Talk:Bethlem Royal Hospital

An inaccuracy?
I am reading a theatre play from 1622, the Changeling, and there is a place similar to Bedlam, very likely to have been taken up from the real one, and there is a passage mentioning "patients" as well as "daily visitants" who were looking at the madmen for fun. This would render the first dates of mentioning the former (18th century) and latter respectively (19th century) questionable. Malej 19:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a different possible inaccuracy. The first footnote link to a journal discussing the possible madness or insanity of Jesus, rather than the playwright or the quote the footnote is attached to. 92.234.30.143 (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Cite supports the Nathaniel Lee quote. But it's derived from Porter, so probably better to use that if it's to be retained. The paragraph as it is is confused. FiachraByrne (talk) 00:35, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Public visitations certainly had begun by early 17th century and possibly by late 16th century FiachraByrne (talk) 01:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Public visits almost certainly by 1590s. Should have some account of prevalence of Bethlem/Bedlam in Jacobean plays. Also really need to account for term Bedlam. FiachraByrne (talk) 22:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Relevance of The Curtain inclusion
The distance between the original Bishopsgate site and the site of the Curtain is somewhat over a kilometer. You must have a rather strong arm to be able to throw a stone that distance! More to the point, is there any connection between the two, beyond the Shakespearean references above? Is it demonstrable, perhaps, that Robert Armin, whose house was close to Bedlam, had any relationship with the hospital? There was much else in the area too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.142.222 (talk) 21:33, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The point about the distance of Bethlem from those theatres is a fair one and the wording could be changed. Also, the image caption is currently unsourced, although presumably Andrews et al. 1997 and Hattori 1995 could be used. However, the connection between those theatres and Bethlem is sourced insofar as their proximity to the asylum is offered as one of two possible explanations for the staging of Bethlem in theatrical productions from the late 16th century onwards. Following an admittedly cursory search I can't find any reference in the literature linking Armin to Bethlem. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Removed clean-up tag
Removed clean-up tag as I couldn't find any text omitted by the use of internal comments. FiachraByrne (talk) 14:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

1816 - 1930?
The article speaks of the Parlament inquiry of 1815-16, notes that Tomas Monro resigned due to scandal...and then goes on to mention that the hospital moved in 1930. There is no mention of what happened at Bedlam in response to the inquiry, or anything else that might have happened over the span of more than a century. Surely, there must have been a reaction, and other things must have happened. 85.229.60.8 (talk) 10:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, you're right, 1815 inquiry and scandal was pivotal in Bethlem; by about mid-19thC it had essentially become a private and quite up-market asylum. Just never got around to writing the end of the article I'm afraid. FiachraByrne (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Out of date infobox image
The image in the infobox may need to be replaced, as the current (November 2015) image depicts the hospital administration block, which now contains the museum and gallery. Personal knowledge. SENIRAM (talk) 15:20, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 13 November 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved (page mover nac) Flooded  with them hundreds  15:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

– This is its common name, steeped in hundreds of years of history. By the principle of least surprise, it should be Bedlam. Nobody even knows the alleged real name of Bedlam. Somebody, without getting consensus, took over a disambig page and cut-and-pasted the text, and turned the Bedlam page into a disambig. Presumably they thought they were righting a great wrong, that the name Bedlam is negative and its fancied real name is better. Abductive (reasoning) 16:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Bethlem Royal Hospital → Bedlam
 * Bedlam → Bedlam (disambiguation)
 * Comment Would a history merge be beneficial here? Note that Bedlam is currently a DAB page that would need to be at Bedlam (disambiguation) if this move is done (which I have now included in this request).  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Cool. Abductive  (reasoning) 21:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose The hospital describes itself as Bethlem Royal Hospital. Dormskirk (talk) 00:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:COMMMONNAME which is a WP:POLICY says no. Abductive  (reasoning) 02:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose I'm not seeing evidence Bedlam is really the most common name for the institution rather than an archaic name that now is ambiguous due to its multiple meanings. No evidence has been provided.--Yellow Diamond Δ Direct Line to the Diamonds  02:47, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Google returns: bedlam hospital, 2,280,000, bedlam insane asylum, 216,000, Bedlam asylum 1,010,000, Bethlem Royal Hospital, 290,000, Bedlam, 17,800,000. These demonstrate that the name is still clinging to the institution, no matter your desire to whitewash history and reality. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's the common name for the hospital today. It's an archaic nickname. Google isn't necessarily representative of the name sources call it (as opposed to a nickname people use in casual, archaic, or sensationalist contexts).--Yellow Diamond Δ Direct Line to the Diamonds  03:28, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose If it's not the actual name of the hospital, it should not be the name of the article. SleepForever     talk  November 14, 10:02 (UTC)
 * This flies in the face of Wikipedia policy and countless articles that are not title after the actual name of the entity. Abductive  (reasoning) 17:13, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * You're right there. However, I could also bring up User:Crouch, Swale's argument, which I see to be valid. SleepForever      talk  November 14, 5:34 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The hospital still exists and certainly doesn't use its nickname now. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:49, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I see, so the entity using the nickname is the metric? It doesn't matter that for hundreds of years, including the present day, millions of people overwhelmingly use the name Bedlam? Abductive  (reasoning) 17:13, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No, most people (and reliable sources) used the actual title and still do. "Bedlam" is just a nickname. We only use nicknames when they are absolutely established as far and away the most common name. That certainly isn't the case here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose Per the NHS and Telegraph. As noted this article is about the hospital, not the phrase, even if the hospital is often known by that phrase.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose As per Necrothesp. I really don't think any of the people who work there ever call it that. It seems to me to be wholly inappropriate. We're not still living in Victorian Britain, are we? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:43, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose per Necrothesp. As an American, I didn't know the word "bedlam" came from a specific institution; I get more Google results about the American football game than the mental institution on a search for "Bedlam".  Those results I find are almost always of the form "Bethlam Royal Hospital, commonly nicknamed Bedlam".  As they all mention the official name, we should use that.  I see no sign of a cut-and-paste move (or any move) in the past 5 years. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 05:25, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:07, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * King's College London crest.png

Last paragraph of introduction looks as if it may have been added accidentally
The last paragraph of the intro looks to be in the wrong section, as well as having numerous grammatical and word choice errors. It introduces a story that belongs in the institution's history, with no connection to the general overview directly above. It also contains no citations for the incident it describes. The out-of-place paragraph reads as follows:

''On an early September afternoon patients within the ward named “special cases” there began a mental out burst as the news papers explained it. the patients raided cupboards med labs and multiple other vital medicinal necessities were ruined putting the other patients in other wards in danger they later restrained majority of the patients except for 7 people who remain unnamed unfortunately. The city was distraught about this mishap and the condolences go out to the family’s of the lost patients since then the hotel is under new management and nothing bad has happened since September of 1978''

I suggest that this incident, if confirmed, would belong in the "1930 to the present" subsection, where it is not currently mentioned. The final sentence incorrectly identifies Bethlem as a "hotel" (typo for "hospital"?). Its claim that "nothing bad has happened since September of 1978" seems too vague to substantiate, and is directly contradicted by the later "Fatal restraints" incident cited in 2010.

--2601:196:8602:D303:E00E:910:3F71:3830 (talk) 20:33, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Official website should be changed
If you click on the link by "Website" it takes you to a page that notifies you that "the page you are looking for is not available." The linked website should be changed to https://slam.nhs.uk/bethlem-royal-hospital Aosc2 (talk) 16:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Updated. Thanks. Dormskirk (talk) 16:59, 30 July 2023 (UTC)