29 July 2024
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When the ‘Mental Deficiency Act’ was passed 111 years ago the consequences were often devastating and long-lasting, with 50,000 people deemed ‘feeble-minded’ or ‘defective’ and similar locked up, often for life. Author and historian Sarah Wise shines a light on this dark chapter of UK history in her book The Undesirables.
To follow is an interview hosted by Family Tree Editor Helen Tovey with expert guests, Sarah Wise, Lisa Edwards and Professor Marius Turda:
Subtitled 'The Law that Locked Away a Generation', Sarah Wise's new book covers the long-lasting and devasting impact of the Mental Deficiency Act, passed 111 years ago, and not repealed until 1959. As Sarah explains near the interview's end, there are still several thousand people similarly incarcerated to this day in the UK.
About the author Sarah Wise
Historian, author, tutor Sarah Wise is a Victorianist at heart, who makes her first foray into 20th century social history with her latest book, out 2024, The Undesirables.
About the expert guests Lisa Edwards & Professor Marius Turda
Lisa Edwards has written on the topic of the impact of poverty upon her Victorian ancestors previously in Family Tree. Having seen Lisa's article in the November 2021 issue of Family Tree, the Royal Society of Psychiatrists contacted Lisa and invited her to talk to their members in January 2023. You can read her accompanying blog here.
Professor Marius Turda is author of Modernism and Eugenics and is Professor in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Biomedicine at the School of Education, Humanities and Languages at Oxford Brookes University.
