(1904-1956), psychiatrist Effie Lilian Hutton (also known as Lilian Hutton) was born in Teesdale, County Durham on 25 March 1904. She trained in medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, London in 1928, before gaining psychiatric experience at Harton Hospital, Newcastle and Rainhill Hospital, Liverpool. Between 1933 and 1939, Hutton worked at a neurosyphilis clinic at Horton Hospital, Epsom, conducting research on the use of malarial therapy. In 1939, Hutton was offered a post at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. She rapidly rose through the ranks of the Burden and was appointed its Clinical Director just a year later. During the Second World War, Hutton’s work focused on the introduction of new physical treatments for psychiatric conditions, such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). She was also in charge of organising Britain’s first leucotomy (lobotomy), which was performed at the Burden on 19 February 1941. In July 1941, Hutton published the results of the first eight patients to be given the procedure in the Lancet. Despite her initial enthusiasm for such treatments, further research on their negative side effects led Hutton to successfully argue for the discontinuation of psychosurgery at the Burden. Hutton’s later research instead focused on the more spiritual aspects of psychiatric care, arguing for the importance of both religion and love in the treatment of neurosis and similar conditions. Hutton died on 8 August 1956 following a long illness.

biochemist, active 1950s Leslie D. MacLeod was a biochemist and researcher at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. His research focused on the effects of alcohol and alcohol addiction on the brain and was supported by funds from the Society for the Study of Addiction.

(1903-1972), psychiatrist, pioneer in cybernetics and systems theory William Ross Ashby (also known as Ross Ashby) was born in Lewisham, London on 6 September 1903. He was educated at Worcester College and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and gained his BA in Zoology in 1924. Ashby then went on to pursue a medical degree at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, before receiving his Diploma in Psychological Medicine from Bethlem Royal Hospital, London in 1930. Ashby spent the next three decades in various psychiatric posts, serving as a Clinical Psychiatrist for London County Council (1930-1936), a Research Pathologist for St Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton (1936-1947), and then Director of Research at Barnwood House, Gloucester, a private psychiatric institution. In 1959, Ashby succeeded Frederick Lucien Golla (1878-1968) as Director of the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. However, his tenure at the Burden proved unpopular with several key researchers, who resigned in protest over his management methods, which included mandatory examinations and the hiring of private investigators to look into employees’ private lives. Pushed to resign from the post, Ashby left Britain entirely to take up a position at the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois in January 1961, where he remained until his retirement in 1970. Beyond his psychiatric work, Ashby is recognised as an early pioneer in the field of cybernetics, the study of feedback and control systems in humans and machines. He co-founded the Ratio Club, an informal dining and discussion group which met between 1949 and 1955 and provided a key social outlet for cybernetic enthusiasts. He also wrote the seminal cybernetic text Design for the Brain in 1950 and invented several cybernetic machines, most notably the “homeostat” in 1946-1947, a self-correcting electronic feedback machine designed to model the adaptive qualities of the human brain. In March 1972, Ashby was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. He died on 15 November 1972.

