Thomas Bakewell (1761-1835): madhouse keeper and moral therapist.

Thomas Bakewell, a non-medical asylum keeper, published in 1805 a family guide on the management of the insane, based on his experience of mental illness. He consolidated his humane approach at Spring Vale Asylum near Stone in Staffordshire that he ran for 27 years along moral therapy lines. This paper relates Bakewell's work to the philosophical and scientific influences of the preceding century and describes his practice through analysis of case studies he presented to a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1815.