James Tilly Matthews was delusional. He believed that secret gangs of people were operating across London, using a bizarre machine called the "Air Loom" to control his thoughts and those of others from a distance. According to Matthews, this device emitted "magnetic fluids" to manipulate minds and was being wielded by spies to influence political decisions.
Matthews’ paranoia, as a modern psychiatrist would say, is a textbook case of schizophrenia—a mental disorder that affects 24 million people worldwide, yet has a remarkably short recorded history. Unlike depression and mania, which are recognizable in ancient texts, schizophrenia-like disorders only began appearing in psychiatric literature in the past two hundred years. This could mean that either the disease is a recent manifestation that was largely unknown in earlier times, or that it existed but lumped together with more general concepts of madness. What makes Matthews’ case unique is that he lived in the late 18th century, and an entire book was written detailing his delusions. This makes Matthews the first fully documented case of schizophrenia.
The Air Loom. Illustration by James Tilly Matthews
James Tilly Matthews (1770–1815) was a young tea merchant originally from Wales who had strong Republican sympathies. When the French Revolution broke out, he became an ardent advocate for peace between Britain and revolutionary France. Motivated by this belief, Matthews, along with some friends, travelled to France, where he met several Girondin leaders. For a time, he managed to gain the trust of the French government, but when the Girondins were overthrown by the Jacobins, he fell under suspicion due to his associations with the former faction. Accused of being a double agent, he was arrested and imprisoned. During his three-year confinement, Matthews lived in constant fear of being executed by guillotine—an experience that may have contributed to his later mental decline.
After his release, Matthews returned to London and began sending letters to Home Secretary Lord Liverpool, accusing him of betraying a patriot. When his letters went unanswered, Matthews walked into the House of Commons and disrupted a session by shouting “treason” at Lord Liverpool from the public viewing gallery.
Matthew was arrested and sent to Tothill Fields Bridewell, a workhouse, before being transferred to Bethlem Royal Hospital—better known as Bedlam—on the grounds of insanity.
The Bethlem Royal Hospital as it was in the mid-18th century. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
While at Bedlam, Matthews spiralled deeper into psychosis. He began claiming that, just beyond the hospital grounds, in an apartment near London Wall, a gang of villains had barricaded themselves inside with a machine of extraordinary and sinister power—one capable of controlling and tormenting his mind through diabolic rays.
This device, which Matthews called the Air Loom, was an elaborate contraption that combined cutting-edge technologies like pneumatic chemistry and the electric battery with the dubious science of animal magnetism, or mesmerism. According to the vivid descriptions he provided to John Haslam, the resident apothecary at Bedlam, the machine featured an intricate array of keys, levers, barrels, batteries, sails, brass retorts, and magnetic fluid. It functioned by directing and modulating magnetically charged air currents toward its victim.
The Air Loom was fuelled by a grotesque mixture of substances, including “fetid effluvia,” “spermatic-animal-seminal rays,” “putrid human breath,” and “gaz from the anus of a horse.” Its magnetic discharges, Matthews insisted, could implant thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations directly into his brain.
He gave these intrusive experiences distinct names, such as “brain-saying” and “dream-working,” describing how foreign thoughts were forced into his mind against his will. The gang, he claimed, subjected him to a horrifying array of physical tortures, including “knee nailing,” “vital tearing,” and “fibre ripping.” Some torments were more bizarrely specific—such as “apoplexy-working with the nutmeg grater” and the dreaded “lobster-cracking,” in which the air around his chest was constricted until he could no longer breathe.
Matthews further alleged that the gang had implanted a magnet inside his head to facilitate this torment, leaving him in a perpetual state of suffering—plagued by hallucinations, agonizing physical sensations, and even uncontrollable fits of laughter.
The Air Loom was operated by a gang of undercover Jacobin terrorists, determined to plunge Britain into a catastrophic war with Revolutionary France. Matthews described these figures with remarkable precision, assigning them distinct identities and personalities.
Details of the different characters from James Tilly Matthews’ illustration of the Air Loom
At the helm was Bill the King, a coarse-faced, sixty-four-year-old puppet master of villainy, a man so sinister that, according to Matthews, “he has never been observed to smile.” His second-in-command, Jack the Schoolmaster, meticulously recorded the Air Loom’s operations, pausing occasionally to push his wig back with a forefinger as he wrote. Sir Archy, in reality, was a woman disguised in men’s clothing, who was always making obscene jokes. The machine’s operator was a sinister and pockmarked woman known only as the Glove Woman. The gang’s public face was Augusta, a sharp-featured woman who appeared superficially charming but, as Matthews warned, was “exceedingly spiteful and malignant.” She was responsible for coordinating with other Air Loom operators across London. Meanwhile, the Middle Man, the machine’s manufacturer, was also part of this nefarious cabal.
Matthews insisted that he was not the only victim. He claimed that multiple Air Looms were operating across London, each targeting key political figures—including Prime Minister William Pitt himself, whose mind, he alleged, was firmly under their control. These agents lurked in streets, theatres, and coffee houses, where they tricked unsuspecting victims into inhaling magnetic fluids, slowly warping their thoughts.
