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Emily Catharine Pymar Billing

Born: 17 October 1843
Died: 18 May 1878

Author: Jane Tingle

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BACKGROUND

Although nearly 4,000 people were buried in Sussex Asylum cemetery between 1860 and 1953, fewer than ten headstones remain. The vast majority of patients buried there either had no family left to commemorate them, no family willing to do so, or no family able to afford it.

One of the exceptions was Emily Catharine Pymar Billing, whose ornate headstone still remains in the old part of the cemetery.

The inscription reads:

‘To the memory of Emily Catharine Pymar Billing who died 18 May 1878 aged 35. To be with Christ which is far better.’

From the existence of the headstone, it seems unlikely that she was a pauper. But who was Emily and, if her family could afford a headstone, why did they choose to bury her in the grounds of the asylum?

We know from available records that Emily spent time in two different asylums. Using these records, we have pieced together her story, exploring what may have led her there.

EMILY’S EARLY YEARS

Emily Catharine Pymar Billing was born on 17 October 1843 in Reading, Berkshire. Her birth was announced in a local newspaper:

Emily was the first child born to her father, John Billing, and her mother, Elizabeth Catharine Pymar. Both parents were 25 years old and had been married for a year. At the time of Emily’s birth, they were living in Southampton Place, Reading, Berkshire.

A notice from 1852 described one of the houses in their row as having “two parlours, drawing room, four bedrooms, servant’s bedroom, kitchen, scullery, wine, beer and coal cellars, WC, walled garden.” It is clear that Emily was born into a solidly middle-class family.

Emily’s father, John Billing, was part of an established dynasty of architects and builders. His father, Richard Billing Sr., was a successful local builder, brickmaker, and developer, while his brothers Richard Billing Jr. and Arthur Billing also became respected architects. John had the connections and prestige needed to secure civic roles, such as Borough Surveyor for Reading. With regard to architecture, he specialised in ecclesiastical architecture, Gothic Revival design, and historic structural restoration.

St Giles Church, Tetsworth, Oxfordshire. An example of John Billing’s work in 1855.

Interestingly for this story, John’s key projects also included the restoration and extension of All Saints Church in Heathfield, Sussex (1860–1861); St Leonard’s Church in Seaford, Sussex (1860–1862); and St Leonard’s Marina in Hastings, Sussex (1862).

Emily’s mother, Elizabeth Catherine Pymar, was born in 1817 in fashionable Kensington, London. Her father, James Pymar, was a gentleman and a significant landowner in Norfolk. The family also had a residence and estate, Pelham House, near Bournemouth (photograph below).

© Mr Roy Lownds. Source: Historic England Archive

Emily was followed by five siblings over the next few years:

• James Pymar Billing – born in Reading in 1845
• Campbell Pymar Billing – born in Reading in 1849
• Mary Elizabeth Pymar Billing – born in Reading in 1850
• Louisa Caroline Pymar Billing – born in Reading in 1852
• Herbert Pymar Billing – born in Kensington in 1854

By the time of the 1851 Census, most of the Billing family were living at 62 London Street, Reading. At this point in time, the address was a highly fashionable, multi-storey town house located in the commercial and professional heart of the town. It functioned simultaneously as the Billing family home and John’s busy private architectural practice.

Source: Historic England Archive

The Census records Emily’s parents John and Elizabeth Billing living there, along with James, Campbell and Mary. Also in residence were two architectural students and four servants. One of the students was 20-year-old Phillip Webb, who was serving as an architectural apprentice under John. Philip would later move to London, where he famously co-founded the Arts & Crafts movement alongside William Morris.

Seven-year-old Emily, however, was not at the family home. Emily was living in London, at a very prestigious address – 14 Upper Phillimore Place – in Kensington. Even today, this remains one of the most sought-after roads in central London.

Emily was one of 21 girls and young ladies attending a private boarding school in the building, run by a widow and schoolmistress Mary Hunt. At just seven years old, Emily was the youngest pupil by far. Of the other 21 pupils, only one other, a nine-year-old girl, was aged under ten. Most of the other girls were teenagers.

Research suggests it would be highly unusual for a wealthy seven-year-old girl with parents living in the UK to attend a private boarding school. At this age, such girls were almost exclusively taught reading, writing, and basic arithmetic by a live-in governess or by their mothers. Private boarding schools, which focused on preparing girls for marriage through accomplishments like music and needlework, rarely accepted students before the age of 10 or 11. A wealthy seven-year-old would generally only have boarded if her parents had been stationed overseas in the British Empire.

