The Governors of Exeter's, St Thomas's, Lunatic Asylum met on the first day of October 1816 to elect a new Resident Apothecary. Mr. S. F. Milford addressed the meeting and referred to how in the course of the "investigations which had lately been set on foot by Committees of the House of Commons, relative to Institutions of a similar nature to this, many deeds of darkness had been brought to light, and scenes of the grossest abuse and most cruel inhumanity had been publicly revealed."
Mr. Milford, however, went on to say that he was persuaded:
"there did not anywhere exist an Institution in which decorum, humanity and successful skill were more conspicuous than in this Asylum. If anyone doubted the accuracy of this representation, he could only wish him to visit, as he had done this morning, every bed-chamber, every sitting-room, and every patient in the house, and, Mr. Milford said, he was sure that person would return convinced that the statement he had made was founded in sincerity and fact, and that it rather fell short of the truth.
"He did not say this to compliment any man, or set of men, but merely to do justice to ascertained merit; and to advance , as far as any feeble efforts of his could do so, the reputation of an Institution so honourable to this county; and so powerfully calculated to relieve human misery, and promote the public welfare."
"During the comparatively short period that this establishment had existed, he was happy to state, that in considerably more than three hundred instances where the lamp of reason had been extinguished in the human mind, it had been re-kindled within these walls. In addition to this, it was a most gratifying circumstance to reflect on its being by no means an unusual thing for the patients, after they had returned home in the perfect enjoyment of their intellect, to re-visit this house of charity and mercy for the sole purpose of extending their gratitude for the humanity and kindness they had experienced under its roof."
Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 3rd October 1816.
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