Psychiatric patient restrained in a chair, 1869

 Psychiatric patient restrained in a chair, 1869

The man seen here is a criminal, who was being restrained while having his picture taken. I couldn't find anything about him online, such as his age, name or mental health records, but assuming that he was in an asylum, it can be presumed he had some mental or behavioural issues.

However, I was able to find that this man was in the West Riding Lunatic Asylum. This was a mental health facility in Yorkshire England, which was opened in 1818 and closed in 1995. It has the capacity for 150 patients, but by the 1860s, it had over 1,000.

Why the man is being restrained is unknown. It may be due to not wanting to get his picture taken, or it was therapy at the time. As mental disorders were so poorly understood at the time, doctors would use many different restraining techniques as they believed it would calm the patient or prevent violent episodes.