(1910-1977), neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (also known as Grey Walter) was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 19 February 1910 to journalist parents Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880-1965) and Minerva (Margaret) Lucrezia Hardy (1879-1953). The Walter family moved from the United States to Britain in 1915, where William remained for the rest of his life. He was educated at Westminster School (1922-1928), before taking the Natural Science Tripos at King’s College, Cambridge (1928-1931). He went on to pursue postgraduate research on nerve physiology and conditioned reflexes, gaining his MA in 1935. After completing his MA, Walter was invited to work at the Central Pathological Laboratory of the Maudsley Hospital, London, under neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1877-1968). Since the late 1920s, Golla had become increasingly interested in the clinical applications of the burgeoning field of electroencephalography (EEG), the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain via electrodes placed on the scalp. Noting his skill in technical matters, Golla encouraged Walter to develop increasingly sophisticated EEG devices, and supported his application for a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship to visit the Jena laboratory of German physiologist Hans Berger (1873-1941), widely credited as the founder of electroencephalography. Walter went on to achieve several key ‘firsts’ in electroencephalography, including the first detection of a cerebral tumour using the technique in 1936. Between 1936 and 1939, Walter expanded his research programme and took readings from hundreds of patients, focusing particularly on the electrical patterns of epilepsy. In 1939, Golla was invited to become director of the new Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders, and invited Walter to become director of the Institute’s Physiology Department. At the Burden, Walter further developed his EEG apparatus, developing the automatic frequency analyser and the toposcope in 1943 and 1950 respectively. His research programme also became increasingly ambitious, with investigations into the cerebral effects of stroboscopic light beginning in 1947 and, later, the discovery of ‘contingent negative variation’ (CNV, or the ‘expectancy wave’) in the 1960s. Walter also played a key role in the professionalization of electroencephalography during this period, co-founding the journal Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology and organising meetings of the EEG Society (1943-1989). Outside of his clinical work, Walter became a key figure in early British cybernetics, the study of feedback, control, and communication systems in humans and machines that synthesised approaches from engineering, biology, and mathematics. He co-founded the Ratio Club, an informal dining and discussion group which provided a key social outlet for cybernetic enthusiasts, which met between 1949 and 1955. He also built several cybernetic devices in his spare time, the most famous of which were his robotic tortoises, or Machina Speculatrix, designed to function as simple models of the adaptable human brain. These received national attention when they were exhibited on television in 1950 and at the Festival of Britain in 1951. He also became a prolific public intellectual, writing 170 scientific publications, serving as an expert witness in court courses, appearing frequently on the BBC, and writing an immensely popular non-specialist text on his neuroscientific work, The Living Brain (1953). His work also gained a surprising popularity among counter-cultural artists during the 1950s and 1960s, including Beat writers William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, who saw Walter’s research as part of a broader investigation of human consciousness. Walter was married twice, first to Katharine Monica Ratcliffe in 1934 and then to Vivian Joan Dovey (1915-1980) in 1947, with whom he had one son, Timothy Walter (1949-1976). Walter and Dovey separated in 1960 and divorced in 1973. After their separation, Walter lived with Lorraine Josephine Aldridge (née Donn) until 1972. In 1970, Walter suffered severe brain damage following a road accident, forcing him to retire from full-time research work. He died of a heart attack in 1977.

(1920-2007), electrical engineer Harold William (‘Shippy’) Shipton was born 29 September 1920. He was educated at St Michael’s School, Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury Technical College, before joining the Royal Air Force in 1939. During the Second World War, Shipton’s worked as an electrical engineer in a secret project developing night-fighter radar. After the Second World War, Shipton joined the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. Shipton was part of the team responsible for developing electroencephalographic (EEG, related to the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain) equipment under the direction of neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). While working at the Burden, he met his wife, Janet Helen Attlee (1923-), a psychologist at a local hospital. The couple married on 20 November 1947 in a wedding considered ‘the society event of the year’ due to a reception at Chequers held by Janet’s father, then-Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1883-1967). The Shiptons immigrated to the United States in 1958, where Harold had been offered a research associate position at the University of Iowa. There, he continued his EEG research, developing a multichannel toposcopic display system in the early 1960s. In 1963, he became director of the Medical Electronics Laboratory in Iowa, before becoming Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University, St Louis, in 1979. He retired in 1989, but continued working in the field of brain research, including collaborations with NASA on experiments investigating the measurement of brain activity. The couple moved to Utah following Harold’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease in the early 2000s. He died on 9 April 2007.

electrical engineer, active 1940s-1960s W.J. (‘Bunny’) Warren was an electrical engineer at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. Warren was a key player in the Burden’s research programme during the 1950s, building an advanced 2-channel electroencephalograph (EEG, a device designed to measure the electrical activity of the brain) with colleague Harold Shipton (1920-2007) in 1957. Warren also played an important role in mid-twentieth-century British cybernetics through his collaborations with neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). Warren built improved prototypes of Walter’s famous robot tortoises, or Machina Speculatrix, which later went on display at the Festival of Britain in 1951. Their partnership continued in 1953, when Warren constructed CORA (Conditioned Reflex Analogue), an early experiment in artificial intelligence which attempted to replicate classical conditioning in humans and animals, from Walter’s designs.

