Two of my children are autistic, and I'm often asked what happened historically to autistic children.

It's a complicated question because autism wasn't 'discovered' until the 1940s. Before then, autistic children were simply lunatics. Many were institutionalised.

But here's a little vignette that says something about how autistic children might have been looked after in the Victorian age.
Joseph Partridge was born in 1853, in Gold's Green, and he was a 'lunatic' according to his father.

Lunatic rather than imbecile, and that's an important distinction, as imbecile often pointed to a more obvious learning disability.

Anyway, in April 1864, Joseph died. He set himself on fire and died four days later. The inquest is interesting from the point of view of looking after disabled children at home, rather than in an asylum.

Joseph lived with his parents, siblings, uncle and grandparents. Between them, they tried to ensure Joseph was always supervised. His father testified that if they had to leave him unattended, they tied him up to stop him playing with the fire.

Joseph had a fascination with the fire, and would set strips of paper on fire. He regularly inadvertently set himself on fire, which is why he was never left unattended. On this occasion, he was left alone while his mother went out and his grandparents and father were upstairs.

They discovered him absolutely engulfed in flames. His father threw a bucket of water over him. But Joseph had been too badly burned to be saved - burns care had not been developed at this time.

The coroner was horrified at Joseph's parental negligence. He adjourned the inquest to investigate why Joseph was at home, and reconvened the inquest four days later.

He said the child was a 'dangerous lunatic' who should have been in an asylum, not 'at large'. He advised the jury to either find a verdict of manslaughter against the parents, or accidental death.

The jury found a verdict of accidental death, apparently having more sympathy for parents trying to look after Joseph than the coroner.