Louisa Nottidge

Louisa Nottidge was a woman whose unjust detention in a lunatic asylum attracted widespread public attention in mid-19th century England. In that period several similar cases emerged in the newspapers of sane persons being incarcerated in lunatic asylums for the convenience or financial gain of their immediate families. The most prominent, other than Louisa Nottidge, was the case of Rosina Bulwer Lytton. This public hysteria was exploited by the writer Wilkie Collins, who published the best-selling novel The Woman In White in 1860. The case of Louisa Nottidge has remained of interest with respect to the rights of psychiatric patients, women's rights, and the conflict between freedom of religion and the legal process. and abuse of the legal process.

Louisa Jane Nottidge was born at her grandmother's house, Fulling Mill House, Bocking, Essex, in 1802. Her parents, Josias Nottidge (1762–1844) and Emily Pepys (1775–1863) were wealthy wool clothiers who worked fulling mills in Bradford Street, Bocking and in Wixoe, Suffolk. From 1794 her parents lived at a large house, with an eight-acre estate, called Rose Hill (Floriston Hall) in Wixoe, Suffolk. Louisa reported that from her early youth her reading had been directed mainly towards religious texts. She attended church regularly, with her six sisters and four brothers.

In 1843 a revivalist clergyman, Rev. Henry James Prince, preached at the church of Stoke, near Wixoe. On the death of Josias Nottidge in 1844, the five unmarried sisters each inherited the sum of £6,000. Mr Prince persuaded them to contribute to the founding of a religious community in Somerset, to be called The Agapemone, or Abode of Love. In 1845 the sisters travelled to Somerset with a view to residing at the new community; en route Mr Prince persuaded three of the sisters - Harriet, Agnes and Clara - to marry three clergymen from the Agapemone. They were married in Swansea, on the same day, in 1845.

Mr Prince then encouraged Louisa to join her sisters at The Agapemone. After Louisa had travelled to Somerset, her mother Emily feared the spiritual and financial influence that Prince had established over her daughters. Emily instructed her son Edmund, her nephew Edward Nottidge, and her son-in-law, Frederick Ripley, to travel down to Somerset and to rescue her unmarried daughter, Louisa. The three men succeeded in removing Louisa against her will in November 1846, and imprisoned her in Ripley's villa by Regents Park (12 Woburn Place). Following Louisa's persistent claims regarding the divinity of Mr Prince, her mother enlisted medical aid and had Louisa certified insane, and then placed her in Moorcroft House Asylum, Hillingdon. Dr. Stilwell, the presiding physician, made notes on Louisa's condition and treatment, recorded in The Lancet.

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