Asylum: Downshire (HOS/14/1)
Registration Number: 6095

Hello. I am Heather Cardwell, from Belfast. 

My case study is about Margaret Withers who, on 23rd May 1916, was admitted to Downshire Lunatic Asylum. 

Margaret was in her 60s, was an embroiderer, had been married for 41 years and lived with her husband Robert in Saintfield.  She had had eight children but they had all died except for one son, George Clarke, who, in 1914, had gone to fight in the War with the Royal Garrison Artillery. 

Margaret worried about him constantly and often thought she heard his voice speaking to her. She lost interest in simple everyday activities. She wandered the streets thinking that something awful was going to happen to her, believing that people wanted her to suffer in some way - possibly by hanging. For these reasons, Margaret was deemed to be a deluded, dangerous lunatic. 

Upon admission to the asylum, she was noted to be a clean woman with a temperate personality who ate well. She had been a patient there twice before where her derangement had been kept under control. This time, however, she wandered about aimlessly showing signs of dementia and was duly diagnosed as suffering from hallucinations and acute sadness. She made little improvement in the months that she was there. 

After a year, Margaret’s husband was granted permission to have her discharged. She returned home on 24th May 1917. 

Margaret died on 10th September 1922. She is buried in the 2nd Saintfield Presbyterian Church graveyard with her husband and her son who returned from the war in 1918.

A melancholy moment

Her anguished face stares into space -  

She hears his voice in the silence. 

I hope Margaret’s mental health issues improved when she was reunited with her son. Sadly, she did not have access to today’s hospital care, medication nor counseling. With proper treatment, I believe she would have coped better with her depression and would never have been labeled a lunatic.

Margaret Withers by Heather Cardwell

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Margaret Withers by Heather Cardwell

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