There was no indication that Mary Hunt was a relative of Emily’s. Her son, William, who also lived at the school, was born in Bournemouth, so perhaps they were acquaintances of Emily’s mother, Elizabeth, and the wider Pymar family. Equally, Elizabeth was born in Kensington, so she may have been familiar with the school’s reputation. Either way, it must have been traumatic for Emily to be separated from the rest of her family at such a young age, and with hardly any peers her own age. She must have had to grow up fast.

In 1856 John Billing achieved election as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and at this time the family moved to London. His architectural practice was in Abingdon Street, Westminster, just a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. As with his Reading property, the building also functioned as the family home. John’s career was at its absolute pinnacle.

EMILY’S FIRST ADMISSION TO AN ASYLUM

Emily’s Family

From the 1861 Census, we can see that some of the family had settled in Abingdon Street, but overall the picture was fractured.

John and Elizabeth were living there, as were their two sons, James (aged 16) and Herbert (aged 6). The boys were both described as scholars and so were presumably attending day schools. 12-year-old Campbell was boarding at Magdalen College School in Oxford.

Daughters Mary and Louisa (aged 10 and 8 respectively) were being schooled far from London, in Westbury on Trym, Bristol. Again, they were very young to be boarding away from home. The arrangement, however, appeared to be more select, as they were living in a house with Elizabeth Irons, a 50-year-old unmarried schoolmistress, and they were two of only four pupils.

Emily Enters the Asylum

Unsurprisingly for a child, there are no records to show what Emily did during most of the decade following the 1851 Census. In 1861, at the age of seventeen, we might expect to find her finishing school – at her previous Kensington school there had been several girls aged 17 or 18. Alternatively, she might have been living at home with her parents in London, awaiting an appropriate suitor, or even travelling through Europe with a chaperone, as many young ladies of the time did.

But, by 1861, something had happened that took Emily away from the expected middle-class trajectory of a teenage girl.

On 7 October 1860, aged just 16 years old, Emily was admitted to Brislington House, a private asylum on the outskirts of Bristol. We only know this from the UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, so there are no details as to the nature of her illness or the reason for her admittance.

It is worth noting that Brislington was just six miles from Westbury on Trym, where Emily’s younger sisters were. Had she been transferred to Brislington from this educational establishment? There are no surviving records from Brislington for this time. Emily’s life was not one of poverty and her family records do not indicate any notable trauma or loss, so we can at this point only speculate as to her condition.

UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, showing Emily’s admission on 7 October 1860.

The later date shows Emily was discharged on 18 April 1861, indicating a six-month stay; her condition was recorded as ‘Not Improved’. (This is indicated by the mark in the third column on the right-hand side.)

Garden front, from  Francis Charles Fox, History and present state of Brislington house, 1836 Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

Brislington House

Founded by Dr. Edward Long Fox in 1804 and opened in 1806, Brislington House was one of Britain’s first purpose-built psychiatric asylums. Dr. Fox pioneered the “moral treatment” of mental illness, prioritising restorative nature and a humane domestic environment over punitive physical restraint. In 1829, his sons Dr Francis Fox and Dr Charles Fox took over the running of the asylum.

In 1860, Brislington House operated as an exclusive, state-of-the-art private lunatic asylum catering to affluent clientele. The estate featured an imposing Italianate palazzo facade and a dedicated chapel. It was structured as seven distinct domestic-style houses designed to segregate patients by social class and behavioural presentation. 

The therapeutic grounds were beautifully landscaped to promote healing and included a bowling green, specimen trees, and secure airing courts. The facility’s capacity hovered around 100 private patients – in stark contrast to public asylums, which housed an average of 300 to 500 pauper patients.

In 1875, Emily was admitted to St Francis Hospital in Sussex, and their admission records indicate she was transferred from Brislington. It would therefore be easy to assume that Emily was resident at Brislington for fifteen years. 

However, the records in between tell a different, and rather intriguing, story…

WHERE DID EMILY GO?

The 1861 Census was taken on the night of 7 April. From Emily’s admission and discharge dates (as shown in the previous image), we would expect to find her in Brislington House on this night – after all, she was not discharged until eleven days later. However, Emily was not there.

