Everything Tuke had fought
for was starting to unravel. The newly founded field
of psychiatry contributed to
this, with medicines becoming championed as the most
effective treatment of the
mentally ill.
William Tuke died in 1822 but he
lived long enough to see the changes that The Retreat had started
to bring about. Not only did Tuke
have a defining role in influencing
the shift to more moral treatment
for the insane, he also inspired his
family to follow in his footsteps.
His son Henry was the co-founder
of The Retreat and Tuke’s grandson
Samuel wrote an account of the
work at The Retreat and its therapeutic practices along with the
need for reform. In turn Samuel’s
son James wrote the important
treatise ‘A Manual of Psychological
Medicine’ in 1858 and was a leading
physician in the study of insanity.
William Tuke’s guiding hand influenced three generations of his fam25
ily, helping countless sufferers of
mental illness along the way. Today
The Retreat is a registered charity
operating as an independent hospital with 100 beds, and has thankfully returned to its core principles.
It is still loyal to its original ethos
and a number of