20 ‘THOSE THEY CALLED IDIOTS’ How historian Simon Jarrett’s new book warns against complacency, and reminds us to ‘learn from the past’
I
have not always been a historian. For many years I worked with people with learning disabilities, including a spell as a nursing assistant in an old-style ‘mental handicap hospital’ in the 1980s. Later I worked with people who were moving out of these hospitals, to live new lives back in the community. I therefore played a very small part in both the great incarceration and the great return that I write about in my new book, Those they called Idiots. IT WAS THESE EXPERIENCES THAT INSPIRED MY INTEREST IN THIS LARGELY UNTOLD HISTORY.
WHO WERE THESE PEOPLE, AND WHY HAD THEY BEEN SENT TO SPEND THEIR LIVES IN THESE INSTITUTIONS? Was there a time, before the institutions, that they were not ‘these people’ at all? Those they called Idiots explores the history of people with learning disabilities over the last 300 years, beginning in the communities, workplaces, and families of 18thcentury Britain. It then moves into what I call the ‘great incarceration’ in the asylums of the 19th century, and ends with the ‘great return’ from institutions to communities towards the end of the 20th century, which we know today as ‘Care in the Community.’
I argue in the book that there is a historical myth that people with learning disabilities (known as ‘idiots’ at the time) were persecuted, abused, neglected, and ostracised in society before being ‘rescued’ by the asylums. In fact, in the 18th century, so-called idiots lived lives where they were largely included and accepted. IT WASN’T UNTIL THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY, AFTER THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, THAT THERE WAS A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE. People who were different came to be seen as threatening and dangerous. People with learning disabilities were moved into institutions, seen as unfit for mainstream society. I argue that the example of the 18th century can
