Wigan Album
Haydock Lodge
4 CommentsPhoto: Keith Beckett
Item #: 31500
The 1927 aerial view of the hospital gives an air of innocence, the reality was that it was the scene of a mid nineteenth century scandal that almost brought down the government of the day.
It was run by a Charles Mott whose behaviour was reprehensible in the cruel treatment of the patients and the associated high death rates.
When Mott's failings were discovered subsequent enquiries resulted in major changes to the way mental patients were looked after and reinforced with new laws.
The hospital closed in 1970. The Post House hotel, now the Holiday Inn, was later built on the site.
I worked in NHS from the Seventies till the Noughties.
During this period, I think there was NEVER a period when there was not some care-related scandal being investigated in the various locations in which they have occurred!
Keith: I worked in the N H S for fourteen years, and as Priscus has stated we always had some scandalous event and called urgently to some meeting or a course.
I worked in a Hospital that had a mental health unit, and when we were called to assist hospital staff some times it was very frightening.
But when you look back in history from where we came from, old Victorian buildings and attitudes, young women locked up just because they had a baby out of wed-lock, people who had medical conditions that doctors did not understand like Thyroid problems that give the impression of mental illness if not treated with thyroid tablets, and the old with dementia, the young with drug related problems that is nearly out of control.
And what did our prime minister do at the time? She threw them all on the street and knocked down most of the mental health units.
From their we have all the politicians saying we need more care in the community and throw another wad of money at it, that never is enough, and never will be, you see Keith the N H S has become one very big sponge.
'Major changes' - I've read the Hansard report on what went on at Haydock Lodge - and it seems we're back in the same circumstances. The main charge against Mott was that he stood to gain financially from the way he ran the place - he gathered in patients from all over the country by offering to 'care' for them cheaper than they could be cared for in their home towns. So patients were moved hundreds of miles from their homes and families - and so away from caring scrutiny. With so many of our institutions now run for profit - prisons, hospitals, care homes..., have we really advanced?
Haydock Lodge was formally owned by the Legh family, whose main residence was the magnificent mansion at Lyme Park in Cheshire. Sir Thomas Legh was MP for Newton Le Willows from 1819 to 1831.