Because Brislington House catered strictly to an elite, wealthy clientele, both the management and the patients’ relatives took extreme measures to guard the identities of those admitted. The Census transcript was therefore anonymised – entering only the patients’ initials, gender, age, status/occupation and place of birth, as seen below:

None of the details for patients in the asylum that night match Emily’s. Indeed, there were no teenage girls recorded and the vast majority of female patients were aged 50 and above. It is worth noting that, again, Emily had been isolated from her peers and family at a very formative time.

So, if not at Brislington and not with any of her family members, where was Emily?

England Census 1861

According to the Census, Emily was in the seaside resort of Weston-Super-Mare, 20 miles southwest of Bristol. She was staying in a lodging house at Park Place and, at just 17, was described as the ‘Head’ of the house. The other occupants were Elizabeth Rouch, aged 56, unmarried with no occupation, and Anny Blinman, a 23-year-old unmarried domestic servant.

It has not been possible to determine who Elizabeth Rouch was from the available records. However, there was a wealthy Rouch family of merchants living in Bristol at the time who were involved with charitable works. Local newspapers of the 1850s reported the ‘Misses Rouch’ as frequent visitors to the boarding house at Weston-Super-Mare. So it is possible that Elizabeth was a friend of the Billing family. Or, more likely, the Fox family – as despite being 25 miles away from Brislington House, Emily was living in a place with strong connections to the Fox family and their mental health treatments.

Park Place in Weston-Super-Mare can be seen on the map below, marked in purple:Park Place in Weston-Super-Mare can be seen on the map below, marked in purple:

As the map shows, Park Place was just a five-minute walk from Knightstone Island, to the west of the town. In 1830, Dr Edward Long Fox had purchased Knightstone Island to establish a therapeutic sea-bathing spa.

Building on his pioneering humane mental health treatments at Brislington House, Dr Fox believed that sea water, proper digestion, and scenic isolation could profoundly heal both physical ailments and mental illness. The Fox family had sold the island in 1850, but it continued to operate as a therapeutic spa for several decades. In 1861, although Dr Francis Ker Fox (the son of Dr Edward) was living and working at Brislington House, his wife Mary and several children were living at Knightstone Bath House when the Census was taken.

England Census 1861

Is it possible that Emily had been taken to Knightstone for therapeutic treatment, whilst still technically an inmate of Brislington House?

The plot thickens when we look at a local newspaper from the time. The Weston-Super-Mare Gazette had a column called ‘Residents and Visitors at Weston-Super-Mare’. Visitors to the town could make it known that they were staying there by entering their details in a special book at the local library:

Excerpt from the Weston-Super-Mare Gazette from 23 March 1861

On 23 March 1861, a fortnight before the Census, the Gazette reported that Emily’s mother, ‘Mrs John Billing’, was staying at Park Place:

On the following Saturday, 30 March, the newspaper reported that ‘Mrs John Billing and family’ were staying at Park Place, and this was repeated on the following three Saturdays – through to 20 April. There was no mention of Elizabeth Rouch. Yet, we know from the 1861 Census outlined earlier that ‘Mrs John Billing’ (Elizabeth, Emily’s mother) was in London, not Weston-Super-Mare, on 7 April.

Is it fanciful to think Emily’s family took her out of the asylum that night to prevent the Census from exposing her condition? Did the Fox family agree, transferring Emily to a boarding house close to Knightstone Island, where they could trust Miss Rouch to be in attendance? Perhaps. It is difficult to say without knowing the severity of Emily’s condition. Certainly, the stigma associated with asylums was particularly strong for the middle classes, and they were likely to go to any lengths to conceal ‘mad’ relatives, for fear of the taint of insanity.

The records show little trace of what happened to Emily in the decade that followed. As she had been discharged from Brislington with the status of ‘Not Improved’, we might expect to see her admitted to another asylum. However, the UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers do not show any admissions for her during the 1860s.

THE CONTINUING MYSTERY OF EMILY AND THE CENSUS RETURNS

In January 1863, Emily’s father, John Billing, died from pneumonia at his London home, aged just 45. The next Census, taken in 1871, records Emily’s widowed mother, Elizabeth, living in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight with her unmarried children Mary and Herbert. 

John and Emily’s son James had settled in Hailsham, Sussex, with his wife and five children. I cannot find Louisa, who would have been 19 at the time. Campbell Pymar Billing sadly died in January that same year, aged just 21.

It is worth noting that the deaths of both John (senior) and Campbell were announced in the local newspapers:

So, again, at the time of the Census, Emily was absent from her family members. And her whereabouts remain intriguing.

