Dr.
Randolph Davis and Ivor Gurney
One
Last Chance
by
Pamela Blevins © 2004
For
two brief months in 1925, Ivor Gurney
came into the care of a doctor at Stone
House, City of London Mental Hospital
who offered a flicker of hope that Gurney’s
seemingly hopeless condition might improve
or even be cured.
Dr.
Randolph Davis was an ambitious young
Canadian psychologist who set the hierarchy
at Stone House on edge with his new
ideas and methods, his insubordination
and self-confidence. He was, however,
the one enlightened individual at the
institution who actually made progress
with Ivor.
As
a Canadian, Davis undoubtedly would
have been aware of the revolutionary
techniques and practices of Dr. Richard
M. Bucke (1837-1902), a pioneer in the
study and understanding of mental illness.
Bucke’s major reforms humanized the
treatment of the mentally ill and set
new standards for their care in Canada
in the late nineteenth century. He believed
that patients regained their health
better if they exercised regularly and
were exposed to music and conversation.
He encouraged doctors to interact with
patients, forbade the use of the coercive
and cruel techniques so common then
and insisted that patients be treated
with respect and dignity. Bucke was
also convinced that victims of mental
illness could be cared for more humanely
in the home or in a home-like environment.(1)
Dr.
Davis’s methods and philosophy bore
a striking resemblance to Dr. Bucke’s.
He believed that by establishing a relationship
with Ivor, he could help him, perhaps
even cure him. He understood Ivor’s
needs for exercise, intellectual stimulation
and conversation and made certain those
needs were met. He knew how important
it was for the patient to ‘like the
psychologist in order that [he] be cured’.
He believed that ‘Gurney might meet
the finest psychologist in the world
and if he did not like him no results
would follow.(2) Davis and Gurney quickly
formed an easy rapport.
‘I
remember so well the afternoon Gurney
and I spent along the river and sitting
on the grass in the roadside,’ he recalled.
‘It was the sympathy which he showed
for things which I told him concerning
my own experiences in different parts
of the world which impressed me so profoundly
with the fact that he was sane. Insane
people invariably never show sympathetic
interest in the experiences of others,’
he explained.
‘His
sympathy and interest in experiences
of which I told in my own life were
so real, so thoroughly understanding.
It showed his belief in himself as one
who understood and that he was conscious
of that understanding. Also it showed
that his many months spent in the hospital
had not dampened his spirits nor caused
a permanent state of depression and
lack of appreciation of his own worth.
It is what a man thinks of himself that
counts not so much what others think
of him. Once a man loses faith in himself
all is lost until he recovers that faith
no matter what others may try to do
for him,’ Dr. Davis observed. He intended
to make sure that Ivor’s faith in himself
would not be sucked out of him at Stone
House.
Marion
Scott, Ivor’s close friend and self-appointed
protector, liked Davis’s attitude and
his sensible, compassionate approach.
She was encouraged by his ability to
engage Ivor and had begun to see that
his methods were having a positive effect.
‘The reason why I can do for Gurney
what others cannot is because Gurney
likes me, not because I particularly
like him,’ Davis frankly explained to
Scott.
For
the first time since Gurney was institutionalized
in 1922, Marion felt a sense of relief
and a lifting of her burden. She had
carried the responsibility for overseeing
Ivor’s care almost entirely on her own
with little help from anyone but her
father, Sydney Scott, and Ralph and
Adeline Vaughan Williams. Gurney’s family
and friends had distanced themselves
from any meaningful involvement with
him, his brother Ronald by choice and
his mother Florence by circumstance.
Others, including Gurney’s friends Herbert
Howells, Arthur Benjamin and F. W. Harvey
and the poet Walter de la Mare, tried
to help in some ways but they always
remained distant, safely sheltered in
the background.(3) Marion welcomed Davis’s
interest in Gurney, believed he became
‘a friend who really understood him’
and came to regard him as Ivor’s saviour.
Although
Davis was making progress with Ivor,
he was growing increasingly frustrated
in his efforts. He was not happy at
Stone House, where his methods met with
the disapproval and dismissal of inflexible
traditionalists. He was outspoken and
considered himself ahead of his time
in the treatment, understanding and
care of the mentally ill. Eager to rise
to the top of his profession, he felt
he had little future at Stone House
but he recognized that Ivor was a potentially
valuable asset in advancing his career.
