In 1890, Jacob Riis wrote about “how theother half lives,” documenting the horrid conditions of New York tenementsand photographing filthy children asleep in alleyways.

Very early one chilly morning in October 1895, Fielding Blandfordstepped into a horse-drawn carriage with Edith Lanchester’s father and twobrothers. The four men arrived at Edith’s rented lodgings in Battersea. Theywoke the whole house with heavy banging on the front door, and FieldingBlandford forced his way in to ‘examine’ Edith. He ordered that she be takento an asylum because she was committing ‘social suicide’ by insisting on livingwith her working-class lover without marrying him. He justified this byarguing that under the Lunacy Act 1890 he would have certified her had sheattempted (normal) suicide.