2024
Wynter, Rebecca; Ewen, Shane
‘Choreographing Urban Ambulance in Britain, c.1880-1930: Bodies, Improvisation, Movement, Planning’ Journal Article Forthcoming
In: Forthcoming.
BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {‘Choreographing Urban Ambulance in Britain, c.1880-1930: Bodies, Improvisation, Movement, Planning’},
author = {Rebecca Wynter and Shane Ewen},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-02-01},
urldate = {2024-02-01},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {forthcoming},
tppubtype = {article}
}
2023
Wynter, Rebecca; Wallis, Jennifer; Ellis, Rob
Marking Time: Memory, Mental Health, and Making Minds Book Chapter
In: Wynter, Rebecca; Wallis, Jennifer; Ellis, Rob (Ed.): Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, ISBN: 978-3-031-22978-7.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Marking Time: Memory, Mental Health, and Making Minds},
author = {Rebecca Wynter and Jennifer Wallis and Rob Ellis },
editor = {Rebecca Wynter and Jennifer Wallis and Rob Ellis },
url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-22978-7_1},
isbn = {978-3-031-22978-7},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-20},
urldate = {2023-07-20},
publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan},
abstract = {History is always about remembering, but it is also a manifestation of the choices people and institutions make about forgetting, misremembering, shaping, propagandising, reforming, and revising. Triggered by reflections on key anniversaries in mental healthcare at a point when history and memorialisation are under sustained assault globally, we reflect on the construction of the history of psychiatry and the role that recall plays in the history of reform. Taken together we focus on one of the most contentious areas in modern myth and stigma: mental health. Drawing on expertise in local asylums, remembering, embodied memory, the media, and material culture, this introductory chapter will offer a new paradigm to explore memory in the history of medicine. Exploring the trope of the ‘bad old days’ and embracing primary material—from the nineteenth century, London County Council’s asylums, the BBC, and the twenty-first-century York Retreat—the chapter will present fresh insights into anniversaries and marking time, and will contextualise the 11 further chapters that make up the edited collection.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
History is always about remembering, but it is also a manifestation of the choices people and institutions make about forgetting, misremembering, shaping, propagandising, reforming, and revising. Triggered by reflections on key anniversaries in mental healthcare at a point when history and memorialisation are under sustained assault globally, we reflect on the construction of the history of psychiatry and the role that recall plays in the history of reform. Taken together we focus on one of the most contentious areas in modern myth and stigma: mental health. Drawing on expertise in local asylums, remembering, embodied memory, the media, and material culture, this introductory chapter will offer a new paradigm to explore memory in the history of medicine. Exploring the trope of the ‘bad old days’ and embracing primary material—from the nineteenth century, London County Council’s asylums, the BBC, and the twenty-first-century York Retreat—the chapter will present fresh insights into anniversaries and marking time, and will contextualise the 11 further chapters that make up the edited collection.
Wynter, Rebecca; Ellis, Rob; Wallis, Jennifer (Ed.)
Anniversaries, Memory and Mental Health in International Historical Perspective: Faith in Reform Book
Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2023, ISBN: 978-3-031-22978-7.
@book{nokey,
title = {Anniversaries, Memory and Mental Health in International Historical Perspective: Faith in Reform},
editor = {Rebecca Wynter and Rob Ellis and Jennifer Wallis },
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22978-7},
isbn = {978-3-031-22978-7},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-19},
urldate = {2023-07-19},
publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan Cham},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
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2021
Wynter, Rebecca
Ambition, ‘failure’ and the laboratory: Birmingham as a centre of twentieth-century British scientific psychiatry Journal Article
In: The British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 19 - 40, 2021.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {Ambition, ‘failure’ and the laboratory: Birmingham as a centre of twentieth-century British scientific psychiatry},
author = {Rebecca Wynter},
url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/abs/ambition-failure-and-the-laboratory-birmingham-as-a-centre-of-twentiethcentury-british-scientific-psychiatry/4263E8AE6733A2CAEAB6B72D73A2713B},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-02-17},
urldate = {2021-02-17},
journal = {The British Journal for the History of Science},
volume = {54},
number = {1},
pages = {19 - 40},
abstract = {This article will reveal how local scientific determination and ambition, in the face of rejection by funders, navigated a path to success and to influence in national policy and international medicine. It will demonstrate that Birmingham, England's ‘second city’, was the key centre for cutting-edge biological psychiatry in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. The ambitions of Frederick Mott – doyen of biochemistry, neuropathology and neuropsychiatry, until now celebrated as a London figure – to revolutionize psychiatric treatment through science, chimed with those of the City and University of Birmingham's Joint Board of Research for Mental Diseases. Under Mott's direction, shaped by place and inter-professional working, the board's collaborators included psychiatrist Thomas Chivers Graves and world-renowned physiologist J.S. Haldane. However, starved of external money and therefore fresh ideas, as well as oversight, the ‘groupthink’ that emerged created the classic UK focal sepsis theory which, it was widely believed, would yield a cure for mental illness – a cure that never materialized. By tracing the venture's growth, accomplishments and contemporary potential for biochemical, bacterial and therapeutic discoveries – as well as its links with scientist and key government adviser Solly Zuckerman – this article illustrates how ‘failure’ and its ahistorical assessment fundamentally obscure past importance, neglect the early promise offered by later unsuccessful science, and can even hide questionable research.