Retreat collection

The Retreat Collection is an intact working specialist library particularly relating to psychiatry and mental illness. 

It contains just over 400 titles dating from the 17th- to the early 20th-century.

Highlights include works on:

  • Treatment regimes
  • Controversies at the York Asylum
  • Physiology of the brain

This collection reflects the contemporary ideas and practices of the 18th- and 19th-centuries which formed the treatment of mental illness.

This collection holds historic materials which contain language and attitudes we may find uncomfortable today.

How to access the collection

All of the material in the collection is catalogued and can be accessed via the Library's online catalogue. Items can be consulted in the Borthwick Reading Room and copies can be made subject to copyright. Material cannot be loaned outside the University of York without the permission of the owners.

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About the collection

The collectors

This is the working library of Retreat founders and staff including William and Samuel Tuke, George Jepson and other medical superintendents. The Retreat was founded by and for the Society of Friends and opened in 1796 with 12 patients. It attracted attention for its success in establishing more compassionate methods of treatment for people with mental illness under superintendent George Jepson (1797-1823). In the 20th-century the Retreat was known for its willingness to explore new treatments and in pioneering greater professional training for its nurses.

Acquisition

The Retreat Collection was transferred to the Borthwick Institute for Archives in 2001. The printed books are kept in the Rare Books Collection at the University of York. The whole collection is still owned by The Retreat.

Related collections

Further information

Publications

Anne Digby Madness, morality and medicine; a study of the York Retreat 1796-1914 (1985)