William Charles Ellis

Sir William Charles Ellis (10 March 1780 – 24 October 1839) was an English physician who served as the superintendent of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum and later the Hanwell Asylum. His ideas on the treatment of mental illness became widely influential.

Biography

Ellis was born in Alford, Lincolnshire and a descendant of the Ellis family of Kiddal Hall (an old Yorkshire family from which the Earls of Normanton and Viscounts Clifden, as well as the supposed inventor of Rugby William Webb Ellis and Sir William Ellis Secretary of State in exile to James II of England also descended from). He earned his Doctor of Medicine (M.D) degree and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. His early career was as an apothecary in Hull, but he soon took an interest in the treatment of mental disorders. This he learnt at the Sculcoates Refuge in Hull; which was run on a similar model as the York Retreat. In 1817 a William Ellis was appointed as superintendent to the newly built West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum at Wakefield.

A Methodist, Ellis too had strong religious convictions. With his wife as matron, he employed the same principles of humane treatment and moral therapy as practised at Sculcoates Refuge. After 13 years their reputation had become such that they were invited to run the newly built first pauper asylum in Middlesex called the Hanwell Asylum.

Ellis resigned his post at Hanwell in 1838. This occurred because the visiting justices sought to expand the capacity of the asylum again. Since the institution was wholly funded by a levy on local rates, it was becoming important, in the opinion of the justices, to make best use of the assets and money spent. There were records and statistics to demonstrate that this was indeed being achieved, but it required a detailed change in the way the asylum was organized, managed and run.

William and his wife Mildred enjoyed being involved in all aspects of patient care and staff oversight, to create a "domestic" or homely environment (or as reinvented today, "nidotherapy").

As Ellis stated in that year:

These intended changes precluded the couple from continuing to do what their heartfelt conviction demanded. He and Lady Ellis set up their own private asylum for a few ladies and gentlemen of the upper social classes, quite nearby in the grounds of Southall Park, this being a former residence of Lord Montford.

Ellis was a very large man, plagued throughout his life by ill health. This precipitated an untimely death from dropsy a short while later, on 24 October 1839.