abandoned-angel
Member
- Joined
- May 14, 2011
- Messages
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- 32
Great place. I've never before come across the expression idiot colony before - was that its official name?
‘Idiot’ and ‘imbecile’ were legal designations of patients under the 1886 Idiots Act and the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. Medical use of terms such as ‘idiot’, ‘imbecile’, ‘feeble minded’ and ‘cretin’ continued until at least the 1920s.
Great Barr Colony (later St Margaret's Hospital) opened in 1918-21 as a colony for 'mental defectives, imbeciles and epileptics.' I can't find any evidence that it was ever officially called an 'Idiot Colony' although this name seems to have been used informally by locals so the title of this thread isn't a complete misnomer.
Good find by the way Abandoned Angel, I was told it had all been flattened.
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