He knew that if he proved successful
in ‘curing’ Gurney, he could publish
his results and make a name for himself.
However, he felt that the constraints
imposed on him by his superiors stood
in his way.(4) Not only were these restrictions
wrong in his eyes, he thought they were
harmful to his patients. When his superior,
Dr. Navarra, put an end to his walks
with Ivor, citing concerns about suicide
and fears that the unhappy Gurney might
escape, Dr. Davis reached his limit.
He disagreed entirely with the order
but reasoning with the staid hierarchy
was an exercise in futility. By May
1925, he and his superiors were increasingly
at odds. He left Stone House, creating
a void in Gurney’s life.
Marion
despaired. Ivor had come to life under
Davis’s care. He seemed different, happier,
and more alert, and he was writing poetry
and music with fervour and commitment.(5)
Now he had lost the one person he saw
almost daily, who understood his needs
and tried to ensure that they were met.
Marion was struggling with this overwhelming
turn of events during the summer of
1925 when, in August, she received a
letter from Davis who had contacted
Gurney’s publisher for her address.
‘I
have often wondered how he was progressing,’
Dr. Davis wrote. With Gurney’s future
at stake, Scott regarded Davis’s reappearance
as a sign of hope. She socialized with
him and they exchanged letters. A plan
to remove Gurney from Stone House and
treat him privately began to take shape.
‘Supposing
I should offer to take charge of Mr.
Gurney entirely for 3 months,’ Davis
suggested. He was willing to give up
any idea of practising his profession
during that period and asked Scott how
much she might pay him. Davis claimed
that for his treatment to work successfully
he must devote all of his time entirely
to Gurney. That meant sharing quarters
with him as Dr. Bucke advocated.
‘It
would certainly be the best way by far.
And I feel quite sure that if I succeed
in curing Mr. Gurney I will have spent
3 mos. to great advantage,’ he declared.
‘And besides my being constantly with
him will ensure every possible protection
and every body’s [sic] mind will be
at rest.’ To that end he proposed taking
rooms at 103 Camberwell Grove in a house
owned by a Mrs. Hay. She had a front
drawing room with a piano which would
be ideal for Ivor. Davis dismissed his
own lodgings as unsuitable, describing
his landlord as ‘rather a queer chap’
and a ‘high strung erratic individual’
with whom Gurney ‘might not get on’.
He
encouraged Scott and Vaughan Williams
to inspect the rooms but cautioned them
to say nothing to her about Ivor being
in a mental hospital. He had bent the
truth, telling the landlady that Ivor
had been hospitalized with stomach trouble
but he did so, he said, to protect Gurney.
Mrs. Hay was not averse to taking individuals
with a history like Ivor’s. She had
done so in the past, but Davis, aware
of Gurney’s intelligence and sensitivity,
claimed he did not want any slips that
might upset Ivor and abort the plan.
‘If she knows she is sure to show by
some act or other that she knows, no
matter how careful she may be and you
may be sure Mr. Gurney will notice immediately
that she knows and it will interfere
with Mr. Gurney’s recovery and happiness.’
On
the surface, this manipulation of the
truth might have seemed trivial and
understandable given the circumstances,
but it indicated that Davis was willing
to lie to achieve the higher aim or
goal he had in mind. His motives were
not as pure as his correspondence suggests.
He was in debt and needed to repay an
outstanding loan, a fact he failed to
tell Scott.
However,
his motives were not entirely selfish.
He was critical of conditions at Stone
House and concerned about their negative
effect on Gurney. From his own experience
there, he knew ‘perfectly well that
Mr. Gurney is not understood and that
it is not right to keep him in a place
which is only persecution to him. Should
I have the least doubt as to whether
I could put him squarely on his feet
I should never attempt to try to help
him for to fail in this would only do
me harm. Understanding him, I know I
can cure him,’ he asserted in a letter
to Scott.
He
emphasized repeatedly to Marion that
he was fully prepared to take the entire
responsibility for Gurney, ‘legally
and otherwise...at all times and in
all ways’. ‘...should any little complications
arise, which I do not think will, as
for example Mr. Gurney trying to run
away and getting into the hands of the
police, I would immediately be responsible.’
