Blog - History

At the start of the nineteenth century, Bethlem’s Governors began actively seeking new premises for the Hospital.

As mentioned in a recent post to our  In the Frame thread, Oliver Sacks devotes a chapter of his recent book Hallucinations to recounting the...

It’s easy to assume that, once inside in an asylum, Victorian patients had no rights whatsoever. Many were, however, well able to communicate...

One of the aspects that make the Hering collection fascinating is how much they resemble portraits, either painted or photographic, rather than institutional mu

Anyone who has made the trip to the Archives & Museum will know that one of the first things they are invited to do is sign our visitors’ book...

We hope we may be permitted to add a postscript to our reviews of recently-published books concerning Edward Oxford, in order to give context...

This month we look at Bethlem's collection of 'before' and 'after' snapshots.

Find out more about the photographs of Henry Hering.

Whereas Paul Murphy’s Shooting Victoria, insofar as it tells the story of Edward Oxford, principally concerns itself with the commission and...

This month we continue our appraisal of the Victorian photographs of patients, looking at the photo of John Payne.

Here is the first of six posts concerning the rationale behind the location of the hospitals for which the Archives & Museum holds records: Bethlem, the Maudsle

Over a year ago we promised that we would let blog readers know when two new books on Edward Oxford, one of Victorian Bethlem’s most famous patients...