Friday, January 20, 2006

100 years ago

The Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded held a sitting at the Royal Commission House, Westminster. In 1890 the number of pauper lunatics in London was 16,358, while in 1905 the number had risen to 24,652. The large increase in the previous 16 years was alarming. Whilst the population had increased at the rate of 11.87 per cent, the number of pauper lunatics had increased at the rate of 75.9 per cent. In 1902-3 the average cost of lunatics in the London County Council asylums worked out at £42 7s 10d per head. In the previous 15 years the London County Council had provided asylums with 10,000 beds, and this had involved a cost of over £2,500,000. Sir John McDougall, of the London County Council, thought the asylums were unnecessarily expensive. Luxuries were provided which even well-to-do people would not have in their private houses.

50 years ago

"He's my safety valve," said 20-year-old ventriloquist Dennis Spicer of his "dummy" James Green. "James says all the things I'd never dare to say." Dennis added that the most horrible moment of his life came when he thought James had been injured. "It was at a holiday camp. Some children had seen a film where spies concealed secret papers in a doll's head. They got into my dressing room and tried to do the same with James. I shall never forget seeing his head lolling with empty eye sockets. I felt terrible." Fortunately, carpenters' surgery soon restored James to his old sardonic self.

25 years ago

Most groups except teachers wanted caning in schools abolished. That was the claim made by one teachers' organisation, which was opposed to the cane. The Society Of Teachers Opposed To Physical Punishment had gathered together the replies of organisations consulted by Mrs Shirley Williams, Education Secretary in the previous Government, when she sounded out views on the cane. The existing Government refused a year before to publish her findings. STOPP said they showed an "overwhelming weight of opinion favouring abolition, among almost all groups except the teacher unions." Mr Nick Peacey, chairman of STOPP, spoke of the "growing isolation of the leaders of the larger teacher unions, who continued to defend the right to beat children." Of 38 organisations only eight were in favour of the cane -- six representing teachers, the Association of County Councils and the Church of England's General Synod Board Of Education. Eight other organisations including the BMA, the NSPCC and education officers, were either non-committal or ambivalent. STOPP claimed support for abolition from a clear majority of groups, including parent-teacher associations, consumers, pupils, psychiatrists, child specialists and social services directors.

Updated: 16:46 Thursday, January 19, 2006