The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness [Hardcover]

Mike Jay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 2004

London, the 1790s. Europe is in turmoil, and mysterious forces seem to be edging England into a disastrous war with France. Not quite at the center of the political maelstrom is James Tilly Matthews, a Welsh tea merchant and antiwar advocate who holds covert meetings with the leaders of both countries. But Matthews also believes his mind is being controlled by a gang of revolutionary "terrorists" and their diabolical secret machine called the Air Loom. The only man aware of the Air Loom's existence, Matthews is promptly declared mad and exiled to Bedlam, where he is held against his will for the rest of his life — by order of England's home secretary, Lord Liverpool. At Bedlam his "delusions" are celebrated as the most complex and bizarre ever recorded, but the truth of his case is even stranger than his doctors realize: many of the incredible political episodes in which he claims to have been involved are entirely real.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jay (Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century) weaves a miscarriage-of-justice drama around the shadowy case of James Tilly Matthews, a smalltime political operative in the tumultuous aftermath of the French Revolution, who was detained for more than 14 years in Bedlam, the notorious London madhouse. Jay takes as his starting point Matthews's 1796 arrest for publicly accusing Lord Liverpool, the home secretary, of treason. Examining what were taken to be Matthews's delusional accounts of high-level political intrigue, Jay finds evidence that his claims were founded in reality. He unfurls a stranger-than-fiction tale of a bizarrely autonomous double agent, and then elegantly segues into a philosophical discussion of agency in its psychiatric context. Jay allows that Matthews showed unmistakable schizophrenic tendencies in his vision of a mind-control machine—the so-called Air Loom and its "gang" of spooky operators. But he argues that Matthews's long confinement in Bedlam owed more to the careerism of Bedlam's apothecary John Haslam and to government overreaction than to any risk Matthews posed to society. Through subtle discussion of Matthews's obsessions with persecution and conspiracy, Jay points to a visionary element in madness as the touchstone of the era's preoccupations. To these thoughts he adds fascinating accounts of the rise of the chemistry of gases and mesmerism. Mindful of the interrelation of prison, mental hospital and politics, Jay constructs a pertinent historical essay on justice and the mentally ill during times of terror and paranoia that resonates today at many levels.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Strange only begins to describe this bizarre story of a man who may be the first documented paranoid schizophrenic in psychiatric history. In 1796, James Tilly Matthews was a south London pauper with a wife and young family when he attended a session of the House of Commons and from the gallery shouted "Treason!" at the home secretary, Lord Liverpool. For Matthews, this was an imperative act of defiance against a diabolical plot employing an insidious "thought control" machine he called the Air Loom. He alleged he was a confidante of the highest heads of state and privy to several state secrets. His claims notwithstanding, he was quickly wrestled and scuttled off to London's infamous Bethlam, or Bedlam--a name synonymous with hell on earth for those diagnosed with psychiatric disorders--for the remainder of his life, without hope of reprieve, despite the unceasing entreaties of his family. More interesting is that it became plain, after numerous hearings, that it didn't matter whether Matthews was insane or not: he had been committed and imprisoned on the official orders of Lord Liverpool himself. But was Matthews mad? Read this fascinating account and be the judge. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows (March 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568582978
• ISBN-13: 978-1568582979
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Madness with Meaning, March 24, 2004

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness (Hardcover)

Any psychiatrist has treated patients who thought their minds and wills were being controlled from the outside, perhaps from mysterious rays or hidden machines. This cannot sound so strange now as it must have a couple of centuries ago. We may not be used to mind control of that type, but we live in a world powered by invisible rays and hidden machines. When James Tilly Matthews entered the famous hospital for the insane, London's Bedlam in 1797, his complaints must have sounded bizarre indeed. He told his doctor that he, and many of the powerful in England and France, were being manipulated by a mysterious gang who were using invisible gases and rays from an unimaginably complex machine called an air loom, and that his thoughts were being altered and controlled and his body was being painfully punished. Matthews's bizarre story is the subject of a surprising and novel-like history, _The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and his Visionary Madness_ (Four Walls Eight Windows) by Mike Jay. What is especially peculiar is that although Matthew's ideas were clearly delusional, his complaints stemmed from real persecutions he was made to undergo. As the old joke says, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.