According to Matthews, these secret manipulations were no mere personal torment—they posed a dire national and international threat. He accused the Air Loom gangs of orchestrating key British military disasters, including the failed expedition to Buenos Aires in 1807 and the ill-fated Walcheren campaign in 1809. He claimed, they had instigated the Nore Mutiny of 1797, turning British sailors against their commanders, and caused James Hadfield to fire his pistol at George III in 1800.
John Haslam
John Haslam, the resident apothecary at Bedlam, took a particular interest in Matthews, because one—the delusions were the most unusual, and two—because Matthews' family was fighting for his release from Bedlam, and Haslam wanted to make sure that he remained confined to the institution.
Matthews’ family persistently tried to have him removed from Bedlam, and in 1809, they engaged two London doctors, Henry Clutterbuck and George Birkbeck, to examine Matthews independently. Neither doctors appeared to have had any significant experience in psychiatry, yet after multiple assessments, they concluded that Matthews was of sound mind, and that his alleged symptoms of madness and hostility were the reactions of a sane man unjustly confined.
On the basis of this testimony, Matthews’ family filed a writ of Habeas Corpus against Bedlam, demanding his release. The hospital responded by having Matthews examined by a panel of eminent physicians, who unanimously declared him to be “in the most deranged state of intellect, and wholly unfit to be at large.” To further justify his continued confinement, the hospital presented affidavits from the royal family, detailing Matthews’ numerous violent threats against King George III and the severe disruption he had caused to government ministers. Eventually, the court refused the Habeas Corpus petition.
In 1810, thirteen years after Matthews was first admitted to Bethlem Royal Hospital, Haslam published Illustrations of Madness, a ground-breaking account of his patient’s delusions. The book, spanning 80 pages, is filled with ramblings of a deeply disturbed mind. Yet, despite its often incoherent content, it remains an extraordinary document—no other contemporary account of its kind exists.
“Rake's Progress”, a scene inside Bedlam by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth.
Before Haslam’s work, most published case histories of the mentally ill were brief, offering only surface-level descriptions of a patient’s physical state, erratic behaviour, or bizarre beliefs. While these records sometimes contained enough detail for modern scholars to retroactively diagnose chronic psychosis, they rarely distinguished between different forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, affective mania, or chronic organic syndromes. Illustrations of Madness, however, was among the first detailed accounts of an incurably insane patient. Haslam’s meticulous observations provided an acute and thorough description of symptoms now recognized as hallmarks of schizophrenia—something rarely seen in medical literature at the time.
Long-term descriptions of psychiatric illnesses, particularly chronic conditions such as schizophrenia or general paralysis of the insane, did not become commonplace until the publication of case studies from dedicated lunatic asylums. The assessments of Henry Clutterbuck and George Birkbeck—the doctors who insisted Matthews was sane—also suggest that not all individuals suffering from delusions or hallucinations ended up in a madhouse. Unless they caused public disturbances or posed a threat to someone of importance, many could live outside of asylums, their conditions left undiagnosed and untreated.
Matthews remained in Bedlam until 1814. During his confinement, he kept extensive notes detailing both his treatment and the conditions within the asylum. These writings later became crucial evidence in a House of Commons investigation into allegations of malpractice and cruelty at Bedlam.
When questioned, the head keeper admitted that Haslam, frustrated by Matthews’ refusal to submit to his authority, had kept him in handcuffs “to punish him for the use of his tongue.” Other disturbing accounts of abuse emerged during the inquiry, including sexual exploitation and even manslaughter—one keeper was found to have forcibly drowned a patient named Fowler in a bathtub.
A psychiatric patient, William Norris, shackled on his bed at Bedlam. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Committee’s findings, published in 1816, led to Haslam’s dismissal from his post. The scandal effectively ended his career. Though he retrained as a physician, the loss of his position and reputation forced him to sell nearly all his possessions. He later found work as a specialist legal witness in cases of criminal lunacy, offering expert opinions on issues such as imbecility and “lucid intervals.”
However, Matthews’ case seems to have shaken Haslam’s once-unshakable belief that madness could always be clearly distinguished from sanity. In his later years, while testifying as a forensic witness in a court case, he was asked whether the defendant was of sound mind. His replied: "I never saw any human being who was of sound mind." When pressed further, he simply added, "I presume the Deity is of sound mind, and He alone."
John Haslam died in London in 1844 at the age of 80.
Haslam’s publication of Illustrations of Madness brought Matthews to the attention of physicians, many of whom were struck by the technical precision of his drawing of the Air Loom, which resembled the work of an engineer. Encouraged by this recognition, Matthews taught himself draughtsmanship and engraving. Applying his newfound skills, he drew up architectural plans for a new Bedlam building. His work so impressed the hospital governors that they awarded him £30 in recognition of his “labour and abilities.”
Matthews remained in Bedlam until 1814, when he was transferred to Fox’s London House, a private asylum in Hackney. By this time, his delusions appeared to have subsided, and the asylum’s owner, Samuel Fox, considered him sane. Matthews soon took on responsibilities within the institution, assisting with bookkeeping and gardening. He died the following year, in 1815.
References:
# John Haslam, Illustrations of Madness
# Bedlam: "A madhouse by any other name is still a jail!"
# P.K. Carpenter, Descriptions of schizophrenia in the psychiatry of Georgian Britain: John Haslam and James Tilly Matthews, Compr Psychiatry
# Illustrations of Madness: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom, Public Domain Review
# James Tilly Matthews and his visionary madness, Nth Position
Comments
Post a Comment