Glenside Hospital Museum welcomes HRH The Princess Royal for a special 40th anniversary celebration
Exploring Glenside: a guided walking tour, Sat 26th July
James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge by Margaret M Crump
James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge
By Margaret M Crump
A physician to St. Peter’s Hospital, Bristol, where the first 164 patients came from when Bristol's first purpose-built asylum opened, is the subject of a book published in June 2025 by Margaret Crump. It is the first comprehensive biography of James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848), psychiatric theorist during the formative years of the discipline and a Commissioner in Lunacy.
The author draws readers into the social and cultural milieu of early nineteenth-century Bristol and explores the personal circumstances that led to Prichard’s dedication to improving the lives of people with mental health conditions and learning difficulties.
He promulgated the concept of ‘moral insanity’, laying the foundation to understanding that insanity can exist without manifest delusions, and he was a vigorous promoter of the protection of the insane and mentally disabled under the law. An intellectual giant in the developing human sciences, he is also considered the founder of the British science of anthropology and its leading early theorist. Prichard is a big, wide-ranging read.
Excerpt from 1835, Insanity by James Cowles Prichard
The first in-depth biography of the early Victorian British scientist James Cowles Prichard
James Cowles Prichard was a pioneering psychiatric theorist in the formative years of the discipline and one of Europe’s leading anthropologists. With evocative detail, Crump draws readers into the social and cultural milieu of early nineteenth-century Bristol, a world of pre-scientific medicine and the emerging fields of anthropology and psychiatry.
As the century’s premier theorist of the common origin of all humanity, known as monogenism, Prichard asserted the affinity and equal capacity of all humans. Even though he was politically and socially conservative, Prichard worked behind the scenes to support abolitionism, and he advocated for the humane treatment of colonial British subjects.
Excerpt from 1842 textbook by James Cowles Prichard
A champion of humane care and treatment
Prichard challenged the rising tide of scientific racism starting to fester in the academic halls of Europe and the United States. He is also considered one of the pioneers of Celtic linguistics.
His influential publications on neurological and psychological conditions called for the humane care and treatment of the mentally ill and mentally disabled and protection of their civil liberties.
Born into changing, challenging times, during a revolution in British culture and at the threshold of modern science, Prichard fully embodied the Age of Improvement.
The former Prichard Clinic
Prichard's historic namesake at Glenside
Glenside Hospital used to be home to the Prichard Clinic, wards which opened in 1955, named after James Cowles Prichard.
In Prichard 1 and Prichard 2 patients with acute psychiatric illness could be treated in wards which provided more modern surroundings than the rest of the hospital's Victorian buildings.
Pictured here in 2025, this building is now the Bristol Eye Clinic, part of the University of the West of England's school of health and social wellbeing.
About the author
Margaret M. Crump is an independent scholar in nineteenth-century British intellectual and cultural history and works as an arts educator and artist in Bristol, United Kingdom.
Margaret will host a talk for members of the History of psychiatry (HoPSIG) in October at Glenside Hospital Museum.
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