http://boar.org.uk/ariwxo3Marrat’sWillis.htm
Latest edit 30 Sep 2008.
Interactive
version ©2007 R.J.PENHEY
The Bourne Archive
An Extract Concerning Doctor Willis from Marrat’s History of Lincolnshire.
Health
and Social Welfare
On pp.38 – 42 of Vol. III. Marrat
includes the following story in his article on Greatford.
The Magician,
a tale.
The following most extraordinary
event happened, in the autumn of 1807, and may be relied upon as an absolute
fact.
The violence of a fall deprived
Sir Henry F. of his faculties, and he lay entranced several hours; at length
his recollection returned—he faintly exclaimed, “where am I?” and looking up found
himself in the arms of a venerable old man to whose kind offices Sir H. was
probably indebted for his life. “You revive,” said the venerable old man: “Fear
not, yonder house is mine; I will support you to it; there you shall be
comforted.” Sir H. expressed his gratitude: they walked gently to the house.
The friendly assistance of the venerable old man and his servants restored Sir
H. to his reason; his bewildered faculties were re-organized; at length he
suffered no inconvenience, except that occasioned by the bruize he received in the
fall. Dinner was announced, and the good old man entreated Sir H. to join the
party; he accepted the invitation, and was shewn into a large hall, where he
found sixteen covers; the party consisted of as many persons—no ladies were
present. The old man took the head of the table: an excellent dinner was
served, and rational conversation gave zest to the repast.
The gentleman on the left hand of
Sir H. asked him to drink a glass of wine, when the old man in dignified and
authoritative tone, at the same time extending his hand, said, “No!” Sir H. was
astonished at the singularity of the check, yet unwilling to offend, remained
silent. The instant dinner was over, the old man left the room, when one of the
company addressed him in the following words; “By what misfortune, Sir, have
you been unhappily trepanned by that unfeeling man who has quited the room? O
Sir! you will have ample cause to curse the fatal hour that put you in his
power, for you have no prospect in this world but misery and oppression;
perpetually subject to the capricious humor of the old man, you will remain in this
mansion for the rest of your days; your life, as mine is, will become
burdensome; and, driven to despair your days will glide on, with regret and
melancholy, in one cold and miserable meanness. This alas! has been my lot for
fifteen years; and not mine only, but the lot of every one you see here, since
their arrival at this cursed abode!” The pathetic manner that accompanied this
cheerless narrative, and the singular behaviour of the old man at dinner, awoke
in Sir H.s breast sentiments of horror, and he was lost in stupor some minutes;
when recovering, he said, “By what authority can any man detain me against my
will? I will not submit; I will oppose him by force, if necessary.”—“Ah, Sir!”
exclaimed a second gentleman, “your argument is just, but your threats are
vain; the old man, sir is a magician; we know it by fatal experience; do not be
rash, Sir; your attempt would prove futile, and your punishment would be
dreadful.”—“I will endeavour to escape,” said Sir H. “Your hopes are
groundless,” rejoined a third gentleman; “For it was but six months ago, that,
in an attempt to escape I broke my leg.” Another said he had broken his arm,
and that many had been killed by falls in their endeavours to escape; others
had suddenly disappeared and never been heard of. Sir H. was about to reply,
when a servant entered the room and said his master wished to see him: “Do not
go,” said one. “Take my advice,” said another: “for God’s sake do not go.” The
servant told Sir H. he had nothing to fear, and begged he would follow him to
his master: he did, and found the old man seated at a table covered with a dessert
and wine; he arose when Sir H. entered the room, and asked pardon for the
apparent rudeness he was under necessity of committing at dinner; “for,” said
he, “I am Dr. Willis; you must have heard of me; I confine my practice entirely
to cases of insanity; and as I board and lodge insane patients, mine is
vulgarly called a madhouse. The persons you dined with are madmen; I was
unwilling to tell you of this before dinner, fearing it would make you uneasy;
for although I know them to be perfectly harmless, you very naturally might
have had apprehensions.” The surprise of Sir H. on hearing this was great; but
his fears subsiding, the Doctor and he passed the evening rationally and
agreeably together.
