‘Good in all respects’: appearance and dress at Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, 1818-54

Dress was integral to the ideals and practice of Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, an institution catering for all social classes. Lunatics' appearance was used to gauge the standard of care inside the asylum and beyond. Clothing was essential for moral treatment and physical health. It helped to denote social and institutional class: clothes were integral to paupers' admission; rich patients spent time and money dressing; for disturbed inmates and those who destroyed asylum attire, the consequence could be'secure dress', which was fundamental to therapeutics. Later, when an ethos of non-restraint was introduced, the superintendent used patients' appearance to propagate an image of his enlightened care.