William Battie is the man credited with designing Court Garden House in Marlow, his future residence. As a doctor, he was also credited with unwittingly becoming the origin of the term batty to describe someone eccentric. This is difficult to pin down, and there are other candidates. What is sure, is that William was doctor who became a specialist in nervous disorders, and he may have had a few eccentricities of his own.
William was born in 1704 in Modbury, Devon, the son of Rev Edward Battie. He went to Eton and Cambridge, initially to study law. But he failed his exams so took up medicine instead, and so was eventually admitted to the Royal Society. He first practiced as a physician in Cambridge in 1729 before moving to Uxbridge, then Twickenham. He worked as a physician at St Lukes Hospital, resigning in 1764, and as a superintendent of a private mad house at Woods Close, near Islington. He would eventually own two private homes for the mentally ill. His 1758 treatise on the treatment of madness criticized the prevailing methods at Bedlam hospital in particular, and produced a furious response which was also published. William pioneered a more humane approach and said it was critical that the patients physical wellbeing was taken care of - with a good diet for example.
Concern about the state of private "mad houses" lead to the appointment of a commission at the House of Commons to look into their regulation - or lack of it. William appeared before it in 1863, when he was now regarded as a very eminent physician in his field. He was asked directly if it happened that perfectly sane individuals found themselves shut up in a private asylum. He replied that it was "very frequently" the case. William said those responsible for deciding whether a patient should be admitted or not were not competent judges and as a whole the premises needed better supervision. Sadly, while plans for enhanced regulation were made, they were not directly acted on until 1774 and then only partly.
There are two oft repeated stories about William. One is that he liked to do impressions of Punch, which were regarded as side splitting funny by his contemporaries. This has more than one source. This act of mimicry he used once to save the life of a child with a throat swelling who he made laugh so much with his antics that the swelling burst. The same performance possibly saved him from injury after an altercation with some Marlow area bargeman. They were upset by his promotion of an idea that the transportation of goods by water could be done more efficiently if the barges were no longer pulled by men, but by horses instead. Naturally those paid to do the extremely hard and dangerous work of pulling the barges were not going to support a loss of their income. The barge hands won in the short term. William is said to have stopped a dunking at their hands by making them laugh with his Punch impression. He was reported to walk around in fear of a similar attack long afterwards however.
The second main Dr Battie story is that he designed Court Garden as an amateur and forgot to include a staircase in his plans so it had to be added later. Dr Battie may have forgot the staircase at the design stage but it is hard to imagine the professionals tendering to build his design would not have pointed this out before they began work, or that they allowed the build to finish without saying a word. So perhaps the idea of the house seeing completion before a staircase was put in is not quite true even if Dr Battie did not remember to include a spot for it in his workings, hence it's awkward placing. The origin of this story is a letter written by Francis Carter, an associate of Battie, to the author of a book of literary anecdotes, after the death of Battie. But this book says Francis, who despite visiting Battie at Marlow several times and indeed spending several summers at Marlow Place, never actually went inside the "very faulty" house. So perhaps it is not the most authoritative voice. (Some editions also say Battie lived at Marlow Place, not Court Garden but this may well be a subsequently corrected printing error rather than a mistake by the author.) The story is nevertheless repeated often in later contemporary accounts without mentioning the source. One fault the house definitely had was a basement that was under water during periods of high flood. This is mentioned much later too, and is not surprising given it's riverside location as homes much further away reported the same problem. The same source is behind the story that William liked to go about town dressed as a "common labourer". Perhaps he did, given his talent for mimicry.
William married Miss Goode in 1738/9 and had 3 daughters - Anne, Catherine and Philadelphia. Anne was the eldest and unmarried at his death. She inherited Court Garden and eventually sold it to another eminent surgeon, Richard Davenport of Essex. She later became the second wife of George Young. William is not buried at Marlow. He died in 1776 a little after suffering a paralytic stroke in his 75th year. He wished to be laid to rest next to his wife in Kingston, Surrey with no monument above. Among the bequests he left was £100 to St. Lukes hospital and a similar amount to benefit the widows and orphans of clergyman.
Written and researched by Kathryn Day with updates by Charlotte Day.
© Marlow Ancestors.
To find posts about other medical practitioners, Marlow's medical history from apothecaries to nursing clubs, and general posts about everyday life in old Marlow look at the index here
To find posts about another particular house such as Court Garden - see the index here and for a post about the transformation of the estate into Higginson Park see here
Sources include:
Gibbs, Robert. Worthies of Buckinghamshire And Men Of Note In That County (R Gibbs 1888)
Nicholls, John. Literary Anecdote of the 18th Century - Essays and Illustrations. (John Nicholls 1812)
Rose -Edward Henry James, Rose, Henry James, Wright, Thomas. A New Biographical Dictionary, Vol 3 (T Fellowes 1857)
Wright, William - Fishes and Fishing. (T C Newby 1858)
