In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ideas about the treatment of insanity and lunatics was to undergo profound changes. The insane, previously viewed as animals, regained their humanity and became curable. The new moral treatment developed at the turn of the nineteenth century was based on the belief that it was possible to reason with the insane and bring them back to sanity. Part of this new treatment was the removal of the insane to an appropriate environment where the insane person could be exposed to moral therapy. This environment was to be the lunatic asylum. At the same time there was to be an increasing focus on the non-restraint of the insane. In the eighteenth and early to mid nineteenth centuries the insane were often chained to beds or walls for long periods, and kept in appallingly dirty and cramped quarters. If non-restraint was to be practiced it required an environment where the lunatics could be effectively supervised. These two trends saw the development of the lunatic asylum system across the world.

As an archaeologist I am interested in these lunatics asylums and the worlds they contained. My research is focusing on what the writers on lunacy in the nineteenth century believed to be the ideal asylum. In the nineteenth century a number of articles and books appear that described the ideal asylum both in terms of the buildings and the management of the asylum. Part of my work is to survey these works and build a picture of this ideal asylum and to compare it to the lunatic asylums that were actually built. Was the ideal asylum realised or do the built asylums follow a different pattern?

I am interested in whether colonial asylums followed the ideas about the ideal asylum or whether they followed the design of asylums actually built during the same time period in England. I am also interested in comparing lunatic asylums from different colonies of Australia with their free and convict populations.

For my Ph.D thesis, which I submitted in 2003, l looked at Tasmania and South Australia. My thesis has now been published as a book - Susan Piddock (2007) A Space of Their Own. The Archaeology of Nineteenth Century Lunatic Asylums in Britain, South Australia and Tasmania. Springer, New York. In the book l look at colonial asylums in two Australian colonies, South Australia and Tasmania. The appendices of my thesis were not included in the book and they can be found as hyperlinks below. I am currently researching lunatic asylums in Western Australia and New South Wales, and l am always happy to talk about my work so please contact me.