worth, a well-known clergyman [see under Charlesworth, Maria Louisa]. After a pupilage with Dr. E. Harrison of Horncastle, he went to Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1807. He married a daughter of Dr. Rockcliffe of Horncastle, and settled at Lincoln, where he acquired a large practice. He became physician to the Lincoln county hospital, and from 1820 visiting physician to the Lincoln asylum for the insane. Having become conversant in Dr. Harrison's private asylum with the extremely coercive methods of treating the insane then in vogue, Charlesworth devoted his energies for many years to improving the system at Lincoln, and very early secured the issue of an order forbidding attendants to use restraint or violence without the consent of the directors. He brought about successive improvements of the structure and arrangements of the asylum, and secured in 1821 a classification of patients and opportunities for their full exercise in the open air. In 1828 he obtained an order 'that every instrument of restraint when not in use be hung up in a place distinctly appropriated to that purpose, so that the number and nature of such instrument in use at any time may appear.' Various more objectionable instruments were destroyed, and the house surgeon was ordered to record every case of coercion. Finally, when a house surgeon named Hadwen was in office in 1834, for some weeks no single patient was under restraint. While Mr. Gardiner Hill was house surgeon from 1835 onwards, mechanical restraint was practically abolished, and the experience of this asylum powerfully influenced Dr. Conolly in resolving to abolish restraint at Hanwell. Mr. Hill afterwards claimed the sole merit of this result; but Charlesworth's long uphill fight for many years was undoubtedly the main factor in producing it (Lancet, 6 Nov. 1863, pp. 439–42).
Charlesworth was a most capable physician, devoted to the poor, accomplishing much by rigid economy of time, very practical in everything, a strict disciplinarian, yet zealous in wise reforms. He died of paralysis on 20 Feb. 1853.
[Lancet, 12 March 1853, p. 255; Extract from Lecture by Dr. Conolly, Lancet, 14 May 1853, p. 458; Lancet, 5 Nov. 1853, pp. 439–42; Medical Times and Gazette, 19 March 1853; Conolly's Treatment of the Insane, 1856; Sir J. Clark's Memoir of John Conolly, 1869; Charlesworth's Remarks on the Treatment of the Insane, 1828.]
CHARLESWORTH, MARIA LOUISA (1819–1880), author, was daughter of John Charlesworth (1782–1864), son of John Charlesworth, rector of Ossington, Nottinghamshire. Her father was curate of Happisburgh, Norfolk (1809); B.D. of Queens' College, Cambridge (1826); rector of Flowton, Suffolk (1814–44); rector of St. Mildred's, London (1844–62); an ardent supporter of church societies, and an admirable clergyman (Fitzgerald, The Quiet Worker for good John Charlesworth, 1865). Maria Louisa Charlesworth was born at the rectory of Blakenham Parva, near Ipswich, held by her father for a short time while rector of Flowton, 1 Oct. 1819. From the age of six she ministered among the poor in her father's parish. After her parents' decease she sometimes resided with her brother, the Rev. Samuel Charlesworth, at Limehouse, but her permanent home for the last sixteen years of her life was at Nutfield, Surrey, where she died 16 Oct. 1880, aged 61. 'The Female Visitor to the Poor, by a Clergyman's Daughter,' 1846, a book in which she embodied her own experiences among the poor, ran to several editions, and was translated into foreign languages. 'Ministering Children,' first published by Miss Charlesworth in 1854, had an enormous circulation; many portions of it were issued as distinct works. The following is a list of her writings: 1. 'The Female Visitor to the Poor,' 1846. 2. 'A Book for the Cottage,' 1848. 3. 'A Letter to a Child,' 1849. 4. 'Letters to a Friend under Affliction,' 1849. 5. 'The Light of Life,' 1850. 6. 'Sunday Afternoons in the Nursery,' 1853. 7. 'Ministering Children,' 1854. 8. 'Africa's Mountain Valley,' 1856. 9. 'The Sabbath given, the Sabbath lost,' 1856. 10. 'The Ministry of Life,' 1858. 11. 'India and the East, or a Voice from the Zenana,' 1860. 12. 'England's Yeomen from Life in the Nineteenth Century,' 1861. 13. 'Ministering Children, a Sequel,' 1867. 14. 'The Last Command of Jesus Christ,' 1869. 15. 'Where dwellest thou? or the Inner Home,' 1871. 16. 'Eden and Heaven,' 1872. 17. 'Oliver of the Mill,' 1876. 18. 'The Old Looking-glass,' 1878. 19. 'The Broken Looking-glass,' 1880. 20. 'Heavenly Counsel in daily portions: Readings on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Being notes from the bible classes of M. L. Charlesworth. Edited by H. Maria Barclay,' 1883.
[Men of the Time (1879), p. 243; Woman's Work in the great Harvest Field, February 1881, pp. 45–7; Brief Memoir, 'written for insertion in Ministering Children,' privately printed.]
CHARLETON. [See also Charlton.]
CHARLETON, RICE, M.D. (1710–1789), physician, was educated at Oxford, where he took the degrees of M.A., M.B., and
