h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Really interesting entry and totally in keeping with the spirit of h2g2!

This is probably tangential and totally off the wall, but several facts are re-arranging themselvwes in my head here:

i) Broadmoor was built on the edge of Bracknell Wood in 1863 to house unpleasant and dangerous mentally ill people.
ii) Twenty or thirty years later, Oscar Wilde writes a play called The Importance of Being Ernest. One of the least sympathetic characters is the snobbish, affected and narrow-minded Lady Bracknell.
iii) Wilde would have known about the institution at Bracknell Wood and the purpose it served. Is this therefore a hidden joke in the choice of name for Lady Bracknell, and chosen to reinforce her unpleasant flakiness? After all, the nobility traditionally take their names from the local area they have a close asociation with...

Thanks AgProv.

Hmmm, I'm not convinced, as I don't think the establishment has been referred to as 'Bracknell Wood' at any time. "Broadmoor Asylum" was the common name, I think. Of course, you could always be right, if Wilde was being more subtle.

The first reference I can find is in the Times in 1860: "The State Asylum for Criminal Lunatics at Broadmoor, on Bagshot-heath, now approaches completion".

The body which oversaw the construction were the "Commissioners in Lunacy". How times change!

Icy