The Bedlam that greeted James Tilly...

The Bedlam that greeted James Tilly Matthews, then, was not so much a baroque spectacle of depravity as an exhausted and run-down public institution, its building falling apart and its professional image tarnished.

- Mike Jay

A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine

biography history psychology

Other quotes by Mike Jay

Up to this point, it was rare for the mad to be distinguished from the poor, the homeless, the indigent, beggars, vagabonds, petty criminals and others who were unable to fit into society or take care of themselves. It was rare, too, that they were locked up.

- Mike Jay

To look back before 1800 is to enter another world, one where the number of institutions for the mad was a tiny fraction of today's and what we would now call mental disorders were often understood as religious ecstasies or diabolical possessions.

- Mike Jay

The Air Loom, if Matthews revealed its existence under questioning, would now be recognised immediately as a classic paranoid delusion. But in 1797 it was something that had never been encountered before, and would emerge as the baffling leitmotif of a case that was unprecedented in almost every imaginable way.

- Mike Jay

As a pauper, the obvious destination for James Tilly Matthews was the Bethlem Hospital, already long known in popular slang as Bedlam. The principal public asylum in London, it had accepted dangerous and insane paupers as 'objects of charity' for centuries, and was proud of the claim that it had never turned anyone away.

- Mike Jay

Matthews' shout of treason in the House was no random outburst of lunacy, but the last act in an astonishing adventure: one that might indeed have changed the history of Europe. But by this point there was no-one left to confirm the truth of the story. Most of the witnesses were dead, and those who were alive were not interested in talking.

- Mike Jay

At Bow Street Magistrates' Court the essential facts were established. The man's name was James Tilly Matthews. He was a pauper of the south London parish of Camberwell. He had a wife and a young family. He appeared to be of unsound mind.

- Mike Jay

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