The 1871 Census was taken on Sunday 2 April, listing Emily as the lodger of Thomas and Mary Birt on Bath Road, Brislington. She is recorded as Emily Billing, aged 27, born in Berkshire. Unusually, there was no occupation recorded for Thomas, Mary, or Emily. Emily is not recognised as a ‘Lunatic’ in the appropriate right-hand column:

The exact address of the lodging house is difficult to trace from the Census, but when we check it against the Electoral Register, we find that Thomas Birt was living at Linden Cottage. From the excerpt below, we can also see that the cottage was in the same vicinity as Brislington House (see Francis Ker Fox, on the bottom row):

It seems odd for an unmarried middle-class woman such as Emily to be lodging alone at a boarding house. If she had been discharged from Brislington, why did she stay in the village and not go home to her family? Some of Brislington’s staff members would have lived in the village, but there are no records to suggest the Birts were staff. Although Brislington allowed some of its wealthier patients to stay in ‘lodging houses’, these were purpose-built in the grounds of the asylum; there are no records to suggest patients were cared for in the community. 

Thomas and Mary Birt

When Emily was lodging with the Birts, Thomas Cannon was 65 and his wife Mary was 63.

Thomas Cannon Birt was born in 1804 in Westbury, Gloucestershire. The 1851 Census places him and Mary in Stourton, Somerset, describing Thomas as a ‘farmer, five acres, employing 1 man.’ We find them living at Lindon House, Brislington, a decade later.

The 1861 Census describes Thomas as a ‘proprietor of houses’, although there was only a nine-year old scholar and a servant residing with him and Mary at this time.

The 1881 Census records Thomas still living at Lindon House, but he had been widowed and remarried in the intervening years. (Emily had left by this time.) In this Census, Thomas’s occupation is listed as ‘Lodging House Keeper’, suggesting he and his wife kept lodging houses, without any particular skills in nursing or mental health. Emily’s family were clearly paying for her to stay there.

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EMILY’S FINAL YEARS

The 1870s marked a difficult period for the Billing family. Just three years after Campbell’s death in 1871, Emily’s youngest brother Herbert died in San Remo, Italy. He was 19 years old.

Herbert’s death notice referenced Seaford, Sussex, which seems to confirm the Billing family had settled in the county:

With several family members in Sussex, this could explain why Emily was admitted to the Sussex Lunatic Asylum as a private patient on 22 May 1875. Emily’s admittance document gives us more insight into her condition:

• Sex: Female
• Age: 31
• Condition as to marriage: Single
• Condition of life and previous occupation: An architect’s daughter
• Previous place of abode: Brislington, Somerset
• By whose authority sent: Mary Billing, sister
• Form of mental disorder: Dementia
• Supposed cause of insanity: Suppressed menstruation
• Age on first attack: 18

This document shows that Emily was admitted to the asylum from Brislington by her sister Mary. She is also recorded as being in the care of Dr Fox, Brislington, for six months in ‘about 1861’. After that she is  listed as a resident at Mr Birt’s, Brislington. So, Emily had indeed been lodging with the Birts since 1861. There is no indication that she ever lived back with the Billing family.

The age given for Emily’s first attack – 18 – does not marry up with her first admission to Brislington, when she was just 16. In the Sussex records, Emily is described as ‘a chronic case’. When asked if she could be ‘dangerous to others’ her sister Mary responds: ‘ [I] don’t know, believe not’.

Emily’s Diagnosis

In the Victorian era, a diagnosis of suppressed menstruation could result in asylum commitment because medical science viewed the uterus as the absolute ruler of a woman’s mind. This sometimes led to physical side effects being mistaken for reproductive madness, including those caused by anorexia nervosa, major depressive disorder, and severe anxiety disorders.

Menstruation was considered a vital monthly cleansing process; if it stopped – a common biological byproduct of restricting calories or psychological stress – doctors believed the blood backed up and caused ‘amenorrhoeal insanity.’ This meant that symptoms of severe depression (profound apathy, social withdrawal, and lethargy) and anxiety (panic and distress) could be missed. Instead of being linked to psychiatric illnesses, they were often read as a dangerous loss of mental stability, rooted entirely in uterine failure.

Middle-class families also sent their daughters to asylums as a form of damage control – hiding, or banishing, behaviours that might be recognised as symptoms of mental ill health. Outbursts driven by underlying anxiety or an eating disorder violated the expected behaviour of a proper, obedient Victorian lady, and this threatened the family’s social reputation. 

