Restraint Straps

The use of restraints and padded cells, things that might come to mind when you think of a Victorian lunatic asylum, were generally avoided at Powick. It was believed that kindness, occupation, and entertainment were the best ways to treat patients. These restraint straps were used in securing the clothes and shoes of patients who compulsively took them off.

Powick’s first annual report described its methods of treatment:

‘The general plan of treatment pursued in the Asylum is that of the industrial and non-restraint. The arrangements adopted are those which experience has shown to be most conducive to the care and cure of the insane. They combine every practicable feature calculated to make the Institution resemble, as near as possible, that of a cheerful, industrious, and well-regulated home. Mechanical restraint has never been resorted to in a single instance’.

First annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 1854
Source: Wellcome Collection