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- 31 Oct. 1872 (Creation)
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2 ff., with two enclosures, 4 ff. and 2 ff.
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On embossed notepaper, West Riding Asylum, Wakefield. - Encloses the sketch by [Richard] Dadd, also encloses a letter from Dr [William] Orange, a letter from Carr who murdered a girl near Gateshead in 1865 [the preceding enclosures are all now missing] and a letter from Hughes who killed Dr Meyer in the Asylum Chapel. End of letter missing.
Enclosed, John Hughes 'To the Council of Supervision': 'New Moon' [Broadmoor?]. - doctors, judges and the Royal Family are madder than himself; describes murder of Dr Meyer; 'he was Insane, like the spooney Mad Parson also, and not fit to Judge my stout heart & sound mind'; incarceration here; fellow inmates include a mad American doctor and 'Dalmas, the Frenchman... whose life the Government spared, on condition, that, he revealed a Scientific secret, which he kept possession of'; Hughes has own secret method of ensuring safety in coalmines but those in power are too busy pursuing their own interests to care; personal campaign against insane establisment; religious justification; will sell secret; concludes 'I remain a Prisoner still at a German bred Lunatic's pleasure'.
Enclosed, 'John Petrie alias Hughes... To the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Read & Understand'. Describes detention in 1859 'for destroying a Lunatic King's Picture in a Place of Worship'; rails against the establishment and the monarchy.
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- Browne, Sir James Crichton- (1840-1938), Knight, physician and psychiatrist (Subject)
- Dadd, Richard (1817-1886), painter (Subject)
- Orange, William (1833-1916), physician and criminal psychologist (Subject)
- Carr, Cuthbert Rodham (1848-1888), murderer (Subject)
- Meyer, John (1814-1870), physician and superintendent of Broadmoor (Subject)
- Hughes, John (c 1822-1893), patient in Broadmoor (Subject)