Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum by Mark Stevens Read Free Book Online Page B

fatally wounding him in the neck.
    The scene of
crime was very central, between Waterloo and Hungerford bridges,
and Minor was apprehended on the spot. Minor said it was a case of
mistaken identity, that he had thought Merritt was a person who had
been breaking into his room. While the mistake was fleeting, the
intention was permanent, and the delusion about needing to fight
forced entry to both his room and his person would remain with
Minor for the rest of his life.
    Minor was
committed for trial, and this was held at the Surrey Assizes in
Kingston upon Thames in April 1872. The nature of Minor’s enduring
delusion was laid bare at the trial. A warder at the jail where
Minor was on remand was also an employee at Bethlem, and he
testified that every morning Minor would wake up and level the
accusation that his guards had allowed him to be sexually abused
during the night. His abusers hid in the voids of the room – under
the bed, or in the walls or rafters. The abusers were always male,
but both men and women (and boys and girls) feature in Minor’s
later descriptions of the sexual terrors that his abusers forced
upon him. Minor’s step-brother attended the trial to confirm that
this delusion could be dated back to at least his release from the
Washington asylum. Minor would frequently report that people had
been in his room at night. This was the subject of his monomania.
His step-brother stated that apparently it was all punishment for
an unspecified act that Minor had been forced to commit while in
the Union Army.
    Whatever
Minor’s confused reasoning for his actions, the jury were quite
clear that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. He duly
received the sentence of detention at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and
was sent on to Broadmoor.
    Minor arrived
from the Surrey County Gaol on 17th April 1872. Unusually for a
Broadmoor patient, he travelled with another patient being
transferred from the same prison, a gentleman called Edmund Dainty,
who had killed a fellow patient in the Surrey Asylum. Described on
admission as ‘A thin, pale and sharp-featured man with light
coloured sandy hair; deep-set eyes and prominent cheek bones’,
Minor dutifully recounted his persistent nocturnal experiences, as
well as giving an account of his current bodily health (gonorrhoea
and possibly signs of tuberculosis, though none were found). Like
Dadd, his delusions appeared to be self-contained and manageable,
and he was obviously thought to be a low risk and was placed in
Block 2, where privileges were greatest.
    Minor was one
of a small band of foreign nationals in Broadmoor, though most of
these had become naturalised even if they were not citizens, and
they did not quite have the character of a tourist that Minor’s
case suggested. As a result, almost as soon as he arrived in the
Asylum, the American Consulate in London wrote to Dr Orange for
permission to send various things to Minor – both his own
possessions and ‘some comforts, such as Dunn’s Coffee, French Plums
etc’. The Consulate sent on Minor’s retrieved possessions shortly
after, including clothes, drawing equipment, his tobacco and his
diary. They kept hold of his surgical instruments, which had also
been found in his rooms.
    As a patient
in Block 2, Minor enjoyed a reasonable degree of freedom within the
Hospital routine. He had his own clothes, his art materials, and a
regular income from his family which allowed him, like Dadd, to ask
the Hospital to purchase things for him. Examples of things Minor
bought include: beef, haddock, poultry, game, steak, bacon, salmon,
as well as biscuits, coffee and lots of eggs. Once he bought
himself a macaroni cheese. He also regularly purchased newspapers
and a number of engineering journals (quite possibly for advice
about solid building construction, which might prevent his nightly
suffering).
    He experienced
as comfortable an existence as would be possible for any Broadmoor
patient. At some point, he was allowed a