Lambeth Asylum
The Lambeth Asylum was a hospital situated in the borough of Lambeth, London during the Victorian era.
History[]
Lambeth Asylum was designed by the architect Arthur Hayes, his first and only project, in 1850. Unlike other hospitals, the asylum was largely undocumented, with its records of treatment administered there vague. A year later, Arthur was murdered by his son, Arthur Hayes Jr., who believed his father to be Antichrist. The son was then committed to the asylum for his crime.[1] The hospital was financially supported by the Templars.[2]
Sometime during the 19th century, the Templar John Elliotson, who worked in the asylum, distributed the drug Starrick's Soothing Syrup to its patients. Elliotson also conducted brutal experiments involving electrocution. In 1868, the Assassin Jacob Frye infiltrated the asylum to assassinate Elliotson.[3]
Not much later, Jacob's twin sister Evie Frye and their young accomplice Clara O'Dea visited the asylum to find a cure for Babylon Alley's children. Clara herself had contracted the disease and, with the assistance of Florence Nightingale, Evie managed to find the cure.[4]
Following the assassination Crawford Starrick, the institution's sole benefactor, the asylum closed its doors in January 1869.[1] Jacob Frye recruited at least one of the inmates of the asylum into the Assassin Brotherhood.[5]
A few years later, the asylum was reopened and partially rehabilitated to receive a growing number of violent criminals, most of which were from the borough of Whitechapel.[6]
Two decades later, a former inmate of the asylum committed several gruesome murders, and became widely known as Jack the Ripper. When he found his Terror challenged by Evie Frye, who had recently returned from India,[5] Jack traveled to the asylum to assassinate his former doctor Archer, Nurse Whitney, as well as Director Bradford, destroying all record of his existence.[7]
He then freed the inmates of the G Wing, which were all notoriously violent criminals, as part of his plan to ambush Evie.[7] Eventually, the two confronted each other in the asylum's basement, where Jack had previously locked up a kidnapped Jacob Frye. Evie managed to defeat and kill Jack, and free Jacob. With the help of Inspector Frederick Abberline, they ensured no one ever learned of what had transpired or knew Jack's true identity, a cover-up that persisted into the modern day.[8]
Behind the scenes[]
Lambeth Asylum is a fictional asylum which appears in the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. It seems to be an amalgamation of several real life institutions, as its location and the experimentation with patients appear to be based[9] on the Bethlem Royal Hospital while the central tower is based on the tower of the real life St. Pancras station, which ironically has its appearance fictionalized in-game.[10] The two smaller towers are based on the Royal Albert Hospital.
In its original database entry, the asylum is noted to have been demolished in 1869. This fact is removed from its updated entry in Syndicate's 2015 downloadable expansion Jack the Ripper set in 1888 so as to not conflict with the location being reused. However the original entry was not changed to reflect the retcon.
There are light bulbs inside the asylum, though this is anachronistic as electric light was first used in Holborn in 1883.[11]
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Database: Lambeth Asylum (1868)
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Overdose
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – The Lady with the Lamp
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Database: Lambeth Asylum (1888)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Family Reunion
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Live by the Creed, Die by the Creed
- ↑ Stark, Chelsea (31 January 2016). How 'Assassin's Creed Syndicate' compares to the real dangers of London in 1868. Mashable. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved on 2 September 2017.
- ↑ "AnExplodingDodo" (18 September 2015). Mapping AC Syndicate's London. Ubisoft. Archived from the original on 2 September 2015. Retrieved on 8 October 2017.
- ↑ Lambert, Tim (14 March 2021). A History of London. LocalHistories.org. Archived from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved on 2 September 2017.