FAMILY STRATEGIES AND THE INSTITUTIONAL CONFINEMENT OF IDIOT CHILDRENIN VICTORIAN ENGLAND

This article examines the role of families in the institutional confin ement of idiot children in Victorian England. First, it surveys the ch anging historiography of mental hospitals, showing how historians of m edicine are increasingly looking to paradigms of familial strategies a nd household structure to understand why people were committed to asyl ums. Second, it contributes to the growing literature on the character istics of patients by examining the results of admission records for m ore than 2,000 children admitted to one philanthropic institution-the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. Third, it selects a sample of 400 inmates to investigate more extensively the geographical location of the ''in stitutionalising'' family and the occupation of guardians. Last, this article applies the technique of nominal record linkage to medical rec ords and census enumerators' schedules to discover any demographic fac tors involved in families' decision to commit children to the Earlswoo d Asylum.