Tina
As some biographies refer to Fatima dying at 'St. Luke's Madhouse.' I took a look at what information was easily available on the net. I'm certain more can be unearthed online, and probably a good deal more than that if paper based archives survive. If you are thinking of tracing Fatima's final home and resting place these may be of interest for you to follow up.
We know a good deal more (though never enough) about how Fatima's mistress Emma ended her days at Calais, and if the information about Fatima being moved to St. Luke's is correct, the contemporary information below, about how the inmates lived and were treated, is more enervating still.
You'll notice that the original hospital moved to Old Street, Islington in 1786, and so I have added information about the Parish registers and burials deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives at the end.
A quick note for your researches about Showell's Poor House mentioned above. I note that these establishments were properly known as 'Pauper Farms' at the time.
St Luke's Hospital
More general information on asylums and their regulation is available here:
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/4_13_TA.htm#StLukes
On the 17th June1750, a meeting took place in the King's Arms in Exchange Alley that decided to found a hospital: Founders Thomas Crowe, physician; Richard Speed, druggist of Old Fish Street; William Prowing, apothecary of Tower Street; James Sperling and Thomas Light, merchants of Mincing Lane; and Francis Magnus (250 year history booklet.)
Opened 1751 Upper Moorfields, opposite Bethlem. Took its name from the new parish of St Luke's.
1786 moved to Old Street. (New building designed by George Dance and erected 1782 to 1784?)
Mr and Mrs Thomas Dunston became Master and Matron from 1786, previously (from 1782) they had been head man keeper and head woman keeper. Their son, John Dunston, apothecary, married the daughter of Thomas Warburton
1810 Benjamin Rush refered to "Dr Dunston" "physician of St Luke's Hospital... eminent for his knowledge of diseases of the mind"
February 1811 Samuel Foart Simmons resigned as physician. Appointed consultant physician. His son did not wish to succeed him, but did wish his university friend, Alexander Robert Sutherland, to succeed. One of the unsuccessful candidates was George Leman Tuthill. Alexander Robert Sutherland elected physician:
"The House also for private patients at Islington was consigned to Dr S. on certain valuable considerations"
1812 Samuel Tuke visited St Lukes and compared ideas with Thomas Dunston. In a manuscript memorandum, he wrote:
Quote:
"There are three hundred patients, sexes about equal; number of women formerly much greater than men; incurables about half the number. The superintendent has never seen much advantage from the use of medicine, and relies chiefly on management. Thinks chains a preferable mode of restraint to straps or the waistcoat in some violent cases. Says they have some patients who do not generally wear clothes. Thinks confinement or restraint may be imposed as a punishment with some advantage, and, on the whole, thinks fear the most effectual principle by which to reduce the insane to orderly conduct. Instance: I observed a young woman chained by the arm to the wall in a small room with a large fire and several other patients, for having run downstairs to the committee-room door. The building has entirely the appearance of a place of confinement, enclosed by high walls, and there are strong iron grates to the windows. Many of the windows are not glazed, but have iron shutters which are closed at night. On the whole, I think St Luke's stands in need of a radical reform." (Quoted Tuke, D.H. 1882 pages 89-90)
1813 Mrs Foulkes prosecuted for keeping lunatics without a licence in a house owned by Thomas Dunston. The Royal College of Physicians Annals contain the activity relating to the physician commission in the years following 1811. In 1813 the college successfully prosecuted an unlicensed house in Hoxton:Quote:
"Budd v. Foulkes, A Mrs Foulkes, of Ivy Lane, Hoxton, was summoned by the Treasurer of the Royal College of Physicians (Dr Budd), for keeping in her house more than one lunatic, she not having a licence from the Commissioners by 14 Geo.3,Cap.49. Mr Roberts, solicitor to the College, on March 2nd 1813, called at her house and asked her how she came to keep such a house without a licence. She was much confused, and said she could not afford to pay for a licence, which was £10. He asked if Mr Dunston, Master of St. Luke's Hospital, kept the house; she said he did not, but he was the landlord and recommended patients, but had nothing to do with the management or profits of the House; she said no medical gentleman attended the house; her patients were not ill enough to request medical assistance. There were four lunatics at that time in the house of defendant, some of them had straight-waistcoats, one was double waistcoated, had a lock which crossed the wrists; and at night she had a lock on her legs. By the evidence it seems Mr Dunston was the owner of the house".
St Luke's Church, Old Street, Islington, London
St Luke is a historic Anglican church building in the London Borough of Islington. It is now used as a concert hall by the London Symphony Orchestra and known as LSO St Luke's.
The parish was reunited with St Giles in 1959 and St. Luke's font and organ case moved there. The church was closed by the Diocese of London in 1964 and lay empty, the roof being removed and the shell becoming a ruin for 40 years, despite being a Grade I listed building.
After several proposals to redevelop it as offices, it was converted by the St Luke Centre Management Company Ltd for the London Symphony Orchestra as a concert hall, rehearsal, recording space and educational resource. The conversion was designed by Levitt Bernstein Architects[4]. A total of 1053 burials were recorded and removed during the restoration of the crypt.
St Lukes was in the Rural Deanery of the City of London and the last baptism and marriage registers closed in 1966, when the church integrated with St Giles Cripplegate and others. The scope of registers is: 1733-1966 baptisms, marriages and burials (with gaps) and indexed.
The information on St. Luke's Church is from Wiki.
Parish Registers and Burials for St.Luke's
Registers deposited with London Metropolitan Archives. The Archive reference is P76/LUK. Burials probably took place up to 1855, after which there was a general cessation in London churchyards because of a danger to public health. Several municipal and private cemeteries were then established to accommodate the dead, such as Abney Park. Many of the dead are thought to be buried at the huge St. Pancras and Islington Cemetery.