'Lunatics'
After gaining a degree at Oxford University, Ashley became involved in politics, and was elected as a Tory Member of Parliament in 1826. Early in his political career, he was asked to join a committee that heard evidence about the treatment of lunatics. What he heard was so appalling that he resolved to 'see for himself', a practice that he continued throughout his life. The depths of cruelty, filth and degradation he saw (too horrible to include here) so affected him that he continued to work on behalf of people in mental institutes all his life; he was chairman of the Metropolitan Commissioners on Lunacy for fifty-seven years. He promoted two bills 'for the Better Treatment of Lunatics.' |