Tough,
demanding, shrewd and cautious, Marion
wisely involved her solicitor father
in the plan in addition to Vaughan Williams.
She and Vaughan Williams inspected the
rooms. Although the house was pleasant,
the front room cheerful and airy, there
were problems. Marion was not keen on
the idea of Ivor taking his meals with
other lodgers, which was the routine.
She was worried about Ivor relating
to other members of the household and
how they might relate to him. She found
it unacceptable that Mrs. Hay planned
to use the drawing room at Christmas
for a large family party. To do so would
displace Gurney.
‘...it
seems altogether as if there would be
very little quiet or dependable comfort
for you and Mr. Gurney and that while
you would be thrown a great deal with
the Hays and their P.G.’s [paying guests]
-- who are of a different stamp from
you and Ivor Gurney -- there would be
few facilities for him to see his own
friends,’ she informed Davis.(6) He
was not as concerned about the other
lodgers as Marion was and told her so.
He thought that Mrs. Hay was a ‘critical’
woman who would not rent to unsuitable
individuals. The over-anxious Scott
had failed to consider an important
fact she knew about Ivor: that he related
well to all people, not just to artists
and intellectuals.
Scott
and Vaughan Williams agreed to pay Dr.
Davis a £75 fee for three months’ treatment
but they were not prepared to give him
the entire sum in advance as he insisted.
They were willing to pay him £25 a month
in advance, no more. Further, Marion
was concerned about ‘the exact letter
of the English law relating to certified
patients’ being removed from a mental
hospital and placed with a person who
is responsible for him as Davis would
be.(7) She wanted to be absolutely certain
that Davis could get the consent of
the authorities to take charge of Gurney.
From
the beginning, Davis knew that Dr. Navarra
would object to allowing him to treat
Ivor privately but he felt there were
ways to overcome this obstacle, even
though they were illegal. In his desperation
to make the plan work and get paid,
he tried to convince Scott and Vaughan
Williams that their only option was
to remove Ivor secretly from the asylum.
They refused to participate in what
amounted to a plot to kidnap Gurney
from Stone House. Everything must be
done legally for the protection of all
concerned.
‘The
matter is more complicated than it appeared,’
Scott warned Davis.(8) "It is illegal
for the person who takes him to do so
for gain. This would have the effect
that while morally you were not taking
Mr. Gurney for gain, technically it
would place you in that position in
the eye of the law, and would render
any contract void because it would not
be legal,’ she argued. ‘This difficulty
can be avoided if Mr. Gurney were transferred
from the Hospital to your single care
at the request of the petitioner and
under and with the consent of the Board
of Control.’(9)
The
plan was growing more complex but Davis
was determined to make it work his way.
On the issue of personal financial gain,
Davis told Scott that the £75 ‘will
not any more than pay expenses...if
there is anything left after 3 mos.
of the £75 I will return it to those
who give it. You may be sure if I wished
to take him for gain I should never
think of 75 pounds for 3 months [worth]
all my time. It would be nearer 750
pounds.’ He was adamant that he be paid
the full amount in advance and gave
her until Friday morning, 4 December
to decide.
Davis
felt offended and was becoming annoyed.
‘Personally I think I have done a great
deal in offering to help Mr. Gurney
and have done so only because I understand
him and feel that he can be helped.
Otherwise I should never have considered
the matter,’ he told Scott.
Marion
believed Davis was capable of helping
Ivor and did not want to alienate him.
She attempted to calm him, explaining
that she could not meet his deadline
because ‘the decision does not rest
with us but with Mr. Gurney’s brother,
and we should have to wait for his consent.’(10)
She apologized for her comments about
‘gain’ and assured Davis that she realized
£75 would do little more than cover
his expenses. ‘Please believe that we
are genuinely concerned for your interests
as well as those of Mr. Gurney,’ she
assured him.(11)
But
it was too late. Davis dropped a ‘bomb
shell’ on Marion in early December when
he abruptly called an end to the plan.
On the surface it might seem that he
was annoyed with Scott and fed up with
her caution and delays, but the truth
is, Davis knew he could not make good
on his promises. He had made grand plans
that he knew he could not implement.
