Pictures at an Institution: Early Photos from Broadmoor, Bedlam Feature Famous Faces

They may look like any other old Victorian photographic portraits — the subjects formal, stiffly posed and somewhat self-conscious.

But, in fact, they are the deranged killers and would-be murderers who were among the first patients at Broadmoor, which opened 150 years ago.

The pictures are the work of Henry Hering, a pioneering photographer, and some were taken at Bethlem (or ‘Bedlam’ as it was known), the lunatic asylum in South London.

Others were shot at Broadmoor after Bethlem patients had been transferred to the newly opened institution in Berkshire.
---

Click to expand...

When patients were committed to the Willard Asylum for the Insane in Upstate New York, they arrived with a suitcase packed with all of the possessions they thought they needed for their time inside.

Most never left. The mental hospital had an average stay of nearly 30 years. When patients died, they were buried in nameless graves across the street of the asylum. Their suitcases, with all their worldly possessions, were locked in an attic and forgotten.

In 1995, an employee of the mental hospital discovered the suitcases, 400 of them. They date from 1910 to 1960.

Now, photographer Jon Crispin is cataloging each suitcase and opening a window into the lives - and the minds - of the people deemed too unwell to be allowed in society.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nts-locked-away-rest-lives.html#ixzz2W6zknXyP
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Click to expand...