Origins
Barnwood House opened its doors to patients on 6 January 1860, but its origins go back to the 18th century. In 1794 the governors of Gloucester Infirmary decided to follow the York example and raise a subscription for building an asylum. Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, philanthropist and prison reformer, was asked to draft a scheme for the management of the institution. The plans were put on hold as legislation was pending in Parliament. The County Asylums Act, which enabled counties to set up asylums for pauper lunatics on the rates, was passed in 1808 and the subscribers formed a union with the county and the city to build a joint asylum. Wotton asylum was opened in 1823 and the union lasted until 1856, when the County bought out the subscribers and the asylum became a county asylum for paupers. The subscribers began the search for new accommodation for their wealthy and charity patients. In 1858 they purchased and adapted Barnwood House in the village of Barnwood to the east of Gloucester (subsequent boundary changes brought the village inside the city boundary). Barnwood House Institution was intended for two classes of patients, as explained in 1882 regulations:
"FIRST – Patients in more or less affluent circumstances, who shall contribute, according to the accommodation required, such sums as may be agreed upon. SECOND – Patients in limited circumstances, but in a position in life to render them unsuitable for admission into County Asylums, who shall be received at such reduced rates of payment as the Committee, upon consideration of the circumstances of each case, may determine; and some even gratuitously, - preference being given to recent and curable cases, to which the gratuitous Patients are to be wholly confined."
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