He had used the situation with Gurney
to get his hands on money he needed
to pay a debt. His deceit weighed on
his conscience and he finally confessed
to Marion.
‘I
have always felt that there is room
at the top and my ambition will not
let me rest until I get there. One cannot
hold his mouth open and expect munna
to drop into it,’ he wrote. He knew
he had to make his own success by any
route open to him but on this occasion
he went off the track. He admitted to
being ‘humiliated’ at having to explain
his financial situation but he liked
Scott and felt she deserved the truth.
He told her he had borrowed £75 from
an acquaintance, even giving her his
name and address, and that he needed
to repay the money by January in order
to maintain his credit and obtain further
loans. He was also waiting for money
to come to him from the sale of property
in Canada. If he got the £75 in advance,
he claimed, he would have paid his debt
and then borrowed £200 to see him through
his commitment with Gurney by which
time the money from Canada was expected
to arrive.
‘I
did not want to state my financial position
-- none of us ever do,’ he admitted.
‘I felt that your proposition was reasonable
but dare not say so owing to the financial
position in which I was placed, knowing
that I could not very well go through
with it had I agreed so to do. But I
had to explain eventually and it is
best because since your plans were reasonable
and you were justified in getting a
reasonable explanation as to why I could
not accept them.’
After
he secured a position at the Bethlem
Royal Hospital in London as a non-resident
honorary clinical assistant, he wrote
again to Marion still expressing his
concerns for Ivor and reaffirming his
willingness to find a way to help him.(12)
When
Marion told Davis that she planned to
have a Harley Street psychiatrist see
Ivor, he responded frankly. ‘Seeing
a patient but once is never sufficient
for a doctor to understand a [psychological]
case no matter who the specialist is
and the specialist in this case will
be of necessity influenced entirely
by what the superintendent at Dartford
says,’ he cautioned. He told her simply
to ‘satisfy your own minds by all means’.
He offered a new option: transfer Gurney
to Bethlem.
‘I
am just as interested in Gurney’s ultimate
return to a solid foundation as anyone
can be. If I had my own home I should
have opened it long ago,’ he wrote.
‘So I’ll tell you what I will do and
you can suit yourself. I am at the above
hospital and will be for some time...I
might as well look after Gurney as anyone
else. Fees at this hospital [are] 3-3-0
per wk. You might get it for less. Now,
see the physician supt., tell him you
heard I was at the hospital and of my
influence on Gurney,’ he advised. ‘Ask
him if you send Gurney, will he permit
Dr. Davis to attend him and especially
for me to take Gurney out for one or
two hrs. each day for a stroll. This
last is very necessary. They do let
patients out on parole.’
Davis’s
inclination to alter the truth emerged
again. ‘But you must on no account let
the supt. think that I have suggested
this to you. It will not be imposing
on me in the least and it will be a
pleasure for me. I will not, in fact
could not, charge a penny for my services.
I cannot do more. If you do not feel
inclined to do this it is not necessary
to answer, ’ Davis concluded.
After
four months of trying to find ways to
get Ivor into private treatment with
Davis, Marion had had enough of him
and his scheming. She gave up. She had
failed to find a way to give Ivor a
chance to return to society in such
a way that he would have companionship,
be protected, cared for and free ‘just
to write his music and poetry and be
quietly happy’.(13 All hope for such
an outcome vanished. Marion knew then
that Ivor would never be released from
Stone House. His future now lay in the
hands of doctors who could do nothing
for him.
Notes
1.
Richard Maurice Bucke was born in England
in 1837 but was taken to Canada a year
later. He studied medicine at McGill
University and began his medical practice
in Ontario in 1864. In 1876, he was
appointed superintendent of the Provincial
Asylum for the Insane at Hamilton, Ontario
and in 1877 became superintendent of
London Ontario Hospital. He was a founder
of Western University (London, Ontario)
where he was also professor of mental
and nervous diseases. He served as president
of the Psychological Section of the
British Medical Association and as president
of the American Medico-Psychological
Association. Bucke is best remembered
today for his work on cosmic consciousness
(the belief that certain individuals
are gifted with the power of transcendent
realization or illumination, which ‘constitutes
a definite advance in man’s relation
with the Infinite’) and his deep friendship
with Walt Whitman. Bucke wrote a biography
of Whitman and was his literary executor.
