Though
Hone's various attempts during the first years of the nineteenth-century
to establish himself in the London booktrades had been anything but
successful—leading even to bankruptcy in 1810—he nonetheless was open to
projects that were more altruistic than entrepreneurial. Sometime in late
1813 he became interested in the care and treatment of the insane, which he
considered was often cruel and inhumane. After a coffee-house meeting in
which Alderman (and Westminster radical) Robert Waithman introduced him to the
Quaker architect James Bevans, Hone apparently proposed that they try to come up
with some plan to help alleviate what they assumed were the inadequacies of the
madhouses. Hone and Bevans enlisted the support of Edward Wakefield,
[1]
and the trio proceeded to visit many of the asylums in London on a kind of
fact-finding expedition. The tour of Bethlehem revealed, among other
horrors, the case of William Norris, a fifty-five year old American who, despite
his apparent sanity, had been for many years fixed to a vertical iron bar on the
wall of his cell by metal straps around his neck, chest, and arms.
[2]
Bevans and Hone then devised a plan for a new kind of asylum, one that would
avoid the kind of physical restraints that seemed both cruel and ineffective in
cases like Norris's. The plan itself involved the purchase of about 40
acres of land outside of London and the construction on the site of a 400-bed
asylum. Bevans's design—based on the Friends retreat at York—would allow
the patients to enjoy the beneficial and rejuvenating effects of open air and
physical liberty. Hone, Bevans, and Wakefield estimated the total cost at
about £100,000, which money, they hoped, they could raise through government
subsidies and by interesting private subscribers in £100 shares in the
operation. (It may well have been an enticement to some wealthy potential
investors that Bevans's plans allowed for separate accomodations for patients of
"superior rank in life.") Should the project carry through as
planned, Hone would have served as the superintendent of the new asylum.
[3]
Of course the asylum project—idealistic and expensive—did not carry through as
planned. Though Hone and his colleagues worked assiduously during the
early months of 1814 to interest private investors, and though they did manage
to interest some members of the House of Commons in the asylum issue (most
notably George Rose), ultimately the energy for the project sputtered out.
Wakefield proved unreliable, and Hone was himself stricken with a protracted
illness that made it difficult for him to keep his own financial house together,
let alone proceed with the plans for a London asylum. Hackwood offers a
positive interpretation of Hone's endeavors, claiming that "Hone's
unwearied efforts" were in large part responsible for "the steady
advance of humane treatment of the mentally afflicted,"
[4]
but even this probably overstates the case. It certainly overlooks the
more particular biographical fact that in 1813 and 14 Hone was in frail health
and (with one exception) only unsteadily employed. For all his years of
work, both in the book trade and in pursuit of broader social reforms, he had
little to show except the good wishes of his friends and a large, marginally
housed, and often hungry family. [Next
Section>>>]
