An Early Photographic Record
The important photographs featured on this page are courtesy of Nigel Lutt of the Bedford Records Office. They were found in 1976 by James Colletio-
They carry his logo and are his official photograph negatives of the asylum between 1870 and 1872. Some areas look unfinished and represent a builders yard. Work was obviously still ongoing in the 1870s. The asylum stands on a barren looking landscape and must have stood out for many to see for miles around. The roads around the asylum look to be no more than mud tracks. Throughout the pictures there seem to be a marked improvement in tree, grass and plant growth.
Note the clock tower. This was taken down after a couple of years as it was thought it spoilt the asylums lines.
Please request permission from the Bedford Records Office if you wish to use any of these pictures.
Three Counties Asylum and the First World War
Little did the thousands of men who marched away to war in 1914, smiling and telling their wives, girlfriends, families and friends that 'it will all be over by Christmas' realise that they to face the worst slaughter of people, from all nations, that the world had ever seen. Almost one million British men never returned to these shores, and millions returned with terrible wounds and disabilities.
Some soldiers returned with a new type of illness, one that showed no physical damage on the outside but one that showed different levels of personality change. This was known as 'war neurosis', or to use its well known and more common name, 'shell-shock'. In the first few months of the war, the war office found this condition a very controversial and contested mental illness, many did not really believe that it even existed. Some believed men were faking this disorder just to get home from the war. Some men suffering from this condition were classed as cowards, there was even a call to court martial these soldiers and in some extreme cases shell-shocked soldiers were shot as deserters!