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This article will reveal how local scientific determination and ambition, in the face of rejection by funders, navigated a path to success and to influence in national policy and international medicine. It will demonstrate that Birmingham, England's ‘second city’, was the key centre for cutting-edge biological psychiatry in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. The ambitions of Frederick Mott – doyen of biochemistry, neuropathology and neuropsychiatry, until now celebrated as a London figure – to revolutionize psychiatric treatment through science, chimed with those of the City and University of Birmingham's Joint Board of Research for Mental Diseases. Under Mott's direction, shaped by place and inter-professional working, the board's collaborators included psychiatrist Thomas Chivers Graves and world-renowned physiologist J.S. Haldane. However, starved of external money and therefore fresh ideas, as well as oversight, the ‘groupthink’ that emerged created the classic UK focal sepsis theory which, it was widely believed, would yield a cure for mental illness – a cure that never materialized. By tracing the venture's growth, accomplishments and contemporary potential for biochemical, bacterial and therapeutic discoveries – as well as its links with scientist and key government adviser Solly Zuckerman – this article illustrates how ‘failure’ and its ahistorical assessment fundamentally obscure past importance, neglect the early promise offered by later unsuccessful science, and can even hide questionable research.
2020
& Pink Dandelion, Rebecca Wynter (Ed.)
A Quaker Conscientious Objector Book
Bath: Handheld Press, 2020.
@book{nokey,
title = {A Quaker Conscientious Objector},
editor = {Rebecca Wynter & Pink Dandelion},
url = {https://www.handheldpress.co.uk/shop/20th-century-history/a-quaker-conscientious-objector/ },
year = {2020},
date = {2020-05-18},
publisher = {Bath: Handheld Press},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
2017
Wynter, Rebecca; Smith, Leonard
Introduction: historical contexts to communicating mental health Journal Article
In: Medical Humanities, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 73-80, 2017.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {Introduction: historical contexts to communicating mental health},
author = {Rebecca Wynter and Leonard Smith
},
url = {https://mh.bmj.com/content/43/2/73.info},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-06-01},
urldate = {2017-06-01},
journal = {Medical Humanities},
volume = {43},
number = {2},
pages = {73-80},
abstract = {Contemporary discussions around language, stigma and care in mental health, the messages these elements transmit, and the means through which they have been conveyed, have a long and deep lineage. Recognition and exploration of this lineage can inform how we communicate about mental health going forward, as reflected by the 9 papers which make up this special issue. Our introduction provides some framework for the history of communicating mental health over the past 300 years. We will show that there have been diverse ways and means of describing, disseminating and discussing mental health, in relation both to therapeutic practices and between practitioners, patients and the public. Communicating about mental health, we argue, has been informed by the desire for positive change, as much as by developments in reporting, legislation and technology. However, while the modes of communication have developed, the issues involved remain the same. Most practitioners have sought to understand and to innovate, though not always with positive results. Some lost sight of patients as people; patients have felt and have been ignored or silenced by doctors and carers. Money has always talked, for without adequate investment, services and care have suffered, contributing to the stigma surrounding mental illness. While it is certainly 'time to talk' to improve experiences, it is also time to change the language that underpins cultural attitudes towards mental illness, time to listen to people with mental health issues and, crucially, time to hear.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Contemporary discussions around language, stigma and care in mental health, the messages these elements transmit, and the means through which they have been conveyed, have a long and deep lineage. Recognition and exploration of this lineage can inform how we communicate about mental health going forward, as reflected by the 9 papers which make up this special issue. Our introduction provides some framework for the history of communicating mental health over the past 300 years. We will show that there have been diverse ways and means of describing, disseminating and discussing mental health, in relation both to therapeutic practices and between practitioners, patients and the public. Communicating about mental health, we argue, has been informed by the desire for positive change, as much as by developments in reporting, legislation and technology. However, while the modes of communication have developed, the issues involved remain the same. Most practitioners have sought to understand and to innovate, though not always with positive results. Some lost sight of patients as people; patients have felt and have been ignored or silenced by doctors and carers. Money has always talked, for without adequate investment, services and care have suffered, contributing to the stigma surrounding mental illness. While it is certainly 'time to talk' to improve experiences, it is also time to change the language that underpins cultural attitudes towards mental illness, time to listen to people with mental health issues and, crucially, time to hear.
