'Negotiating the Asylum: Patient Agency and Asylum Authority in Lancaster County Asylum, 1840-1915'

My PhD project seeks to understand the experiences of individuals who were confined as patients in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century asylums. I am particularly interested in investigating the relationship between medical authority and patient agency in the institution. Using Lancaster County Asylum as a case study, I use medical records, objects, photographs, architecture and spatial analyses to explore the ways in which patients rejected, coped with or engaged with medical authority. 

AHRC Doctoral Award (Oct 2015 - Sept 2018)

ESRC Interdisciplinary Event Fund (Aug 2017)

Dr. John Welshman, Lancaster University

Conferences, Workshops and Symposiums:

• 'Negotiating the Asylum: Patient Agency in Lancashire County Asylum 1840-1915' Social History Society Conference, Institute of Education (UCL), London, April 2017.

• 'Getting out of the Asylum: Running away and patient agency in Lancashire County Asylum, 1840-1915' Re-thinking the Institution in the Long Nineteenth Century, John Moores University, Liverpool, June 2017.

• '"The Geography of License": Asylum Architecture and Patient Agency in Lancaster’s County Asylum, 1840-1915' Inaugral Congress of the Northern Network for the Medical Humanities, University of Durham, September, 2017.

• 'Locating Patient Agency: Patient Responses to Confinement in Lancaster County Asylum, 1840-1915' Patient Voices: Historical and Ethical Engagement with Patient Experiences of Healthcare 1850-1948, University of Oxford, September 2017.

Public Engagement:

I have participated in a number of public enagement events involving various community groups in Lancashire. In particular I was involved in the 'Left Behind: Capturing the Moor Hospital' exhibition at Lancaster City Museum 3 Dec 2016 - 19 Feb 2017 contributing public history talks on Lancaster Asylum. I have also contributed to 'Whittingham Lives', a three-year Heritage Lottery funded project, co-delivering a workshop on the ethical ramifications of malaria treatment at Whittingham, and provided a public lecture on patient responses to confinement in Lancaster Asylum.

I currently teach on HIST100 'From the Ancient to Modern: History and Historians'.

I have also contributed to HIST199 'Lancaster A Place in Space and Time' and MA History modules HIST434 'Critical Heritage Studies' and HIST401 'Researching and Writing History'.