2-982-078 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Royal Albert Asylum for Idiots, Lancaster, 1876. Institution for children with learning problems: '...for the reception, care, and instruction of idiots from all the northern counties of England...It was erected at the cost of £77,000, upon an estate of eighty-six acres...The architects were Messrs. Paley and Austin...Above the central block is a handsome tower, the cost of which was provided by Sir Titus Salt's donation of £5000...There is accommodation for six hundred inmates; the boys are in the south wing and the girls in the north wing. The building includes a fine large dining-hall...school-rooms and class-rooms, dormitories, workshops, offices, and apartments for private patients...The general management...is intrusted to a large and influential central committee, consisting of representatives appointed by the local committees and of fifteen of the active friends of the asylum'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.