(1915-1980), radiographer Vivian Joan Aldridge (née Vivian Joan Dovey, later Vivian Joan Walter) was born in Edmonton, Middlesex on 12 August 1915. She trained as a radiographer and received a diploma of M.S.R. (Membership of the Society of Radiographers) before taking up a position as scientific officer at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. After the Second World War, Dovey played a key role in the Burden’s expanding electroencephalographic (EEG, relating to the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain) research programme. She collaborated closely with colleagues on the use of the EEG to identify sub-cortical tumours, as well as in investigations of the effect of stroboscopic light on the electrical activity in the human brain. In 1946, Dovey was part of the Burden team which discovered that seizures similar to those encountered in cases of epilepsy could be produced in ‘normal’ subjects when flickering lights were applied at particular frequencies. She also co-authored several key papers which helped to establish the Burden’s credentials in these areas, including in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (1944) and Nature (1946). Dovey married neurophysiologist and Burden colleague William Grey Walter (1910-1977) in 1947, with whom she had one son, Timothy Walter (1949-1976). The couple separated in 1960, and later divorced in 1973. Following her separation from Walter, Vivian lived with greengrocer Keith Aldridge, whose surname she eventually took. She died in 1980.

The Burden Neurological Institute (BNI) is an independently-funded research unit and registered charity specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders. The BNI opened in 1939 at the Stoke Park Colony in Bristol, England. The BNI was named after philanthropist Rosa Gladys Burden (1891-1939). Burden’s husband, Reverend Harold Nelson Burden (1859-1930), founded the Stoke Park Colony with his first wife Katherine Mary Burden (1856-1919) in 1909. The Colony became the first certified institution for the care of individuals with mental disorders in Britain following the passing of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. After Harold Burden’s death in 1930, Rosa continued his sponsorship of medical research by founding the Burden Research Trust in 1933, a £10,000 research fund to support medical and psychiatric studies of the Colony’s patients. In 1936, the Trust built a dedicated epilepsy clinic on site with a fully-fitted operating theatre, two small wards, and several laboratories. The clinic was officially opened on 12 May 1939 as the Burden Neurological Institute, under the directorship of neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1878-1968). The BNI’s work was soon disrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Throughout the conflict, the site was used as a neurosurgical hospital by the Emergency Medical Service (1938-1945), a state-run network of free hospital services organised by the Ministry of Health. Despite these duties, the laboratories remained open and research projects continued, such as a programme of electroencephalographic (EEG) research on war casualties who had sustained head injuries. Following the end of the war and the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, Golla fought to keep the BNI independent to ensure that researchers could continue to choose their own projects. The BNI did, however, provide neurophysiological services for nearby hospitals for an annual fee. From its foundation, the BNI took a leading role in the development of neurological and psychiatric expertise in Britain. Researchers at the BNI carried out the country’s first trial of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) in 1939, closely followed by the first prefrontal leucotomy in 1940. The BNI also established itself as a centre of innovation in engineering, cybernetics, and early robotics during the post-war years, due in great part to the work of neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977). Walter’s best-known inventions, his Machina Speculatrix (small robotic tortoises designed to model the basic functions of the human brain) attracted national attention, appearing in newspapers, on television, and at the Festival of Britain in 1951. After several years of financial uncertainty, the Trustees of the Burden estate sold the Stoke Park site to the Ministry of Health in 1968. While clinical work continued under the NHS at the newly constituted Burden Neurological Hospital, the Institute’s scientific researchers decided to remain separate, turning the BNI into a Company Limited by Guarantee in 1970. In 2000, the BNI moved its headquarters to the Rosa Burden Centre at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, following the final closure of the Stoke Park site in the late 1990s.