WILLIAM TUKE was a Quaker merchant living in York in the late18th and early 19th centuries. In response to the abuses that were being perpetrated in the asylums of the time, William Tuke opened the Retreat in York in the 1790's. This was a country house on the outskirts of York which is still there today.

People coming for treatment to the Retreat lived in family sized groups of around 10 people. The treatment at the Retreat was based on common sense and humanity. Patients were expected to help out in the house and garden as part of their treatment.

He employed staff who were kind, interested and had good value systems to act as role models.

The approach used at the York Retreat was a forerunner of the modern day therapeutic community.

In the 1840's William Tukes' nephew was asked to design the new Victorian asylums on the model of the York Retreat. Unfortunately, the changes in the Poor Law in the 1800's and the later misguided practice of putting homosexual men, the mentally handicapped and unmarried mothers into the asylums, meant that these beautiful country houses designed for around 250 people became dumping grounds for thousands. As the pioneering founders of places like the Retreat died, their vision of treatment for the mentally ill also died.

Although not a Quaker charity, Tukes, based in Aberystwyth, is attempting to bring back William Tukes' common sense and humanity in the treatment of emotional illness.