Hi all As the history of the mental health services is my "specialist subject" I feel I need to clarify the errors here: 1. The 1913 Mental Deficiency Act refers to deficiency, so ONLY considers people who would nowadays be considered as people with learning difficulties. 2. The Act makes no reference to "criminal or vicious personalities" but to "criminal or vicious propensities... where punishment had no effect" (i.e. they couldn't learn to change their behaviour) - a different thing altogether 3. In order to be in any of these categories, it had to be from birth or begin at a very early age. So, this Act did not refer to any mental illnesses at all. Women with illegitimate children COULD be classified as moral defectives from this period up until 1959, when the Mental Deficiency Act was repealed. But it wasn't the only criterion, because certification was still required to hospitalize someone. It was not uncommon for the illegitimate child to be born in the asylum/mental hospital. The category depended, to a large extent, on societal values. Indeed, illegitimacy was considered (esp. of first child) as fairly "normal" until the mid-19th century. The negative values placed on illegitimacy reached their peak in the early 20th century with the rise of Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement (and, to a lesser extent the Mental Hygiene Movement). This declined with the advent of Nazism in Germany in the late 20's/30's when people could see where it was leading. I certainly remember nursing a number of women who were placed in mental hospitals and had been there for decades, as a result of having illegitimate children. As regards "lunatic" and "idiot" in earlier censuses, it is probably right to say it's difficult to accurately assume what the enumerator/householder meant, but differences between "lunatics" and "fools" had been established as early as 1215. So, it's a fair assumption that when the term "idiot/imbecile" is used in a census, it means "learning disability"; and "lunatic" most definitely means "mentally ill". Interestingly, the 1871/1881/1901 censuses asked to differentiate between imbecile/idiot or lunatic, while the 1891 census had "imbecile, idiot or lunatic" as the same category. So, it's easy to see why there could be errors. As an educated guess, I would say that Elizabeth Lavery had a learning disability. I suspect, though haven't checked, that in 1871 every inmate at the asylum was classified as "lunatic". Hope this helps Mike > __________________________________________________________________ > Under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913 four "classes" of Mental Deficiency > were defined: > Idiot ~ unable to protect themselves from common dangers. > Imbecile ~ could protect themselves from common dangers, but unable to > take > care of themselves. > Feeble-Minded ~ required care to protect themselves. > Moral Defectives ~ criminal or vicious personalities. Unmarried Mothers > also > became absorbed into this category. > > Regards Stan Mapstone