Samuel Tuke

Samuel Tuke was born in York, England, in 1784, into a Quaker family. His grandfather, William Tuke, had founded the York Retreat, a Quaker hospital for people with mental illness. Samuel devoted much of his life to the Retreat and to improving the care of people with mental illness. His book Description of the Retreat near York made its methods of treatment widely known. He called them 'moral treatment', borrowing a French phrase used for the work of Philippe Pinel and Jean-Baptiste Pussin in France; it referred to care for patients' feelings and self-esteem rather than to right and wrong. In 1815 he also published practical advice on how public asylums should be built and run. He married Priscilla Hack, and several of their children, including Daniel Hack Tuke, also worked for humanitarian causes. Samuel Tuke died in 1857 and is buried in the Quaker burial ground in the grounds of the Retreat, which still provides mental health care in York. In 2017 he was honoured with a blue plaque.

Samuel Tuke is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: A Quaker minister and reformer of the treatment of the mentally ill. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) (via Wikisource)