Thread by @AndrewBrunatti

Using a modern framework to examine #ViscountCastlereagh's exposure to #MentalHealth risks raises historiographical questions. The way we experience chronic stress may not be the same way that those in the 18th/19thC experienced it. 1/

#Castlereagh200 #twitterstorians #HistParl

We have to consider broader historical understandings of #stress. The idea of mental exhaustion has a long history. A writer in Aristotle’s circle in c. 350 B.C.E identified ‘melancholia’ as an affliction that was particularly tied to learned men, including statesmen. 2/

Analysis of stress in the #19thC has identified drivers that are, in fact, quite similar to those of our own era, namely: working hours that were growing longer and more intense; the growth of information and new technologies; and anxiousness about an uncertain environment. 3/

The focus on industrialisation that dominated most writing on workplace health in the 19thC neglected what we would now term ‘knowledge work’ (i.e. work focused on solving non-routine problems, requiring expertise, and highly interdependent), which includes policymaking. 4/

It's not until later in the century that writers on workplace health begin to differentiate between physical and mental labour. Arlidge (1892) identifies the ‘governing classes’ as a distinct category of workers. 5/

He wrote: "it is a well-known fact that the duties and responsibilities of the higher offices of Government sorely tax both mental and bodily strength, and that their occupants not a few break down under the strain, if not permanently, at least for a season.” 6/

Charles Mills (1884) made perhaps the most relevant analysis of stress: He included a high proportion of men engaged in government; he specifically looked at mental stress; and he focused on ‘brain work' (recognition of knowledge work as a distinct realm). 7/

Mills identified long hours/complex work as drivers of mental stress but he also highlighted aspects that were less tangible. Mills stated that a political career is “too often one of uncertainty, disappointment, and vain longing,”--all factors that point to emotional demand. 8/

Mills alluded to the competitive nature of the political space, which can result in conflicts based on personalities, values, and ethics. For a politician, “Others aspire to his place, which can only be held by hard work, and too often also by low arts.” 9/

More directly, Mills identified the public nature of politics as a direct cause of mental strain. In this, we can see the genesis of several points of exposure to chronic stress (e.g. tensions with the public, feelings of lack of reward, and low autonomy) 10/

“The faults and foibles of a public man are laid bare, his mistakes are magnified, and his best efforts are sometimes mis-interpreted by a thoughtless or merciless press.” 11/

While these observations come from the late 19thC, it's worth noting that the shifts in information, technology, and society that are usually associated with the Victorian period often had their genesis in the late Georgian/Regency periods. 12/

For instance, the significant growth in the complexity of government through the 19thC began with the need for the British state to respond to the global nature and economic implications of the #NapoleonicWars. 13/

And, as Langford states, the model of ideal statesman ("cold, correct, unpretentious") that is associated with the Victorian period has its origins "in the generation which was born around 1760, entered public life around 1790, and summed up the lessons of a life around 1820."14/

In this respect, we can understand Castlereagh not just as a statesman of the Regency period but also as a prototype of the Victorian statesman--and susceptible to all the mental stresses and strains that Mills identified 60yrs later, and that mirror our modern framework. 15/15

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