6th January Baldovan Asylum opened for 12 children. The Committee of Management became the Board of Directors. Three nurses were employed.
6th January, 1855. Baldovan Asylum opened ‘for the cure and treatment of imbecile and idiot children’ under Sheriff’s licence. 12 children admitted. [ note. Pim (1864) dates the ‘erection’ of Baldovan to 1852]. Note that established prior to the 1857 Lunacy Act and with no counterpart in Scotland its legal status was uncertain. It was therefore “licensed like an asylum for adults, and it was not recognised that it was but a school for the training of certain kinds of children, and as a result the first pupils were admitted on a Sheriff’s warrant as in the case of adult lunatics.”