On March 17, 1919 - just a month short of 100 years ago - Dr Bedford Pierce, the medical director of the York Retreat mental hospital, settled down to write an account for the hospital's committee of the huge contribution made by its Head Attendant, Thomas Darley.

Darley, who had worked as Attendant then Head Attendant at the hospital for more than 40 years, had just died.

Dr Pierce's office was filled with letters and cards expressing condolences. Settling himself at his desk, the medical director wrote in his diary that his friend and colleague had had the ability 'to reflect divine light into the dark areas of people's souls' and to 'show them how valued and unique each of them was.'

In his report for the hospital's committee, he went further. "He noted that from the day Darley started working at The Retreat, he had demonstrated an unusual ability to relate to people with mental illness," writes Peter Nolan, a retired Professor of Mental Health Care who has been interested in The Retreat since the 1960s.

"Pierce considered that this sensitivity arose from his (Darley's) deep trust in the goodness of people and his belief that everyone could recover if given the appropriate support.

"Darley’s outstanding qualities were that he encouraged the depressed and could check the exuberance of the excited by being blessed with the wonderful gifts of a natural ready wit and unbounded patience. Furthermore, Darley possessed an intuitive understanding of how to avoid topics and behaviours that might distress a patient and aggravate his condition. He was able to listen attentively without interrupting and to give people sufficient time to tell their story in order to get to know them better."

That might sound like a description of natural good practice for a mental health worker today. But in mental hospitals of the time (Darley first joined The Retreat in 1872) it was anything but normal. Darley, and his similarly enlightened medical director Dr Pierce, were way ahead of their time.

The Retreat had been founded in 1792 by William Tuke and the Society of Friends (Quakers) in order to champion a more humane way of treating people with mental illnesses. Ill treatment of such patients - including beatings, confinement and 'underfeeding'- were commonplace. It was the death of a Leeds Quaker, Hannah Mills, in appalling conditions in the York Lunatic Asylum (later Bootham Park Hospital) which inspired Tuke and his fellow Quakers to set up The Retreat.

The Retreat, which opened in 1796, began to pioneer a new, more humane way of treatment. It's very first Head Attendant, George Jepson, believed that all individuals deserved to be treated with gentleness and civility.

No-one exemplified that approach more than Dr Pierce and Thomas Darley.

Darley was a 'shy man who strenuously avoided self publicity', according to Prof Nolan, who is a member of the Clements Hall Local History Group. So it is quite possible that there are no surviving photos of him. But during more than 40 years at The Retreat, he left a deep impression upon those he helped.

A Quaker himself, from the moment he joined the hospital in 1872 he embraced the hospital's approach to treatment, writes Prof Nolan - an approach with 'prohibited all forms of physical restraint, violence and intimidation'.

After 20 years at the hospital, he was promoted to Head Attendant - a senior position in which he was responsible for the recruitment, supervision and training of all the hospital's male staff, as well as for the well-being of male patients.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, he was faced with another responsibility - trying to hold onto staff when Recruiting Officers wanted them released to serve King and Country. "Darley's job was to make clear that nurses were exempted from conscription and that the care of patients was also a national priority," writes Prof Nolan.

It was to prove a tall order. At the outbreak of war, The Retreat had about 40 staff. Within two years, this had fallen to 18 - six of whom were under 16 and twelve of whom had various disabilities.

The number of patients remained the same, however - so the hospital had to find new ways of maintaining the standard of care. Relatives and volunteers were encouraged to help out - and some female nurses were employed on male wards.

Despite his struggles to find staff, Darley remained resolute in maintaining the standard of care. In 1916, two nurses and four attendants were dismissed for 'slapping and struggling with patients, and failing to report assaults on patients which they had witnessed', writes Prof Nolan.

On Darley's death in 1919, Dr Pierce was inundated with letters from patients and former patients expressing their gratitude to the Head Attendant.

"Special mention was made of the kindly way in which he approached patients with a smile and a firm handshake, and of his optimistic attitude, often referring to previous patients who had made a good recovery," Prof Nolan writes.

Prof Nolan first became aware of the important part The Retreat played in the history of British mental health care when he was studying psychology in the 1960s.

Today, The Retreat no longer provides inpatient and residential services, although it does still offer community psychological assessment and therapy at the Tuke Centre.

It was in its time, however, one of the 'most iconic hospitals for people with mental health problems', says Prof Nolan.

He has been studying The Retreat's mental health records. And Thomas Darley, he says, represented all that was best about

the hospital. His life 'offers insight into what good mental health nursing looked like in the early part of the 20th century'.

A hundred years after his death, that's a tribute that even a man as shy as Thomas Darley would surely have been proud of...

Stephen Lewis