Conolly, JOHN

Conolly, JOHN, physician, born at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, in 1794, graduated at Edinburgh in 1821, and in 1827 settled in London, where he was for two years professor of the Practice of Medicine in University College. In 1839 he was appointed resident physician to the Asylum for the Insane at Hanwell; this post he held till 1844, and afterwards he was retained as visiting physician. Here, under Conolly, all forms of mechanical restraint were from the first entirely discontinued; and although his views were admittedly not original, it is mainly to his earnestness and eloquence that the revolution in asylum management in England is due. His best works are those on the Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums (1847), and kindred subjects. He died 5th March 1866. See the Memoir by Sir James Clark (1869).