The first dedicated book on public mental hospital services in England in the decade following World War I.

Petty Tyranny and Soulless Discipline? examines England’s public mental hospitals for the working class after World War I. Claire Hilton combines narratives of patients’ difficult daily lives with an analysis of competing agendas from campaigners, the government, and new medical knowledge to build a complex picture of mental health provision. Patient experiences, including their admission, care, treatment, discharge, and sometimes death, are illuminated in previously unexplored primary sources and situated within the broader context of reform and change (or lack thereof). While offering a comprehensive history of psychiatric care in early twentieth-century England, the book also draws on historical insights to reflect on contemporary mental health practices, making it relevant to historians, mental health professionals, and patients alike.