John Eustace : Short Biography

John Eustace (1791-1867) was the son of Cork Quaker, Benjamin Eustace, and his wife Mary Fawcett. The Eustaces of Cork were originally merchants and John was the first doctor in the family, studying first in Edinburgh and later in Trinity. The family’s connections included other influential Quaker families like the Pims and Harveys who were among the moving spirits in the establishment of Bloomfield Private Mental Hospital in 1812. There, John, took up the post of lay superintendent in May 1813. John continued on at Bloomfield as visiting physician after he qualified in 1815. The Bloomfield Committee Papers show that John was arguing in 1816 for the enlargement of the hospital’s grounds so that a more effective employment of ‘moral treatment’ could be practised. From 1822 John also added the position of Temporary Physician to the Cork Fever Hospital to his workload while preparing the way for the establishment of Hampstead Hospital in Dublin. A Deed of Partnership (with Dr. Isaac Ryall and Dr. Richard Grattan) was entered into on November 1st 1825, to form an Establishment at Hampstead, to be named, The Asylum and House of Recovery for Persons affected with ‘Disorders of the Mind’. Dr. Ryall had already bought the land (which included Hampstead House) from Sir Robert Smith Steele, and he co-leased the house and an acre of land to the two other doctors. It was three months before the first patient, the son of a baronet, was admitted on 2nd February 1826. This patient was discharged, much improved three months later. The partnership, however, was to be short lived. Isaac Ryall left in August 1826 and went to live in Devon, while Dr. Grattan left the partnership in December 1830. So, at the age of 29, John Eustace became the sole proprietor of Hampstead Asylum. In the beginning the asylum had found it difficult to attract patients, probably because the fees were five guineas a week. John now took advantage of his Quaker connections and wrote to London Quaker, Thomas Johnson, asking him to distribute advertising brochures to “thy medical acquaintances”. By the time John had been asked to leave Bloomfield in 1831, Hampstead seems to have provided him with a quite comfortable income. He quickly added more land to the estate, taking over, in 1836, the lease on an adjoining 23 acres, including Hampstead Lodge, (now called Hillside). John could now boast in his advertising literature that his establishment was in “an elevated and very salubrious situation with the purest air, particularly suitable to nervous constitutions”. In 1844 he built The New House, Hampstead Cottage and Hopetoun Cottage. At the beginning, Dr. Eustace did not live on the premises but his two sisters, Jane and Mary did. By 1852 when he was joined by his son, John II, John Eustace was a firm exponent of the moral treatment where every comfort was offered to patients in a family setting. There was no restraint on patients, no locking up. From the mid 1850’s when Marcus joined his father and brother, the two second g e n e r a t i o n doctors were living on the premises with the patients. This was deemed necessary to secure the ‘oversight and personal superintendence upon which so much depends; also promoting social intercourse between the patients and the family’. The Moral Treatment, did not, of course, mean that no medicine was used. The Eustaces were, first and foremost, doctors, and took advantage of the medical advances of the day. Patients were also encouraged to seek outside medical advice if they so wished: Dr. Eustace had tried other methods earlier on in his career which were not completely orthodox. One of these unorthodox methods, commonly used in mental institutions at the time, and believed to work, involved the use of a circulating chair. The chair resembled a metal cage in which the patient was suspended and rotated rapidly. It was thought that the shock would result in a cure. Dr Eustace was advised by the inspector to the hospital that the practice was unacceptable, and he immediately ceased using it. Shortly after this, John gave up any belief that a medical cure for insanity would be found. However, he did write many articles, based on his observations of the mentally ill, which were published in various journals of the day including The Lancet. During this period the villa system of treatment (which allowed patients to live in separate supervised accommodation) was becoming quite popular, and several cottages were available on the Eustace estate for this purpose. Having the patients living with the family could, of course, lead to problems. There is a endearing little ‘Suffering’ which John put down on paper, and which can be seen in the Quaker’ Library in Bloomfield, in which he laments the stealing of some of his silver spoons. He neither condemns nor accuses in the note, but is clearly upset about their disappearance, almost as if he has been betrayed - reflecting perhaps a certain naiveté in expecting patients with mental problems to have the same respect for other’s property as would the sane person. On the other hand, of course, it indicates a very astute business man who knew exactly what he owned, (even down to the cutlery) and who ran a very tight ship. By the time of John I’s death in 1867, the Eustace ethos of holistic care was firmly established, the farm giving work and therapy to the patients, (as well as providing food for the hospital), while the well set out grounds were the perfect setting for exercise and relaxation. From a very early stage, male and female patients were catered for in separate buildings, and the pleasure grounds were strictly segregated also. It would appear that the farm was always a very successful operation. During the famine years, the Eustace Family offered the government several tons of home grown potatoes to relieve the crisis. Unfortunately, the offer was turned down. This is a telling episode, which shows more clearly than any words could express, just how real was the stigma attached to mental asylums and anything associated with them.