First in Mental Health provision
In 1808 a select Committee of the House of Commons was set up to consider the best way of treating those persons in asylums, and in that year all counties in England and Wales were empowered to build public asylums.
Few took advantage of the new freedom, preferring instead to simply create more space in workhouses or prisons.
When, therefore in 1811 Nottinghamshire opened a building for sixty patients, it became the first county to use money from public funds (the parish poor rates) for the accommodation and treatment of people with mental health problems (1).
(1) STEVENS, Mark "Life in the Victorian asylum: The world of Nineteenth Century Mental Health Care" (Pen & sword, 2014) p.10.