Commentary
The event is dated in the autumn
of 1807 and Marrat published the story in 1816 so there is a good chance that
it is not garbled by multiple re-telling, though it could be an invention. It
occurred very shortly before Willis died, in December 1807. He was 89 years old,
so the description as a ‘venerable old man’ is not out of place. Our story
testifies to Willis’ retention of his wits and capacity to manage the hospital,
late in life so perhaps he applied his skill to himself as well as to King George.
However, the story hangs together better if Willis was managing Greatford Hall
as an asylum, wile the king was visiting Shillingthorpe Hall where Sir Henry
had met only the younger Willis generation.
Sir Henry F. may have communicated
the story directly to Marrat. The publisher was primarily a printer. It is
fairly clear from reading the book that he augmented his own research with
material from correspondents. The use of initials was fairly common at that
time, so that people in the know could recognise themselves and their
acquaintances while others, like us, had to guess. People in
Though Sir Henry F. might have
been any baronet or knight of such a name, the most likely candidate was Sir
Henry Fane. He was born in 1778, an eldest son of the well-known
family from Fulbeck. He followed
an army career but seems to have seen little active service until just after
the time of the story. From 1805 he was an aide de camp of the king,
with the rank of colonel so even were the course of the king’s illness less
widely known than it is now, Fane could hardly not have known about Dr Willis.
It looks therefore, as though the story has been adjusted a little in the
telling, to make it a more intriguing anecdote. The fall is likely to have been
from his horse. This would not be surprising, as a 29 year-old cavalry officer
would feel obliged to do on a horse, things which might readily lead to a fall.
From 1808 Fane took part in the Peninsular
War during which his career prospered and it was in 1815, in the
month of Waterloo,
that he was made a knight commander of the Order of the Bath.
Thus, by the time Marrat was preparing his book for publication in 1816, the
Colonel Henry Fane of 1807 had become Sir Henry Fane KCB1.
It remains to be explained what
Henry was doing within sight of Greatford Hall, in the Autumn of 1807. It was
in a quiet corner of south
The Wikipedia article on Willis
asserts without stating its grounds, that after 1801, the king remained a
frequent visitor of Francis Willis at Shillingthorpe Hall, for several years
after his treatment was concluded2. If true, this would fit the
circumstances of the story. Shillingthorpe Hall was a purpose-built asylum some
15,000 metres from Greatford Hall. It was built to meet the additional demand for
Willis’ services following his success with the king in 1789.
It would seem that either king
George found Willis’ company congenial, or he felt a need for treatment to
maintain his sanity. One might have thought that a man of the king’s social
seniority would have been entertained at Greatford, Willis’ own residence,
rather than at the asylum, Shillingthorpe but the story implies that Fane did
not know Greatford Hall. As an aide de camp of the king, Fane will have been
lodged near him. At the time of his fall, he will have been either patrolling
to ensure the king’s security or taking the air, outside the inevitably somewhat
strange atmosphere in the hall.
While it is clear that the story
has been adapted, to describe an innocent discovery of the lunatics at
Greatford and the meeting of the stranger, Dr. Willis, this could be to avoid
mention of the king’s private business more than as a protection for ‘Sir Henry
F.’. In 1816, George III was still the king, though by that time, Prince
George was conducting his official business and every one had pretty well
given up hope of a restoration of the king’s health.
The 1807 events occurred in the
atmosphere of the turbulent politics of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Empire
had begun in 1804 and was making strenuous efforts to expand in the direction
of
1. H. M. Stephens, ‘Fane, Sir
Henry (1778–1840)’, rev.
James Lunt, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9133, accessed 27 Sept 2008]
2. Wikipedia
contributors. Francis Willis. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopaedia. September 26, 2008, 08:58 UTC. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francis_Willis&oldid=241088600, accessed 28 Sep 2008]
Link to
National Portrait Gallery pictures of Dr. Willis.
Link to Dictionary of
National Biography (enter ‘Henry Fane’ in the search box and select ‘Fane,
Sir Henry (1778–1840), army officer’.)