Living with Vernon

During the 1800s every county had to have a lunatic asylum, Glamorgan included, but the county was too poor to build one, so they ‘rented’ space from the private asylum in Briton Ferry, Vernon House. The house itself was a converted mansion and was never meant to be an insane asylum. My research is centred around nine private patients and one pauper who were committed by their families between 1845 and 1896. They were ordinary people who suffered different mental illnesses. Some of the families appear reluctant and others keener to have their family members declared insane, yet they all ended up within Vernon House. This thesis is a recreation of the lives of the people who found themselves in Vernon House. It explores whether writing that hangs on the bones of historical documents can be called creative history or historical fiction. It asks how far can fictionalisation be pushed until it becomes too far from the historical evidence that it is no longer accurate? And should this happen at all? 'Living with Vernon' looks at the situation at the time and the ‘cures’ or lack of them in the asylum at a time when asylums were not run as care giving institutions but as businesses, there to make money above all else. The thesis is a recreation of a history using ethnography, archaeology and creative writing to bring to life lost voices of everyday people. People who are not written about but simply forgotten. 'Living with Vernon' melds social element with historical fact, making the knowledge accessible to any reader