Broadmoor Revealed_ Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum - Mark Stevens [19]
Minor was obviously cared about by his family and friends, and received regular visits as well as money and luxuries. With cash to spend and time to kill, he began to amass books and read voraciously. After Sir James Murray published his ‘appeal to English speakers and the English reading public’ in 1879 for help with what became the Oxford English Dictionary, Minor must have come across it in his newspapers and felt a call. He began immediately to send in to the dictionary staff what became thousands of examples of word use from his book collection to assist them with their Herculean labours.
Books would come to play a part in the refinement of his delusion. In his early years in Broadmoor, he was convinced that poison was administered to him at night. Usually chloroform was used to render him helpless to abuse and humiliation. By 1877, this had changed to his being subject to torture by electricity, and by 1878 he was being secretly removed from the asylum at night and abused. All these actions were evidently attacks upon his free will. Once they had his body, the next sacred thing in line were his books, and the first evidence that the criminal agents had moved on to these dates from 1884, when he wrote to the Superintendent alleging that items in his library were defaced at night.
Minor must have found the approach of night a very frightening thing, as it brought with it the certainty of pain and degradation. Immediately that he arrived in Broadmoor, he would barricade his room every night by placing furniture across the door of it. Only very occasionally would the attendants reported that his nights had not been restless; usually, the morning brought fresh reports of his sordid trials. He expended much effort on trying to remedy the situation through practical means such as the barricade, asking the Superintendent to keep a close watch on the attendants and so on. He was also always open to offering other solutions. The letter below was sent to Orange on 6th October 1884:
Dear Sir
Let me mention one fact that falls in with my hypothesis. So many fires have occurred in the US originating quite inexplicably in the interspace of ceiling and floor; that I learn now Insurance Companies refuse to insure large buildings – mills, factories etc – which have the usual hollow spacing under the floor. They insist upon solid floors. All this has come to notice within ten years; but no one suggests any explanation.
Very sincerely yours
WC Minor
Amongst the more interesting discoveries in Winchester’s book is the suggestion that Minor also met regularly with Eliza Merritt, the widow of the man he shot. Unfortunately nothing has yet surfaced in the Broadmoor archives to verify this. However, we do know that through Minor’s work on the Dictionary, he met with Sir James Murray. Indeed an apocryphal account of the meeting has been around for some time, the story being that Murray was received into Dr Nicolson’s office, then the Medical Superintendent, whereupon Murray thanked Nicolson for his contribution to the dictionary. Nicolson corrected Murray and assured him that it was not he that should be thanked, and then walked him to Block 2, through the corridors of howling lunatics (or at least, painting and reading lunatics) and introduced him to Minor. Murray’s reaction was to gasp through his generous beard in amazement.
In reality, Murray knew who and what he was visiting before he made the journey down from Oxford. Beyond that, the extent of the relationship between the two men is open to conjecture. Evidence from Minor’s file suggests that they met sporadically. The first letter from Murray in Minor’s file is dated 3rd January 1891. It refers to Thomas Brushfield, a former Superintendent of Brookwood Asylum in Woking and probably a contemporary