To mitigate this risk, such conditions could be reframed as a simple reproductive crisis. The diagnosis served as a shield, protecting the family from the scandal of an unpredictable daughter, whilst enabling them to remove her from society discreetly.

Certainly, the behaviours described in Emily’s admittance document point to a mental condition that had recently escalated and become unmanageable to Mr and Mrs Birt. 

Before entering the asylum, Emily was independently examined by two different surgeons, who recorded their observations:

James Newstead examined Emily at Lindon House, Brislington. 

‘Facts indicating insanity observed by myself’:

‘That she talks very incoherently – and incessantly – but not on any particular topic – indeed it is very difficult to understand what she says – is at present very quiet.’

‘Facts indicating insanity communicated to me by others’:

‘Mr Thomas Cannon Birt of Lindon House, Brislington, states that she is very changeable. At times very amiable and kind, at others very violent – bursting out into fits of passion and wishes for a knife that she might cut her own throat or stick it into anything near her.’

The second surgeon to examine Emily at Lindon House was Samuel Bryant.

‘Facts indicating Insanity observed by myself’:

‘Very restless, constantly talking and meandering, repeating the same words, excited by questions put to her, and answers [indecipherable] – using bad language which was not her usual habit.’

‘Facts indicating insanity communicated to me by others’:

‘Mrs Birt of Lindon House with whom she has lived many years states of late she has been for some weeks very restless night and day so that she has been obliged to tie her down in bed to keep her there to prevent her breaking the windows of her room.’

It is evident from these accounts that the Birts could no longer cope with Emily’s behaviour.

Emily was admitted to the Asylum as a private patient. Private patients required signed financial guarantees from family members or legal bondsmen. This was required to cover all asylum fees, ‘costs and charges’ of independent removal, or a private ‘burial in case she dies in the said Asylum.’

Emily’s Death

Three years after her admission, Emily died in the Sussex Lunatic Asylum at 12.45pm on 18 May 1878. She was just 34 years old, and her cause of death was recorded as phthisis, more commonly known as tuberculosis.

Emily’s sister Louisa died just a few months later in October 1878, whilst living at Salden House, Villa Road, St Leonard’s. She was 27 years old. We know this because, as with brothers Campbell and Herbert, it was reported in the newspaper.

Unlike her father, two brothers and sister, Emily’s death was never announced in the newspaper. Her death, as with her life, was hidden away from the public gaze.

EMILY’S SURVIVING FAMILY

Emily’s Mother:

Elizabeth Catharine Pymar, died in St Leonard’s on the 22 June 1882, at the age of 62. 

Emily’s Siblings:

Emily’s two surviving siblings were James Pymar Billing and Mary Elizabeth Pymar Billing.

James Pymar Billing:

James became a doctor serving in Hailsham and the surrounding districts, which included the local work-house. In 1866, he married Elizabeth Cameron, who already had two daughters from a previous marriage. According to the 1911 Census, they had another 12 children together, although only eight show up in the records. James died in 1895, aged 50. His wife Elizabeth died in 1913 at the age of 73. 

Of the children I have been able to trace:

• Primrose Elizabeth (Bessie Bruce) Ebling Aitken (step-daughter), b. 1858.

Bessie married Alfred Kingdon, a barrister, in 1879. They went on to have two children, Jack (b. 1884) and Beryl (b. 1894). Bessie died in 1938.

• Rose Henrietta Aitken (step-daughter), b. 1862.

Rose married twice. Her first marriage was to Robert Dundas McCallum, a ship’s purser. Sadly, Robert died just six months later in 1884. He was reported drowned whilst on a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ship that went missing whilst sailing from New York to the West Indies. 66 lives were lost. 

Later, Rose became an actress, taking the name of Mary Morison. ‘Mary’ joined the D’Oyly Carte Company in 1891, playing good parts and landing lead roles with them for five years. In 1897, she went on tour with Dandy Dan the Lifeguardsman.

Her second marriage was to Thomas Redmond in 1897. Thomas was a baritone with the D’Oyly Carte Company. From 1897, Rose/Mary seems to have played only alongside him, especially in the classy society ladies’ roles of Owen Hall and imitators. She toured with him in musical comedy for a time after leaving the Company.

Rose did not have any children, and she died in 1944 at the age of 82.

• Edith Catherine Billing, b. 1866.

