Tag: GRO0245

July Magazine … “The Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded” is Mrs. Hume Pinsent’s theme in “The Nineteenth Century”. A member of the recent Royal Commission, the writer pleads eloquently for control of the mentally defective by one single authority. Power of permanent detention and continuity of control would, she says, materially reduce crime, drunkenness, prostitution, and disease.

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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.

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GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

… In the current “Nineteenth Century,” for example. Mrs. Hume Pinsent, a member of the Royal Commission on the care of the feeble-minded, gives several instances that will cause the thoughtful reader to shudder. Starting, usually from a feeble-minded mother, the tainted inheritance is traced through a dismal catalogue of children and grandchildren, almost every one of whom becomes in one way or another a burden upon the community, as pauper criminal or lunatic. Is it right, medical observers ask, that these degenerates should be free to perpetuate their species, while the very need of supporting them makes it harder and harder for the industrious to bring up a family? Alarming as such records as Mrs. Pinsent quotes must appear when taken by themselves, there is possibly an exaggeration in the view taken of their evil influence on the race generally. Degeneration is a stage on the downward road to extinction. Nature has passed a decree, and there is no appeal. Some students of eugenics, however, are too impatient to wait for the natural extinction. They claim for the State the right to decide that certain types shall not survive, or at least shall not perpetuate themselves. … (continues) …

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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.

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GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Notes on the Magazines: One of the most important articles in the current number of the Nineteenth Century and After,” is that by Mrs. Hume Pinsent on “Care and Control of the Feeble-minded”. This is a subject of deep concern to many women engaged in philanthropic and public work. Mrs. Hume Pinsent presents strong evidence both of the hereditary character of feeble-mindedness and of the urgent necessity for taking every measure to segregate these persons from the rest of the community. There is a great difficulty here, as in all other human affairs, in drawing a sharp line of demarcation between children who are normal and those who are defective. Mrs. Pinsent observes: “I have seen many doctors examining children, and I do not think any two of them would agree on the point at which a mental defect should be called imbecility; yet on this point hands the fate of the child. Imbecility is an unscientific term, which has never been accurately defined. … … (continues) … “… Mrs. Pinsent’s point is that “one authority should be responsible for the classification of the mentally defective and organization of the care, training, and control necessary for – degree.” Moreover, Mrs. Pinsent desires that the care should be continuous; for, as she explains frankly – and she – the general opinion – “we want to prevent the birth of such people, and the continuous segregation of the mentally defective is the chief means of doing so. ... (continues) …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Women’s Column: … … There is perhaps no item in the vast programme of social reform more uninteresting than the care and control of the feeble-minded. We do not want to hear about it. We turn from the statistics regarding it with sights of depression and involuntary loathing, and yet when read such an article as that published in the July number of the “Nineteenth Century,” by Mrs. Pinsent, one the Special Commission to inquire into the matter, we feel thankful that there are good people who are willing to investigate, and who, while ready to emphasise the … of the unhappy situation can nevertheless …  many grounds for hope in the future. I would like readers to take the opportunity of studying this article. The question is very large, a woman’s question, and Mrs. Pinsent has … educate all intelligent, active, and kind-hearted women the need for prompt legislation. The various State regulations for the care of the feeble-minded do not cover the ground. The total number of mentally defective persons in England and Wales, apart from certified … in asylums, is estimated at 149,628 and of these Mrs. Pinsent says, over 66,000 are under no control other than that of often quite incompetent relatives. These poor creatures are a source of anxiety and danger to the community in which they live. Children feeble … sent by education authorities to special schools are maintained at considerable expense until the age of 16, and are then returned to their parents, in most cases relapse into ignorance and …  and not infrequently into the … depths of degradation. The examples given in this paper of the perpetuation of idiocy from one generation to another are most striking and point to the need for some drastic legislation to deal with a great evil, which Mrs. Pinsent is convinced threatens us with steady deterioration of national efficiency. Her plea is for an authority to undertake care in childhood and control after school years are over. The men and women who face disagreeable facts and devote their time and energy to finding out the best method of bringing them to an end are worthy of our highest admiration and … support. We can best help them by informing ourselves as to what needs to be done and by creating a sound public opinion back them up. – PERTILOTE

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Birmingham Education Committee: … Alderman Sir George Kenrick presided over this afternoon’s meeting of the Birmingham Education Committee, the last before the summer vacation. It was stated that Mrs. Hume Pinsent was unable to be present, as she is one of a deputation who is to-day interviewing the Prime Minister on the question of the feeble-minded. … …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Magazines for July III: In the Nineteenth Century and After; Canon Moyes, D.D., writes in favour of the modification of the royal Declaration, a matter in which progress is at present being made in Parliament … (other papers) … A paper of practical interest discusses a Reformed Second Chamber, and Mrs. Pinsent’s contribution on the care and control of the feebleminded brings sympathetically before readers a subject on which thought is at present much exercised. … …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

In the “Nineteenth Century and After” … A paper of practical interest discusses a Reformed Second Chamber, and Mrs. Pinsent’s contribution on the care and control of the feeble-minded brings sympathetically before the readers a subject on which thought is at present much exercised. …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Care of the Feeble-minded: Conference in London: Yesterday: Suggested Reforms: In the absence of Lord Radnor, Lord Shuttleworth presided at Denison House, Victoria, yesterday, at a conference of persons interested in the care and Control of the Feeble-Minded. Dr. H. B. Donkin delivered an address on the need of establishing one authority for the care of the feeble-minded. The Royal Commissioners he said were practically unanimous in their conviction that a single central authority to supervise any form of administration dealing with the care and control of the mentally defective was absolutely indispensable. … … The new Board would have to see that a large number of persons were properly controlled under a new certificate which would require a high degree of medical knowledge and skill. Mrs. Hume Pinsent, who was a member of the Royal Commission, said that the injustice and even cruelty caused by the inefficient methods of the four authorities dealing with the feeble-minded was really beyond description. The Board of Education educated 9,000 children at three times the normal cost, and then, at the age of fourteen or sixteen, turned them adrift, incapable of self-support or control. The Local Government Boar allowed them to drift in and out of the workhouses, and, under the control of the Home Office, they were sent to industrial schools, where there was no chance of making them self-supporting, or into inebriated homes. The Lunacy Commission alone could be said to approach the subject from a useful point of view. There should be a single authority to take cognisance of all degrees of mentally defective people, and to frame a consistent and continuous policy. Until there were powers of detention, the money put forward on behalf of the mentally defective was so much money thrown into the gutter. It was worse than useless to place the mentally defective under care and control until the age of sixteen and then let them free … … (discussion continues) … …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Observations:” …Although the figures are easily accessible, very few of us realize that in England and Wales alone there are well over a quarter of a million people who are mentally defective. Taken in relation to the total population of the country the percentage – about 0.8 – may seem small. But it may be noted that if all these wretched citizens were crowded into town its population would make it the tenth largest town in the Kingdom … (continues) … As Mrs. Hume Pinsent (one of the Royal Commissioners) points out in her excellent article in this month’s “Nineteenth Century Review,” the expense under our present meddled way of dealing with the problem is far greater in the long run than it would be if the problem were attached systematically and thoroughly … (continues) …

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949

Announcement: … The Nineteenth Century and After: … July: … includes … “Care and Control of the Feeble-minded” by Mrs. Hume Pinsent (One of the Royal Commissioners).

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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.

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Referenced

GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949