2016
Dandelion, Pink; Wynter, Rebecca
Conscription, Conscience and Controversy: the Friends’ Ambulance Unit and the ‘Middle Course’ in the First World War Journal Article
In: Quaker Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 213-33, 2016.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {Conscription, Conscience and Controversy: the Friends’ Ambulance Unit and the ‘Middle Course’ in the First World War},
author = {Pink Dandelion and Rebecca Wynter},
url = {https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/article/34225/},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-06-01},
urldate = {2016-06-01},
journal = {Quaker Studies},
volume = {21},
number = {2},
pages = {213-33},
abstract = {The Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU) was established by British Quakers outside the formal structures of the Religious Society of Friends in August 1914 to provide frontline voluntary medical aid in Belgium. It was headed by a London-based ‘Committee of the Friends’ Ambulance Unit’ (FAU Committee), which included men at the heart of the nation’s political elite. This article considers the FAU Committee’s response to the threat and enactment of conscription, and in turn what this did to the Unit’s internal workings, its personnel and their consciences, centring on the experiences of four members of its ‘Foreign Section’ in France and Belgium. In doing so, it not only reveals for the first time the negotiations between FAU Committee members and Government representatives, but also suggests that the ‘middle course’ steered between prison and the military was, if not always popular, successful in ensuring the continuation of aid work and creating a space for consciences of many hues.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
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}
The Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU) was established by British Quakers outside the formal structures of the Religious Society of Friends in August 1914 to provide frontline voluntary medical aid in Belgium. It was headed by a London-based ‘Committee of the Friends’ Ambulance Unit’ (FAU Committee), which included men at the heart of the nation’s political elite. This article considers the FAU Committee’s response to the threat and enactment of conscription, and in turn what this did to the Unit’s internal workings, its personnel and their consciences, centring on the experiences of four members of its ‘Foreign Section’ in France and Belgium. In doing so, it not only reveals for the first time the negotiations between FAU Committee members and Government representatives, but also suggests that the ‘middle course’ steered between prison and the military was, if not always popular, successful in ensuring the continuation of aid work and creating a space for consciences of many hues.
2015
Wynter, Rebecca
Pictures of Peter Pan: Institutions, Local Definitions of ‘Mental Deficiency’, and the Filtering of Children in Early Twentieth-Century England Journal Article
In: Family & Community History, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 122-138, 2015.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {Pictures of Peter Pan: Institutions, Local Definitions of ‘Mental Deficiency’, and the Filtering of Children in Early Twentieth-Century England},
author = {Rebecca Wynter},
url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1463118015Z.00000000045},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-11-25},
urldate = {2015-11-25},
journal = {Family & Community History},
volume = {18},
number = {2},
pages = {122-138},
abstract = {The Mental Deficiency Act (1913) was prompted by the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded. Two Birmingham figures, Ellen Pinsent and Dr William Potts, were part of and witnesses to the Commission, ensuring that the city and their pioneering diagnostics influenced national legislation. Against the backdrop of the nineteenth-century institutional landscape, this article explores how the apparently clear definitions and medical terminology (now obsolete and considered insulting) engineered through the legislation, gave way locally to more nuanced understandings. Using the case study of Monyhull Colony, this article considers how these local interpretations funnelled children into, through, and rarely out of the specialist mental deficiency facility in England between c.1913 and c.1940. During each stage of this filtering process - in education, in the community, at Mental Deficiency Committees, on admission to the colony, at the colony school, and on reaching the age of sixteen - it will show that a dense and ever-expanding panoply of descriptors and organising principles was employed.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
The Mental Deficiency Act (1913) was prompted by the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded. Two Birmingham figures, Ellen Pinsent and Dr William Potts, were part of and witnesses to the Commission, ensuring that the city and their pioneering diagnostics influenced national legislation. Against the backdrop of the nineteenth-century institutional landscape, this article explores how the apparently clear definitions and medical terminology (now obsolete and considered insulting) engineered through the legislation, gave way locally to more nuanced understandings. Using the case study of Monyhull Colony, this article considers how these local interpretations funnelled children into, through, and rarely out of the specialist mental deficiency facility in England between c.1913 and c.1940. During each stage of this filtering process - in education, in the community, at Mental Deficiency Committees, on admission to the colony, at the colony school, and on reaching the age of sixteen - it will show that a dense and ever-expanding panoply of descriptors and organising principles was employed.
2014
Reinarz, Jonathan; Wynter, Rebecca (Ed.)
