Which came first?

 

Which came first?

Wellington College

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I live in Berkshire, England, in a place called Crowthorne. It is a village, although the part we live in is actually Wokingham Without, though what it lacks is not specified.

The village is quite large and is not an attractive, chocolate box spot with thatched roofs and roses round the door. Photographs of it will never appear on festive tins of shortbread. It’s more of a place people travel through to reach somewhere else. Since the bypass was built, more than thirty years ago, most travellers now don’t have to go anywhere near it.

Crowthorne is known mainly for two institutions, at either end of the village. Wellington College, situated on four hundred acres near the station, which was specifically built to serve it, was originally a boys’ independent school but is now fully co-educational. It educates around 1100 students between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, who enjoy superb facilities. Known principally as a boarding school, it also accommodates day pupils. In common with many such establishments, its facilities are shared with the local community and offer employment to local people. Boarding fees are around £51,000 per annum. Day school fees are about £36,000.

Old Broadmoor Hospital

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

At the other end of the village, bordering the forest, is Broadmoor Hospital, the best-known of England’s three high-security psychiatric hospitals. Though principally known as a secure environment for dangerous criminals, it also treats men who have never been convicted of criminal activity, but who pose a grave risk to themselves and/or others. It has an annual turn-over of about fifty men and the average age at admission is twenty-nine. Some stay for only a brief period, others are discharged after five or six years. A small percentage, around 5%, remain at the hospital for more than twenty years.

Some of the more notorious inpatients have included the Yorkshire Ripper, who spent thirty years in Broadmoor and the gangster, Ronnie Kray, both now dead.

Current inmates include Michael Adebowale, convicted for murdering the British soldier, Lee Rigby, in 2013, and Ian Ball, who was found guilty of attempting to kidnap Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, in 1974.

One of the most interesting inmates was a retired American Army surgeon, W.C. Minor. He fought in the American Civil War and afterwards moved to England. He suffered from delusions and shot a man he suspected of breaking into his room. He was not considered dangerous, but even so spent thirty-eight years in the hospital, before being deported to the USA, where he died in Connecticut in 1920.

While at Broadmoor, he was able to buy books from London booksellers and became aware of the call for entries to what would become the Oxford English Dictionary.

Robert Maudsley is a serial murderer once held in Broadmoor. He was the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter.

It costs between £200,000 to £300,000 per annum to accommodate a single patient in Broadmoor. The warders, officially known as nurses, are tough individuals and interesting characters to talk to. We sometimes meet one or two when we’re out with the dogs. They often prove to have an enduring sense of humour, rather necessary when dealing with damaged minds. It’s hard to find humanity in some who have committed heinous crimes, but, as the Quakers advise, we must strive to find ‘that of God’ in every human being.

A new hospital building was opened in 2019, after six years of construction. The old hospital was a forbidding-looking red brick Victorian building, which was considered to be no longer effective for modern psychiatric treatment. The new building is light and airy, with attractive gardens. The aim is to rehabilitate patients, not punish them for being ill.

Plans for the old building, which is Grade II listed and cannot be demolished without official consent, include redeveloping the sixty acre site, with new homes and new apartments for older people, converting fifty-six apartments in the original building, and providing a care home for sixty people. 

When we first moved to Crowthorne and for many years after, 10.00 am on a Monday morning was the time for the Broadmoor klaxon to be tested. People set their watches by it. The sirens were decommissioned around 2018, to be replaced by alerts through social media, radio, and television. I’m not sure how effective those alerts are. Not everyone listens to local radio or watches television. I suppose mobile ‘phones are better equipped to warn people, but I still think a wailing siren is harder to ignore.

Escapes are rare. The last serious one was attempted by a child rapist in 1991. Road blocks were set up and all vehicles were stopped and checked. Barry had just arrived at the forest, ready for a run with the dogs. On the track leading into the trees, the police had erected a tape, on the understanding, presumably, that no-one escaping would think to go either side of it. They stopped Barry and showed him a photograph of the inmate and said, ‘If you see him, run back here and tell us.’

Barry didn’t see him, and the patient was recaptured two days later.

So, which came first? Both were Victorian establishments.

Broadmoor Hospital was built in 1863, and the first patients were women.

The foundation stone for Wellington College was laid by Queen Victoria in 1856, and the first pupils entered in 1859. It was built as a monument to the Duke of Wellington, the ‘Iron Duke,’ and was intended to educate the orphaned sons of army officers killed in battle. 

(Can you be an orphan if one parent is still alive? You can if the deceased parent was the major family support.)