Louisa Nottidge

Louisa Nottidge (1802–1858) was a British woman whose unjust detention in a lunatic asylum attracted widespread public attention in mid-19th century England. In that period, several similar cases emerged in the newspapers of sane persons being incarcerated in lunatic asylums for the convenience or financial gain of their immediate families. The most prominent, other than Louisa Nottidge, was the case of Rosina Bulwer Lytton. This public fascination and anger was exploited by the writer Wilkie Collins, who published the best-selling novel The Woman in White in 1860. The case of Louisa Nottidge has remained of interest with respect to the rights of psychiatric patients, women's rights, and the conflict between freedom of religion and the legal process.

Childhood

Louisa Jane Nottidge was born at her grandmother's house, Fulling Mill House, Bocking, Essex in 1802. Her parents, Josias Nottidge (1762–1844) and Emily Pepys (1775–1863), were wealthy wool clothiers who worked fulling mills in Bradford Street, Bocking and in Wixoe, Suffolk. From 1794, her parents lived at a large house with an eight-acre estate called Rose Hill (Floriston Hall) in Wixoe. Louisa reported that from her early youth her reading had been directed mainly towards religious texts. She attended church regularly with her six sisters and four brothers.

The Agapemone

In 1843, a revivalist clergyman, Rev. Henry James Prince, preached at the church of Stoke near Wixoe. On the death of Josias Nottidge in 1844, the five unmarried sisters each inherited the sum of £6,000. Prince persuaded them to contribute to the founding of a religious community in Somerset, to be called the Agapemone, or Abode of Love. Following her persistent claims regarding the divinity of Prince, her mother enlisted medical aid and had her certified insane, and then placed her in Moorcroft House Asylum, Hillingdon. Dr. Stilwell, the presiding physician, made notes on her condition and treatment, recorded in The Lancet.

Escape

Louisa escaped from the asylum in January 1848, travelling across London to meet Reverend William Cobbe from the Agapemone at a hotel in Cavendish Square. Cobbe was the brother of the campaigner Frances Power Cobbe. However, Louisa was recaptured two days later at Paddington Station. Cobbe alerted the Commissioners in Lunacy, whose report by Bryan Procter led to her release in May 1848.

Nottidge v Prince (1860)

In 1860, Louisa's brother and executor, Ralph Nottidge, sued Prince to recoup the money that she had given him as a result of his undue influence over her in the case of Nottidge v. Prince (1860), reported daily in The Times newspaper. The Nottidges won the case with costs. Punch magazine then launched a campaign to encourage Prince to emigrate to America to join Brigham Young and his Mormons in the Utah desert.

Legacy Harriet Martineau wrote, in her biography of Bryan Procter, the following:

"For many years Mr Procter held the lucrative but not very congenial appointment of Commissioner of Lunacy; the responsibility of which was irksome, and occasionally (as in the case of Miss Nottidge, who was carried off from The Agapemone) alarming to a man of sensitive nature, and a hater of conflict."

Wilkie Collins dedicated his novel The Woman in White to Bryan Procter, poet and Commissioner for Lunacy.

Nottidge's case meant that the situation of women imprisoned in "lunatic asylums" was now squarely in the public eye.