The management and politics of a public exposé: the Prestwich Inquiry 1922.

This paper examines the dynamics of scandal creation and control involved in the public expos é of conditions and ill treatment at the public mental asylum of Prestwich , Lancashire in 1921. It identifies the groups and interests involved in orchestrating the public and official responses which culminated in a departmental committee of inquiry. It focuses particularly upon the conflicts and divisions within the bureaucratic institutions of the Board of Control, the Ministry of Health and the local asylum authorities, and argues that the Prestwich expos é was used in a strategy which established increased ministerial control of mental health services.