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This article examines the experiences of care and relief for paupers deemed lunatics, idiots and imbeciles during the initial decades of the New Poor Law. Analysis focusses on two Lincolnshire Poor Law Unions (the Sleaford and Lincoln) and is structured around three loci of care: the parish, the asylum and the workhouse. Although the parish continued to be the primary locus of care throughout the early New Poor Law period, this article notes a growing willingness to admit paupers into asylums as the 1830 s and 1840 s progressed. Indeed, the geography of asylum provision within the unions of study became increasingly non-local through the use of institutions outside of Lincolnshire during the 1840 s. Similarly, the institutional experience of the union workhouse is stressed, particularly for paupers deemed idiots and imbeciles who were often inmates for decades. Such mirrored local practice pre-1834, with the unions of study continuing to utilise a developed Old Poor Law workhouse infrastructure to provide in-door relief in the transitional period between unionisation in 1836 and the opening of union workhouses in 1838. However, institutional care generally sat against previous experiences of support within the parish and was often only sought due to the ability or inclination of families to provide for mentally ill and cognitively disabled relatives. Here, individual life cycles of support could permeate differing loci of care, showing that binary designations of institutional versus non-institutional relief often simplify the complexity of holistic lived experience. An emphasis on life cycles of support has also highlighted a demographic continuity in receipt between the Old and New Poor Laws, with many paupers deemed lunatics, idiots and imbeciles receiving relief before and after 1834. Moreover, evidence suggests that those labelled as pauper lunatics, idiots and imbeciles were far from passive, demonstrating opinions on relief offered and received albeit with the potential for agency often constrained due to their categorisation. As such, this article has tried to place pauper voice at its centre, examining how poor law relief recipients categorised as lunatics, idiots and imbeciles traversed support options during the early New Poor Law period.

‘Biteing Another Pauper with WHOM She Slept’: Lunatics, Idiots and Imbeciles Under the New Poor Law, C.1836–1852