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Andrew Brunatti

Aug 12, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X

#OTD in 1822, #ViscountCastlereagh, Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, died by his own hand.

Thanks very much to those of you who have followed my #Castlereagh200 threads, looking at Castlereagh's career through the lens of mental health.

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#twitterstorians

I was at a loss for how to mark the day after spending the last 2 years writing the research article on which all these tweets are based.

Maybe something more reflective is fitting.

I had always been interested in Castlereagh from a diplomatic and political standpoint...

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...and became increasingly interested in exploring the mental health aspect of his story because it was a challenging area that would combine history, politics, psychology, medicine, and other disciplines.

So I started researching in 2020.

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Then the pandemic arrived. As I researched and wrote over the next 2 years, I also watched first-hand as public servants were responding to the pandemic and a half dozen other crises that seemed to roll in one after another. Stress levels were high and pretty much constant.

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In my day job, I lead a team of very dedicated civil servants. I found that the research on Castlereagh and mental health was starting to take on real-life relevance, making me consider how I was leading and how I could do better to protect mental health for my team and I.

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I also talked to a range of people about the research and found that a historical case seemed to have benefits.
First, many people readily engaged with the history (because it's at a distance?), but then inevitably started to compare it to their own professional experience.

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And second, talking about Castlereagh's historical 'story' seemed to engage people in ways that the official-speak of corporate mental health action plans just did not. There were a lot of "Wait, maybe that *is* a mental health issue" type of conversations.

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So there's a little bit of a different legacy for Castlereagh two centuries later. Not high politics or global diplomacy this time...but valuable #MentalHealthAwareness.

8/8

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More from @AndrewBrunatti

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Jan 24, 2023

@britishmuseum

Which Lord Londonderry is portrayed in this caricature/portrait by Richard Dighton?

A somewhat confusing🧵

#twitterstorians #19thC #portraiture

Image: Richard Dighton, @britishmuseum (BM), 1852,1116.559

Between roughly 1818-1828, Richard Dighton did a series of profile portraits of men in Regency London's high society. Most were etchings, and the BM has digitized many prints held in its collection--they are worth your time if you're interested in Regency society, style, and art.

@britishmuseum

The earlier prints of this particular portrait, published individually by Dighton himself, are clearly dated to July 1821. Copies show up in the collections of the @britishmuseum, @NPGLondon, and @RCT.

(details shown here are from prints in the BM and RCT collections)

Read 15 tweets

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Nov 25, 2022

The Stallburg in Vienna.

An elegant 16th Century building on the edge of the sprawling Hofburg palace. It housed the royal art collection and the royal stables.

It was also home to Austria's most efficient intelligence organization.

A 🧵

#twitterstorians #IntelHistory

The late-Renaissance building with an inner courtyard surrounded by arcades was multi-functional: it housed the royal stables, guest apartments, the royal art collection, and an armoury. In fact, the ground floor is still used as the stables for the vaunted Lipizzaner Stallions.

Around 1711 the Stallburg also became the home of the Ziffernkanzlei--the 'Number Office.'

A name both suggestive and vague (and one of many used throughout the organization's existence), it was really the secret office for mail interception and decryption.

Read 12 tweets

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Nov 15, 2022

Castlereagh Creeping the House of Lords, or the Story of a Misidentified Portrait.

A 🧵

2 artists captured the proceedings against Queen Caroline in the #HouseofLords in 1820, and both include #ViscountCastlereagh. Let's start with James Stephanoff.

#twitterstorians #HistParl

Stephanoff shows Castlereagh perched on a staircase, watching from a small window. The 1823 key for Stephanoff's work identifies this figure as "The Marquis of Londonderry [Castlereagh], who usually took his station on the stairs leading to the gallery during the investigation."

The other portrayal of the trial is, of course, George Hayter's monumental painting. Hayter, however, shows Castlereagh positioned in the box of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, on the bottom right corner.

Read 13 tweets

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Aug 10, 2022

In the last few months of #Castlereagh200 threads we've covered a lot of ground, looking at many stressors that put Castlereagh's #MentalHealth at risk.

Now that we're only days from the bicentenary of his death, let's look at some conclusions.

#twitterstorians

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First, the stress on Castlereagh was cumulative and pervasive. The downward spiral that he experienced in the weeks preceding his suicide was only the final chapter in a story that had been developing for yrs. The overlap between the professional and the social made it worse.

2/

Castlereagh was arguably a successful policymaker. But what did that require? He had to be a strategist, a tactician, a courtier, a whip, an orator, a master of protocol, an ambassador, a traveller, a negotiator, a socialite, and a political campaigner.

3/

Read 15 tweets

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Aug 8, 2022

As we turn the corner into the week of August 12, I want to focus this #Castlereagh200 🧵 on a final area of #MentalHealth risk connected to the workplace: job insecurity.

Bear with me though--I turn this one on its head.

#ViscountCastlereagh #twitterstorians

1/14

If you've been following these #Castlereagh200 threads, you may call that I'm drawing from a risk framework that forms the basis for my upcoming article on Castlereagh and mental health. See the attached table, adapted from Boini, 2020 and Gollac et al, 2011.

2/14

Job insecurity has long been recognized as a mental health risk. But was Castlereagh's job insecure? No.

Electorally he was in safe seats, only losing his home seat briefly in 1805. His position in Cabinet after 1812 was arguably more secure than Liverpool's.

3/14

Read 15 tweets

Andrew Brunatti

@AndrewBrunatti

Aug 3, 2022

For the next #Castlereagh200 thread, let's look at value conflicts.

Value conflicts contribute to chronic stress, and are a serious risk factor in #MentalHealth.

What kind of value conflicts did Castlereagh face throughout his career as a public servant?

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#twitterstorians

Value conflicts can be internal (e.g. an individual having to choose between competing values at a personal level) or external (e.g. an individual's personal values conflicting with a competing value system in their professional or social environment).

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In the workplace, value conflicts can create the perception that a competing value system is keeping a person from achieving good or just outcomes, or can lead to ethical dilemmas. The tension can be difficult to identify, but pervasive and demoralizing.

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