Dyke Road: Institution for Imbecile Children of the Upper Classes

Robert Clifton Foreman MD MRCS (1821 – 1865)

Wilmot’s Illustrated Map of Brighton and its Vicinity c1851. Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Disclaimer.  This article contains language we would not use today. Identifying shifting vocabulary can, however, also be key to interpreting positive changes in understanding and attitudes. It is for the reader to decide whether this is the case here.  

In 1822, when Dyke Road was known as Church Hill, the tranche of land on the corner of Clifton Hill was converted by Revd Thomas Airey from a redundant soap factory to a boys’ boarding school.  Several generations of boys were educated here over a 35-year period under a succession of reverend gentleman principals. Revd William Henry Butler succeeded Revd Airey who was in turn followed by Revd Matthew Pugh.

A promotional advertisement in the Times dated March 20th 1856 highlights the “excellent gardens and playgrounds attached” to the school house, as can be seen in the map above.

Around 1859, here at Church Hill House alighted a Dr Robert Clifton Foreman and his Institution for Imbecile Children of the Upper Classes.

Early career

© Wellcome Collection

  Soon after graduating as a physician in 1847, Foreman had been appointed the first Resident Physician at the newly opened Park House Asylum for Idiots in Highgate. Here he was in at the very start – at least in the UK - of compassionate work with children previously assumed incapable of learning anything whatsoever. Previously, parents had generally despatched such children either to the harsh conditions of the workhouse or a lunatic asylum. 

A far more holistic approach was pioneered at Park House, one based on individual attention, starting where the child is, and reinforcing development in small steps, using sensory stimulation and so on.  A structured environment was deemed essential, as was genuine care, with residents (children and staff) considered family from the start.

Within two years the asylum became a victim of its own success and was forced to move to a larger property in Colchester. Here, however, Foreman soon fell out with the newly formed House Committee and resigned, albeit evidently with good enough references to slot into similar role at Lowestoft.  

Colville House, Lowestoft, Suffolk

By this time, a distinction was emerging between the clinical terms ‘idiot’ and ‘imbecile’; in essence ‘imbeciles’ were considered more educable.  The Lowestoft asylum, Colville House, duly became known as an “institution for the imbecile children of the middle and upper classes.

The Times, 25th April 1851. © The Times Digital Archive

This comprehensive promotion in The Times illustrates the aspirations of Foreman and his team at Colville House to expand the limits of what could be achieved to enhance the each child’s life quality of life as much as possible.   The term 'education' is evidently used here with its literal meaning of 'to draw out' in addition to the relatively simplistic term, 'training'.

Church Hill House

I have yet to determine the precise circumstances which prompted a relocation to Brighton. At least whether it was more carrot than stick. Carrotwise, the setting of Church Hill House was conducive in being, like Colville House, elevated, dry and about a mile from the sea. Being set back from the road, in its own grounds, the former school house was also reasonably secluded. Its proximity to a railway station with links to the Metropolis would undoubtedly have appealed too. Ambition may have been an factor since the Brighton version of the asylum catered exclusively for children of the upper classes.

The 1861 Census at Church Hill House shows nine pupil boarders, most of whom were in their teens. The majority would have been taught skills, some to a level that allowed them to work. 

Also resident on this Census night was local teacher, Elizabeth Fletcher Goulty, daughter of the Non-conformist preacher, reformer and educationist, John Nelson Goulty. Although a tenuous hypothesis, given her listing as ‘visitor’ and the fact that her family had a girls’ private school in Sussex Square at the time, it is conceivable that she was engaged to teach the more educable of the Church Hill House youngsters.

Among the ten 'servants' also resident on Census night 1861, was a cook aged 80 and a ‘nurse’ aged 16.  There was no ageism here!

Sadly, Foreman’s “age is just a number” philosophy was to do him no favours four years later. Early in 1865, he was in trouble with the law, having been found to be without a licence for boarding imbecile patients over 16 years of age.  By this time, he was indeed boarding five older teens as well as one aged 23.  For this breach, he twice appeared before the borough magistrates. His defence was sound. Ironically, the statute he had contravened applied to lunatic asylums when, of course, didn’t take lunatics. Besides, the Commissioners for Lunacy had popped in annually over the previous six years when inspecting the workhouse; they had taken good look around and seen all the patients, only recommending a licence application in the summer of 1864 when he had applied for one pronto. But (plus ça change), his first attempt could not be validated for bureaucratic reasons.

Foreman further pointed out that he had taken all the patients in when they were under 16. In fact, all but one of the older ones had come with him from Colville House.  It was unkind, he believed, to remove someone simply because they had reached a particular age; they had, after all, formed a bond with him. 

Having been given a fair grilling, he was granted a licence to board patients over the age 16, to be renewed annually.

However, less than three months later, Foreman was dead, a thorough training in medicine having been insufficient to defeat a severe bout of pneumonia in the pre-penicillin era. Possibly the stress of the court case had helped fuel the illness for it would have been gruelling to stand judgement for suposedly breaking a lunacy law after having dedicated his whole career to proving that imbeciles were not lunatics. 

Foreman’s widow, Emily, took over the running of the asylum but, by the time of the 1871 Census, there were only five resident patients, all aged between 21 and 29. The enterprise was clearly being wound down.

Indeed, the asylum was gone by the summer of that year. The photograph below captures the opening ceremony of the Brighton Hospital for Children on July 14th 1871. The dignatories are standing in front of Church Hill House, where the hospital had moved after its first three years in increasingly inadequte premises on Western Road.

 Church Hill House served as the hospital’s main building for a decade until the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children opened on the site in 1881. Known to most of us as the Royal Alex, it operated here until 2007 concluding, in one form or another,185 continuous years of child welfare and learning.

Postscript

 According to an obituary of the distinguished Dr RPB Taafe which appeared in the Brighton Gazette on March 8th 1888, the concept of the Brighton Hospital for Children had been prompted by the small but flourishing Home for Invalid Children based at 70 Montpelier Road since 1855. This alleged connection merits further exploration, particularly as Taafe had initially worked independently to establish a hospital for children in the town, only to join forces later with other equally committed advocates of the scheme. Any leads appreciated!