History through the lens: Kings IoPPN
Welcome to history through the lens with Bethlem Museum of the Mind, sharing historic moments and people captured on camera from the museums archive.
As its September we’re back to school, sharing photographs from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN).
Though it now operates separately from South London and Maudsley, King's IoPPN began life as the Maudsley training school. The first Superintendent of the Maudsley, Edward Mapother, understood that high quality psychiatric training for doctors was lacking in the UK and sought to follow the model of successful European training schools.
From the time the Hospital opened in 1923 Mapother recruited a range of doctors with different specialities, including Mary Barkas, an expert in Freudian psychoanalysis, and later looked to recruit doctors like Eric Guttmann and Willy Mayer-Gross, who fled from persecution from Nazi Germany, all of whom helped in the School as part of their duties.
The school renamed itself as the Institute of Psychiatry in 1948, though as the Dean of the School was Aubrey Lewis, who was also the Superintendent of the Maudsley, it’s open to question how independent of the Hospital it was. The photograph shows the main building being constructed in 1966.
The Institute split from the Hospital in 1997 and became a school of Kings College. Since then, the very impressive Wellcome buildings have opened, transforming the visual image of the Institute.
The Bethlem Museum of the mind unfortunately do not have all of the archives of King's IoPPN, but do hold some records of the Institute. These include the annual reports, some publications and photographs, including a class photograph from 1975.
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