2.
All of Dr. Davis’s quotes are taken
from letters he wrote to Marion Scott
between 8 August 1925 and 16 January
1926 which are in the Gurney Archive.
3.
During the war and later, Marion Scott
tried to involve Herbert Howells in
dilemmas, crises, and decisions about
Gurney’s mental problems and his care,
but Howells was too fragile emotionally
to be as supportive and helpful as she
wished. He would not visit Ivor unless
he was with Marion. According to his
daughter Ursula, these visits depressed
him. Arthur Benjamin claimed he stopped
visiting Gurney after Ivor once failed
to recognize him.
4.
Given the nature of Gurney’s illness,
a chemical imbalance with genetic factors,
Davis would not have been able to ‘cure’
Ivor but he might have made his life
more comfortable, provided him with
intellectual stimulation, a nutritional
diet and exercise that would perhaps
have enabled Gurney to enjoy fewer severe
episodes of his illness. Gurney needed
drugs to control his illness but it
wasn’t until 1952 that the first anti-psychotic
drugs were introduce and not until the
1960s that Lithium was made available
to treat Gurney’s manic-depressive illness
or bipolar disorder. In Gurney’s day,
doctors began experimenting with insulin
to induce shock and coma to ‘treat’
schizophrenia. In 1936, the year before
Gurney died, the first frontal lobotomy
was performed. It wasn’t until 1997
that researchers identified genetic
links to bipolar illness, suggesting
that the disorder is inherited. Gurney’s
mother Florence exhibited behaviour
and symptoms associated with the illness
in her periods of highs alternating
with bouts of depression. Gurney’s sister
Winifred suffered from depression as
did his brother Ronald. A cure for bipolar
disorders has yet to be discovered and
the exact causes of the illness are
not fully known.
5.
At the time Dr. Davis began working
with Gurney in March 1925, Ivor was
experiencing a seasonal manic cycle
of his illness and was producing masses
of poetry and music. Victims of bipolar
illness tend to experience their highs
and lows seasonally. In Gurney’s case
it was usually in the late winter/early
spring but in 1925, he sustained the
high for a longer period of time.
6.
Scott to Davis, 1 December 1925, Gurney
Archive.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Ibid.
9.
Ibid.
10.
Scott to Davis, 3 December 1925, Gurney
Archive. It wasn’t until after Gurney’s
death that Marion Scott was able to
gain control of his affairs. She knew
that neither Ronald nor Florence Gurney
was capable of protecting Ivor’s interests
but she had other concerns. She feared
that Ronald might destroy Ivor’s manuscripts.
She worried that the Gurneys would likely
spend any royalty monies on themselves
and not invest it in preserving and
publishing Ivor music and poetry. She
used the outstanding debt Ivor owed
her for expenditures she had made on
his behalf as her leverage to gain legal
control of the estate. Both Ronald and
Florence gave their consent and on 12
February 1938 Marion was granted Letters
of Administration for Ivor’s estate.
11.
Ibid.
12.
At the time Scott knew Davis, he was
writing a two-volume book, Emotions
and Sanity and Emotions and Insanity.
I have not been able to determine if
he published this work. Bethlem Royal
Hospital, where he worked, was the first
asylum for the insane in England. In
1377 ‘distracted’ patients were reportedly
being cared for in a hospital at St.
Mary Bethlehem Priory. By the 17th
century, the hospital had become a perverse
tourist attraction with the public being
allow to watch the inmates as a form
of cheap entertainment. This cruel practice
continued until the early 19th
century. Bethlem became best known by
its nickname ‘Bedlam’. The word eventually
came into common usage to describe chaos
and confusion. Ironically, the paths
of Ivor Gurney and Randolph Davis crossed
again in an abstract way when Gurney
was honoured at the Imperial War Museum’s
war poets’ exhibition, Anthem for
Doomed Youth in 2002 The central
building of Bethlem Royal Hospital is
now home to the Imperial War Museum.
The other buildings of the complex were
demolished in 1936.
12.
Ronald Gurney to Scott, 14 September
1922, Gurney Archive.