Edith married Daniel Oren Goodman (an American) in 1889 and lived the rest of her life in the USA. Daniel is recorded as a piano tuner in the 1991 US Census but then goes to the Yukon, the prospect for gold in 1897, where he met the author Jack London. The couple had two daughters, one of whom died as an infant. Edith became a stenographer and died in 1947, at the age of 80.

• Mary Alice Louisa Billing, b. 1868.

Mary married labourer Thomas Heasman in 1889. The couple had five children but life was not always easy for them. In the 1911 Census, the couple are recorded in the Uckfield Workhouse with their two youngest children. Ten years later, Thomas is working as a stockman. In the 1939 register, Mary, aged 71, is working as a house-keeper in Kent. Thomas, aged 72,  is living with one of their daughters and working as a stockman on a farm. Mary died in 1949, aged 80. 

• Beatrice Maud Billing, b.1871.

Beatrice died in 1887, aged just 16.

• James Alexander Billing, b. 1873

James, the only surviving son, married Emma Gilks in 1894. On the marriage certificate, his occupation is ‘licensed victualler’. The couple had three children, including two daughters who survived to adulthood. James died in 1959, aged 86.

• Theodora (Dora or Dorothy) Billing, b. 1878.

Dora married Edmund Upright (an actor) in 1902. The couple had three sons but, after Edmund died in 1909, at least one – probably two – were adopted by another family. In 1912, Dora married again. Her husband, Arthur Cooper, was 13 years her junior.

The couple had two children. Family trees suggest that Arthur emigrated to South Africa in 1921 but Dora and the children did not accompany him. Dora died in 1962, aged 84, and was buried with her parents in Sussex.

• Kathleen (Kate) Laurel Billing, b. 1880

In April 1902, Kate married William Hay Chapman, a vicar’s son. Just three months later, William filed for divorce on the grounds of Kate’s adultery with an ‘unknown man.’ However, when the case went to court in February 1903, the judge ordered that the ‘decree nisi’ be rescinded, the Petition dismissed, and the Petitioner condemned. 

By the time of the 1911 Census, Kate was living in Wandsworth, London. She still described herself as ‘married’ and was working as a midwife; there is no sign of estranged husband William. Ten years later, Kate was still working as a midwife but described herself as ‘widowed.’ 

Kate did not have children. She died in 1951, aged 71.

• Mary Elizabeth Pymar Billing

Mary married artist Walter Kingdon in 1877. The couple had two sons, Campbell and Donald. Mary died in 1943 at the age of 92.

• Campbell Kingdon, b. 1879

Campbell was born in Capri, Italy, and later became a school-master. In 1919, he married Ruth Beal (a Canadian) and they had a son and a daughter. 

In June 1937, Campbell was granted a divorce on the grounds of his wife’s adultery with Samuel Roy Townsend Green, whom Ruth later married. Campbell was remarried in 1945 to Winifred French. He died in 1962, at the age of 83.

• (Sir) Donald Kingdon, b. 1883

Donald was born in Florence, Italy, later becoming an eminent British barrister, colonial judicial administrator, and jurist – presiding over the Supreme Court of Nigeria for 17 years. 

Donald’s wife was Kathleen Moody, the granddaughter of Major-General Richard Clement Moody. The couple had three children, one son and two daughters. Donald was knighted in 1931. He died in 1961, aged 79.

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AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS

We do not know what triggered Emily’s initial admission to a lunatic asylum as a teenager. But the clues that we do have – the diagnosis, the admission notes, exclusion from the family home – point to Emily exhibiting behaviours that her middle-class family found embarrassing or shameful.

Between 1861 and 1875, Emily is able to live in the community, lodging with Mr and Mrs Birt, but she never lives with any of the Billing family members again. It is possible that Emily lived with what we would today understand as a learning disability or neurodiversity. Or she may have suffered from an eating disorder or anxiety disorder that both prevented her from menstruating and caused psychological distress. 

Emily’s relatives do not abandon her. They continue to fund her stays in private asylums, transfer her to Sussex when they relocate, and pay for a headstone for her grave. However, compared to other family members, Emily’s existence is not acknowledged and they evidently hide her away. Her death was certainly glossed over, in comparison to other family members whose deaths were all announced in the newspapers. And her family buried her in the grounds of the asylum, rather than claiming her for the family cemetery. 

Emily’s story carries a strong sense of middle-class shame. Although she has a headstone, there is something rather sad about it – no ‘loving’ memory for Emily and nothing that marks her as a beloved daughter or sister. Even the final words – ‘To be with Christ is far better’ – has a whiff of relief about it.