Eliza Bowes – an 18 year old girl from Houghton-le-Spring – was committed to the Winterton Hospital, Durham’s county asylum on 18 August 1914. On her admission, she was described as a ‘moderate grade imbecile’ and noted to be noisy, restless, and continually crying. Eliza was hearing voices, which were calling her names. She also had epileptic fits, which became more frequent over time. Eliza died at Winterton on 2 October 1915, from pneumonia.

In a reaction against increasingly harsh and restraint-led methods of managing patients in asylums, there was a move towards moral treatment during the nineteenth century. Strait jackets were often replaced with ‘strong clothing’, like this shirt. Such garments allowed movement but were thick, padded, and heavy whilst also enclosing the hands within the sleeves. In 1888, George Savage said of the use of strong clothing in Bethlem Asylum, of which he was superintendent: ‘The limbs are all free to move, but the hands are enclosed in the extremities of the dress, which are padded … There are no strait-waistcoats, handcuffs, or what may be called true instruments of restraint in Bethlem.’