Broadmoor Revealed_ Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum - Mark Stevens [52]
Another convict made a bid for freedom on 5th August 1871, though it was probably unplanned and certainly poorly executed. Forty year-old robber William Watkinson was a spectator at a match when he tried to run off over the cricket field. He was caught by two attendants before he made it to deep midwicket. A quarrelsome man, Watkinson served out his time at Broadmoor before being moved to Rainhill Asylum in Liverpool.
The two remaining attempts of 1871 also came from convict patients. The first came from a man who had arrived at Broadmoor from Millbank in October 1869. Henry Leest was a thirty year-old shoemaker from Pimlico who had been found guilty of theft in 1867, and was suffering from tertiary syphilis, which had caused him to become insane. In Broadmoor, he had already attempted suicide, endured hours of lonely seclusion due to his destructive nature, and attacked the Principal Attendant of his Block. Most disruptively of all, in April 1871 he had beaten Orange’s new Deputy, Dr William Douglas so badly that the poor man had been forced to resign through ill-health only six months after joining the staff.
Leest had already packed a lot into his time at the Asylum, when on 14th August 1871 he was working with a party in the kitchen garden. Recently better behaved, he had spent the day digging up potatoes as part of a small group of patients helping with the harvest. Elsewhere in the garden, an attendant and another group of patients were shelling peas into baskets, while another attendant sat on a box nearby and kept a close eye on proceedings. Leest asked if he could go to the toilet, and was given permission to do so. Taking an empty basket with him, he made off towards the closets. The attendant watched him till he entered the building, seemingly thinking nothing of the basket’s transport, and then turned his gaze back to the remaining workers. Leest was also keeping a close watch on things. When the attendant turned away, the patient used the opportunity to come back out immediately of the closets and to make his way to the edge of the kitchen garden. Placing his basket lengthways against the wall, Leest, a small man, was light enough for it to take his weight. He stood on the end of it and was high enough to grip the top of the bricks of the external wall. He was quickly over it and then away into the woods, leaving only the basket behind him as evidence. A pursuit followed within minutes, but came to nothing.
The Asylum had the address of Leest’s brother in London, and they wrote to this gentleman to ask him for information. His brother was only too pleased to co-operate. The second Mr Leest told the authorities that he had just received a letter from his escaped brother, and that it came with a Winchester postmark. Orange received this intelligence keenly, and at once supposed that Leest would make from Winchester for one of the southern ports. Attendants were despatched to Southampton and Portsmouth to hunt down the fugitive. Orange was correct, and it was at Southampton docks that Leest was found, six days after his escape, waiting to board a ship to New York. He had managed to find work in the interim and had a week’s wages on him.
It seemed quite clear to Orange that if Leest was employable and could operate a clear strategy for living, then he should be considered sane. Leest was sent back to Millbank as soon as the paperwork could be arranged. Eventually, we know that he was able