Queen Victoria's Stalker

>Childe was a prolific letter writer, sending short, clear missives to friends and supporters or even the Lunacy Board about his case and his well-being.

Ah, how quaint: the Lunacy Board.

"The Lord Chancellor's jurisdiction over lunatics so found by writ of De Lunatico Inquirendo" [2]

The history is interesting:

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhouses_Act_1774

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunacy_Act_1845

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners_in_Lunacy

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Control_for_Lunacy_an...

> Childe was a prolific letter writer, sending short, clear missives to friends and supporters or even the Lunacy Board about his case and his well-being. Many of these letters also had strange notes on the reverse or in enclosures written in cypher. Childe claimed they were a mere amusement, a bit of nonsense. Childe’s father sent the cyphers to polymath Charles Babbage with the hope he could decipher them. It was these letters, rather than the medical testimony, that were decisive in Childe’s case. These decrypted letters seemed to prove what the doctors insisted all along.

What a fascinating way to deal with a monomania! And not even a Wikipedia article.

Childe wasn't even Queen Victoria's only stalker! There was also the case of Edward Jones (whose obsession even led him to sneak into her bedroom to steal a pair of her underwear)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_boy_Jones

What’s the treatment for stalking? Sounds like a genuine affliction

Fitting as it's apparently National Stalker Awareness month. Who knew?