Care of the poor 8
Mental health
In the 19th century, Victorian ideas of propriety led to a fairly narrow concept of what was considered "normal" behaviour. No doubt some of the people the Rhayader Union treated as "pauper lunatics" needed special care as they were a danger to themselves and others but records of lunatic asylums show that patients included unmarried mothers who were incarcerated to hide their "shame". We can be sure that many of the Victorian inmates would receive very different treatment today.
County Archives
R/G/C/8/1/1
"Ordered - That the Overseers of Saint Harmon immediately remove William Jones a lunatic pauper of the said Parish to some Lunatic Asylum for safe custody."
The patients from the Rhayader Union were most often sent to an asylum in Abergavenny where they would probably have been cut off from their families by geography and the cost of travel.
County Archives
R/G/C/8/1/4
"Resolved, that application be made to the Kingsland Lunatic Asylum, Shrewsbury for the taking in of Elizabeth Evans a pauper lunatic belonging to the parish of Llanwrthwl at present residing at Triangles in the parish of Cwmtoydder".
