout the country made special provision for the feeble-minded. The proposed recommendations had the unqualified support of the Majority and Minority Reports of the Poor Law Commission. Councillor Hill moved: “That this meeting, firmly believing that the absence of control of the adult feeble-minded is a contributory factor of great importance in relation crime, immorality, and the problem of unemployment, and that this lack of control (having regard to the greater fecundity of the feeble-minded) seriously reduces the mean average of the health, intelligence, morality, and physique of the race, earnestly begs His Majesty’s Government to place in the hands of one authority, viz., an enlarged and strengthened Lunacy Commission, the continuous control and protection of these unfortunate people.” Captain Colvile seconded. The resolution was carried. Copies will be sent to the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Presidents of the Local Government Board and the Board of Education, the Chairman of the Lunacy Commissioners, and the Members of Parliament for Hastings and the Rye or East Sussex Division.
Transcribed in whole or part from scanned originals: Presented with or without modified text and punctuation. For absolute accuracy refer to the original newspapers. Source: The British Newspaper Archive.
Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949