Violence and mental illness: What Lewis Carroll had to say

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Abstract

In 1873 Skeffington Lutwidge, a Lunacy Commission inspector of asylums in England, was killed by an asylum patient. Lutwidge was the uncle and close friend of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll. One year later, Carroll began writing The Hunting of the Snark, a poem whose meaning has mystified Carroll enthusiasts. In fact, the poem is a description of the Lunacy Commission inspection team and reflects Carroll's personal understanding of, and reaction to, the killing of his uncle by an individual with a severe mental illness. Carroll's close relationship with his uncle also explains the prominence of psychotic thinking in Carroll's work, including the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Introduction

High-profile crimes associated with individuals with untreated mental illness are not unique to our time. In England, the nineteenth century had barely begun when James Hadfield attempted to assassinate King George III in 1800; at trial Hadfield indicated he had done so to bring about the Second Coming. In 1812 John Bellingham, paranoid and psychotic, shot and killed Prime Minister Spencer Percival. In 1840 Edward Oxford, also psychotic, shot at Queen Victoria. Three years later Daniel M'Naghten, suffering from paranoid delusions, killed a man he believed to be Prime Minister Robert Peel; his trial gave birth to the M'Naghten rules.

In the United States in 1835, Richard Lawrence shot at President Andrew Jackson, but his gun misfired; a jury deliberated for only 5 min before finding Lawrence not guilty by reason of insanity. In 1881 Charles Guiteau killed President James Garfield; despite evidence strongly suggesting insanity, Guiteau was found guilty and hanged.

Among the high-profile crimes associated with insanity in the nineteenth century was the killing of Skeffington Lutwidge, a prominent London lawyer, in Salisbury, England, on May 21, 1873.

Section snippets

The crime

Skeffington Lutwidge was a member of the Board of Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy from 1842 to 1845, secretary of the Lunacy Commission from 1845 to 1855, and a full-time member of the Lunacy Commission from 1855 until his death in 1873. In 1859 he testified before the House of Commons Select Committee on Lunatics regarding the total number of such individuals in England and Wales. He was thus regarded as one of England's experts on problems associated with insanity.

The Lunacy Commission

The poem

One year following the death of his uncle, Lewis Carroll began writing The Hunting of the Snark, a poem that has mystified readers since its publication in 1876. The poem describes the hunt for a “Snark” by a ten-member search crew. “Common snarks do no manner of harm,” according to Carroll, but some Snarks are “Boojums,” and these are manifestly dangerous.

But oh, beamish nephew, beware the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with

Role of funding source

The original research was supported by the Stanley Medical Research Institute.

Contributors

The authors contributed equally to the data collection and writing of this paper.

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Ms. Wendy Simmons for administrative support.

References (9)

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    (1973)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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