At last stigma around mental illness is being dismantled. In no small part it’s thanks to progressives like Mary Chapman who lived in Norwich over 300 years ago. Mary was the driving force behind the Bethel Hospital, the country’s first purpose-built asylum for ‘distrest lunaticks’. Her vision was to treat patients with dignity, hoping for a cure and return to everyday life.

Mary was born in 1647. Her father, John Mann, was a wealthy weaver, Mayor of Norwich and High Sheriff of Norfolk, which gave her means and social influence. She married the Reverend Samuel Chapman in 1682. At this time care of ‘the insane’ was horrific. At London’s infamous, squalid Bedlam asylum, inmates were casually on show for public entertainment. The Chapmans determined to ‘do different’.

When Samuel died, his estate allowed Mary to start construction on a site cleared by the ‘Big Blowe’, a massive explosion caused by accidental ignition of a gunpowder store during the Civil War. The Bethel Hospital opened in 1713. It offered psychiatric care for over 275 years, only closing in 1995. A short distance from Chapelfield Gardens, it’s now private apartments and can be seen from the street. Mary’s tombstone at the Old Parish Church of Thorpe St Andrew reads: ‘She built wholly at her own expence the house in Norwich called Bethel for the reception, maintenance and cure of poor lunaticks, to which and other charitable uses she gave all her income while she lived and her estate at her death.’