The Origins of OT

Dr Sir David Henderson

Occupational therapy in the UK can trace its roots back to the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapists, which would have turned 90 this year.

In the west end of Glasgow lies the old Gartnavel Royal Hospital. Despite its unassuming nature, the old Tudor-style buildings on the hospital’s grounds were once home to the birthplace of occupational therapy in the United Kingdom, and 2022 marked the 90th birthday of the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapists. In 1921, Dr Sir David Henderson became superintendent of what was at the time called the Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital. He had previously spent time in America, working in Baltimore’s John Hopkins Hospital alongside renowned psychiatrist Professor Adolf Meyer and occupational therapy pioneer Eleanor Clarke Sagle. Henderson was influenced by their approach to occupation, and sought to establish something similar in Scotland. To that end, he appointed Dorothea Robertson as a teacher in occupational therapy in December 1922, and oversaw the building of the occupational therapy pavilion, which would be completed in 1924. Robertson, who had previously worked as a welfare supervisor in a munitions factory in Gretna Green, would learn on the job, and utilise her understanding of the arts that she had refined on a handicrafts course at the Glasgow School of Art. Patients at Gartnavel would

be referred to the occupational therapy department, where they could undertake a variety of activities like woodworking, basketry, cane chair making, raffia and needlework, china painting, metal work, and rug making. The expansion of the occupational therapy pavilion provided space for men and women - who were separated in the hospital by both sex and class - safe and supervised work. Patients would also organise their own entertainment using the central hall that joined the pavilion together, which included folk and ballroom dancing classes, and an Occupational Therapy Christmas Party, first held in 1925. It was in this hut on 27 May 1932 that the third professional body for occupational therapists in the world - and the first in the United Kingdom - would be born. Encouraged by Henderson, the around 15 women working within occupational therapy settings across Scotland’s mental hospitals to come together and form a new association of occupational therapists in the vein of the American and Canadian associations, which had been formed in 1918 and 1926, respectively. Henderson chaired the first meeting of the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapy, suggesting the association publish their own journal and develop training. Margaret Menzies, the occupational therapy instructor at Gartnavel, was made the group’s first president, while Margaret Fulton was named secretary-slash-treasurer: some may remember Fulton as the first qualified occupational therapist to work in the UK, having gained her accreditation from the Philadelphia School of Occupational Therapy. Fulton was recommended by Henderson to a friend at the Aberdeen Royal Hospital, which saw her begin working there in 1925. The Scottish Association of Occupational Therapy would meet twice a year until 1939, when meetings would be suspended due to the outbreak of World War Two. The influence of occupational therapy was not confined solely to Gartnavel, however. After visiting the Glaswegian hospital and hearing Henderson speak on the merits of occupational therapy in 1924, Bristolian Dr Elisabeth Casson was captivated, and visited the United States to take a first-hand look at the occupational therapy departments in the country. She would return to the UK and establish Dorset House - the first school of occupational therapy in the UK - in 1930. This would become the founding place of the Association of Occupational Therapists in March 1936, which sought to represent occupational therapists in the rest of the United Kingdom. Both organisations co-existed and expanded until 1951, when the World Federation of Occupational Therapists was founded in Sweden during a rehabilitation conference, and it was agreed within the terms of the constitution - drawn up at the First International Congress in Edinburgh three years later - that the UK would be represented at the WFOT jointly by the AOT and SAOT (who at this point had changed their name to the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapists). With that decided, the Joint Council of the Associations of Occupational Therapy in Great Britain was formed, with equal representation given to both organisations. Margaret Fulton - one of the founders of the SAOT - was elected as the first president of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists in 1952. After a referendum in 1969, the two institutions would finally merge in May 1974, forming the British Association of Occupational Therapists in an effort to combine their resources and ensure unity in action on issues of a national level. In 1978, the BAOT would become registered as a trade union, and set up the College of Occupational Therapists, which would be granted a Royal charter in 2017, becoming the Royal College of Occupational Therapists as we know it today. While the occupational therapy pavilion no longer stands in Gartnavel Royal Hospital, having been demolished some time in the 90s, the effects of Dr Sir David Henderson, Dorothea Robertson, Margaret Menzies, Margaret Fulton, and so many others can still be felt on occupational therapy 90 years later. This article was informed by the works of Catherine F Paterson, Duncan Pentland and Brian Pentland, and Let There Be Light Again by Jonathan Andrews and Iain Smith.