Matthews was a wholesale tea dealer who wound up shuttling between Britain and revolutionary France with a peace proposal. It is not surprising that Matthews had little effect; but it is surprising that at the time of the Terror, all he had to endure on the French side was a spell in a French Revolutionary prison. In 1796, after his return to England, he entered the public viewing area of the House of Commons, and yelled "Treason!" into the hall. This got him into Bedlam, and he was to be incarcerated for the rest of his life. His rooms were unheated, he would have straw to sleep on, and for some years he would be chained to his bed. It is quite possible that pummeled first by peculiarities of world events and then by the cruelties of incarceration as a lunatic that he began weaving contemporary ideas about pneumatics, electricity, and Mesmer's animal magnetism into a widespread delusional explanation of just how he got persecuted into such a position. We know about his delusions in detail because in charge of him was the apothecary John Haslam, and Matthews was Haslam's star patient. Jay shows that the delusions can possibly be seen as Matthews's response to persecution, with Haslam as co-creator.

This is a tangled tale, expertly told. There are parts of it that are deeply mysterious, and for which there is no documentation, only speculation; how Matthews came to be running secret diplomacy, and who was paying him to do so, and what he really was doing, can only be guessed at. The gripping story of Matthews coming to delusional terms with his predicament is actually moving, and his eventual (if posthumous) triumph over Haslam is convincing. Best of all Jay has gone a long way in successfully trying to explain the politics, science, and history of the time. His picture of treatment of the insane in the crumbling Bedlam, at the cusp of instituting sympathetic "moral" treatments of Philippe Pinel, is unforgettable. There may not have been a real air loom, but that doesn't keep it from meaning something; and Matthews may have been an incarcerated schizophrenic, but that doesn't keep him from being a bit of a hero.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Fascinating History, June 18, 2004

By 

Charles J. Rector (Woodstock, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness (Hardcover)

The Air-Loom Gang by Mike Jay is a book about the most incredible events. It is about one James Tilly Matthews who was declared insane for his beliefs about treason at the highest levels of the British Government during the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic period. As it turns out, Matthews was actually right to some extent and as a former spy, was in a good position to be able to determine if there really was treasonous activities in the British government at the time. Matthews's case became a cause clebre and he was eventually released from the insane asylum and eventually started an architecture magazine and even submitted plans for an insane asylum.

This is an excellent book dealing with a most fascinating episode in British history.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History by layers, June 19, 2009

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Lloyd F. Mercer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness (Hardcover)

I stumbled on to this book, quite by accident in a discount catalogue, that you might enjoy. I am a life long student of history (I guess in an effort to understand the world). I especially think history viewed through the lens of intelligence operations often clarifies the picture. I also, at one time, spent a large part of my career caring for seriously mentally ill patients. This may explain my attraction to this book.

The Air Loom Gang by Mike Jay.

Reading this book is like approaching a large tapestry. From a distance the picture is of the French revolution, a concise and well drawn picture. As you step closer you begin to see the details of English politics and how the two regimes interacted, of course ending in the Napoleonic wars. Then on very close inspection you see the thread of one mans life. Perhaps a secret diplomat, a spy, a double agent, a provocateur, negotiating or spreading disinformation. The only thing for certain is that he, at some point,became a mad man as did many people directly involve in this period of terror. He was committed to Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam).

Was he committed because he was a mad man or was he a political prisoner? This leads into a slice of psychiatric history that is worth reading even if it stood alone. It continues into some observations of the mechanics of psychosis. The greatest surprise is at the end, there are some stunning insights into the human mind, society and the human condition. All of the above threads are woven into a stunning tapestry

Lloyd Mercer