Complaints, Controversies and Grievances in Medicine: Historical and Social Science Perspectives Book
London: Routledge, 2014.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@book{nokey,
title = {Complaints, Controversies and Grievances in Medicine: Historical and Social Science Perspectives},
editor = {Jonathan Reinarz and Rebecca Wynter},
url = {https://www.routledge.com/Complaints-Controversies-and-Grievances-in-Medicine-Historical-and-Social/Reinarz-Wynter/p/book/9780367341404 },
year = {2014},
date = {2014-12-03},
urldate = {2014-12-03},
publisher = {London: Routledge},
abstract = {Recent studies into the experiences and failures of health care services, along with the rapid development of patient advocacy, consumerism and pressure groups have led historians and social scientists to engage with the issue of the medical complaint. As expressions of dissatisfaction, disquiet and failings in service provision, past complaining is a vital antidote to progressive histories of health care. This book explores what has happened historically when medicine generated complaints.
This multidisciplinary collection comprises contributions from leading international scholars and uses new research to develop a sophisticated understanding of the development of medicine and the role of complaints and complaining in this story. It addresses how each aspect of the medical complaint – between sciences, professions, practitioners and sectors; within politics, ethics and regulatory bodies; from interested parties and patients – has manifested in modern medicine, and how it has been defined, dealt with and resolved.
A critical and interdisciplinary humanities and social science perspective grounded in historical case studies of medicine and bioethics, this volume provides the first major and comprehensive historical, comparative and policy-based examination of the area. It will be of interest to historians, sociologists, legal specialists and ethicists interested in medicine, as well as those involved in healthcare policy, practice and management.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
Recent studies into the experiences and failures of health care services, along with the rapid development of patient advocacy, consumerism and pressure groups have led historians and social scientists to engage with the issue of the medical complaint. As expressions of dissatisfaction, disquiet and failings in service provision, past complaining is a vital antidote to progressive histories of health care. This book explores what has happened historically when medicine generated complaints.
This multidisciplinary collection comprises contributions from leading international scholars and uses new research to develop a sophisticated understanding of the development of medicine and the role of complaints and complaining in this story. It addresses how each aspect of the medical complaint – between sciences, professions, practitioners and sectors; within politics, ethics and regulatory bodies; from interested parties and patients – has manifested in modern medicine, and how it has been defined, dealt with and resolved.
A critical and interdisciplinary humanities and social science perspective grounded in historical case studies of medicine and bioethics, this volume provides the first major and comprehensive historical, comparative and policy-based examination of the area. It will be of interest to historians, sociologists, legal specialists and ethicists interested in medicine, as well as those involved in healthcare policy, practice and management.
This multidisciplinary collection comprises contributions from leading international scholars and uses new research to develop a sophisticated understanding of the development of medicine and the role of complaints and complaining in this story. It addresses how each aspect of the medical complaint – between sciences, professions, practitioners and sectors; within politics, ethics and regulatory bodies; from interested parties and patients – has manifested in modern medicine, and how it has been defined, dealt with and resolved.
A critical and interdisciplinary humanities and social science perspective grounded in historical case studies of medicine and bioethics, this volume provides the first major and comprehensive historical, comparative and policy-based examination of the area. It will be of interest to historians, sociologists, legal specialists and ethicists interested in medicine, as well as those involved in healthcare policy, practice and management.
2011
Wynter, Rebecca
Good in all respects’: appearance and dress at Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, 1818-54 Journal Article
In: History of Psychiatry, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 40-57, 2011.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags:
@article{nokey,
title = {Good in all respects’: appearance and dress at Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, 1818-54},
author = {Rebecca Wynter},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0957154X10380014},
year = {2011},
date = {2011-02-21},
urldate = {2011-02-21},
journal = {History of Psychiatry},
volume = {22},
number = {1},
pages = {40-57},
abstract = {Dress was integral to the ideals and practice of Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, an institution catering for all social classes. Lunatics’ appearance was used to gauge the standard of care inside the asylum and beyond. Clothing was essential for moral treatment and physical health. It helped to denote social and institutional class: clothes were integral to paupers’ admission; rich patients spent time and money dressing; for disturbed inmates and those who destroyed asylum attire, the consequence could be ‘secure dress’, which was fundamental to therapeutics. Later, when an ethos of non-restraint was introduced, the superintendent used patients’ appearance to propagate an image of his enlightened care.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Dress was integral to the ideals and practice of Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, an institution catering for all social classes. Lunatics’ appearance was used to gauge the standard of care inside the asylum and beyond. Clothing was essential for moral treatment and physical health. It helped to denote social and institutional class: clothes were integral to paupers’ admission; rich patients spent time and money dressing; for disturbed inmates and those who destroyed asylum attire, the consequence could be ‘secure dress’, which was fundamental to therapeutics. Later, when an ethos of non-restraint was introduced, the superintendent used patients’ appearance to propagate an image of his enlightened care.