Interlude 2

Elizabeth Overing, sent to Bedlam1

Elizabeth Hughes

Elizabeth Overing was probably Elizabeth, the daughter of John and Mary Overing, who was baptized in Wilmington, Sussex on 21 September 1746.2 Her father died in 1773, leaving a will acknowledging all four of his children and leaving £3 a year for Elizabeth but only after her mother’s death.3

Things seem to have gone wrong fairly soon afterwards, as Elizabeth was admitted to Bethlem Hospital in London on 17 May 1774 by Wilmington parish. Bethlem Hospital, colloquially known as Bedlam, cared for the ‘insane’ poor, taking in patients from across the country. It was usual for new patients to spend about a year in the hospital’s general ward, after which, if they were not cured, they were assessed as to whether they were ‘fit’ to receive the hospital’s charity in the incurable ward. Elizabeth Overing was discharged as ‘not fit’ on 19 May 1775.

She returned to Wilmington, and by 3 September 1775 she was the subject of a removal order from Wilmington to East Hoathly. The order records that Mary Overing, Elizabeth’s mother, was examined as to her daughter’s settlement. Since Elizabeth would by now have been twenty-nine, this suggests that she may not have been considered able to answer for herself. There is no explanation as to how she had gained a settlement in East Hoathly but gain it she did. From this time, Elizabeth appears regularly in the East Hoathly overseers’ accounts, where payments record her maintenance at 3s 6d a week, later increasing to 5s.4 By January 1782, the process had begun to admit Elizabeth Overing to Bethlem Hospital once more.

Parish maintenance payments for her ended on 12 January 1782, which was the original date for her planned admission to Bethlem. Instead, she was conveyed to Hoxton, where she was maintained by a Mr Robert Harrison from 12 to 26 January at 10s 6d a week. Hoxton was the location of a number of ‘madhouses’ for private mental health patients in the later eighteenth century. It may be that Elizabeth was accommodated in one or other of these institutions until Bethlem was able to accept her.

She was finally transferred to Bethlem as an incurable patient on 26 January 1782. Elizabeth Overing’s expenses were passed on to East Hoathly. Vouchers show that the parish paid deposits of £4 1s 0d towards her board and £3 3s 0d towards her bed, bedding and funeral if she were to die at the hospital.5 Invoices for Elizabeth’s expenses were received in East Hoathly at the end of December each year. For example, in the year ending 28 December 1784, the parish was invoiced £6 10s 0d for board and £2 15s 0d for clothing, which included shoes and stockings, a gown, petticoat and undercoat, shifts, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs and buckles, provided at Bethlem’s standard charge.6 The provision of clothing for the parochial poor was an important element of relief and included responsibility for those parishioners cared for beyond the parish.7

In August 1815 Bethlem’s patients were transferred to new premises in Southwark. Elizabeth did not live to see it, for she died on 2 June that year. Her burial place has not so far been identified.

1 For the fuller story of Elizabeth Overing see E. Hughes, ‘Elizabeth Overing, sent to Bedlam (1746–1815)’, The Poor Law <https://thepoorlaw.org/elizabeth-overing-sent-to-bedlam-1746-1815> [accessed 23 Nov. 2021]. This blog post is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

2 ESRO, PAR510/1/1, Wilmington, Register of baptisms, marriages and burials, 1538–1812.

3 ESRO, PBT1/1/62/692, Registered will of John Overing, 1772.

4 ESRO, PAR378/ 31/3/1/1, East Hoathly, Overseers’ account book, 1761–79.

5 ESRO, PAR378/ 31/3/19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, East Hoathly, Overseers’ vouchers.

6 ESRO, PAR378/31/3/21/24, East Hoathly, Overseers’ vouchers, 1784.

7 See Chapter 2 in this volume for further discussion on the nature and extent of clothing supplied to the poor.