YEAR BOOK 93

INSTITUTIONS AT FALCONWOOD

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Hon. J. A. Mathieson, President Hon. James A. McNeill, Commissioner of Public Works Hon. Murdoch McKinnon, Commissioner of Agriculture F. J. Conroy. M. D. S. E. Blanchard L. B. McMillan, Secretary

RESIDENT MEDICAL OFFICER

V. L. Goodwill, M.D., C.M., Medical Superintendent, absent on military service ; Acting Medical Superintendent, G. F. Dewar,

M. D. RESIDENT OFFICERS

Abram Bonnell ................................ Supervisor William T. Payne ........................ . . . ..... Clerk Emmeline Stuart .................... Superintendent of Nurses M. E. Carr .................................... Housekeeper John McPherson ................................ Engineer Mrs. A. Bonnell ......................... Matron of Infirmary Miss M. J. Huntley ............ Matron of Tuberculosis Hospital Louis L. Jenkins ................. Superintendent of the Farm

The need of a hospital for insane persons was voiced in the Legislature as early as 1831. But it was not until 1846, fifteen years later, that an asylum building was erected in a field near the North River. The first order for the admission of patients was made by the Board of Trustees on the first of May, 1847. At that time the Board was made up of the Chief Justice, the Presi- dent of the Legislative Council, the Hons. Edward Palmer, Charles Hensley, William Swabey, Thomas Pethick, Joseph Wightman and John Longworth. Dr. Mackieson was first Medical Superin- tendent. The number of patients then admitted was eighteen, or within two of the whole number the building would accommodate— without resort to the cells in the basement. Subsequently the building was enlarged to accommodate fifty-two patients. Into it eighty patients were sometimes crowded, while a Master and Mat- ron did all the household work. The horrors of the place, with women patients confined, naked, in the cells below, in indescribable filth, and with no provision for ventilation or light, were set forth