Wise Sarah: The Undesirables

by Wise, Sarah

ISBN: 9780861549795

Published: 2025-04

Through the early twentieth century, the British Government locked away over 50,000 innocent people. Their 'crimes'? Being poor and unyielding. This is their story. A HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Staggering... Wise's book bristles with injustices.' Sunday Telegraph, ***** By 1950, an estimated 50,000 people had been deemed 'defective' by the British government and detained indefinitely under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Their 'crimes' were various: women with children born out of wedlock; rebellious teenagers caught shoplifting; those with epilepsy, hearing impairments and chronic illnesses who had struggled in school; and many who were simply 'different'. Forcibly removed from their families and confined to a shadow world of specialist facilities in the countryside, they were hidden away and forgotten - out of sight, out of mind. Through painstaking archival research, award-winning historian Sarah Wise shines a light on this shameful chapter. Piecing together the lives...