Looking After Miss Alexander : Care, Mental Capacity, and the Court of Protection in Mid-Twentieth-Century England / Janet Weston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weston, Janet, author.

Series:

States, people, and the history of social change.

States, people, and the history of social change

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mental health law.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (193 pages).

Other Title:

Looking After Miss Alexander

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"In July 1939, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, fifty-nine-year-old Beatrice Alexander was found incapable of managing her own property and affairs. Although Alexander and those living with her insisted that she was perfectly well, the official solicitor took control of her home and money, evicted her "friends," and hired a live-in companion to watch over her. Alexander remained legally incapable for the next thirty years. In the mid-twentieth century, Alexander was one of about thirty thousand people in England and Wales who were, at any time, legally "incapable" and under the auspices of what is now the Court of Protection. Focusing on the period between the 1920s and the 1960s, Looking After Miss Alexander explains the workings of the court, using Alexander's unusual case to consider the complexities of this aspect of mental health law. Drawing on Court of Protection archives--some of which were made publicly available for the first time in 2019--and micro-historical methods, Janet Weston also highlights the role of chance, subjectivity, and uncertainty in shaping how events unfolded then, and the stories we tell about those events today. An engaging and accessible history of mental capacity law, Looking After Miss Alexander examines ideas of citizenship and welfare, gender and vulnerability, care and control, and the role of the state. It also offers reflections on historical research and writing itself."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Figures

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

Origins

Turning to the Courts

Found Incapable

Providing Care

Endings

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-2280-1583-9

OCLC:

1336054089