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The Scottish Union of Mental Patients was an organisation first established by mental patients at Hartwood Hospital in July 1971.[1]: 38 27 patients signed a petition requesting "redress of grievances and better conditions" at the hospital.[1]: 38 This was the first Mental Patients Union to be formed in the UK and predated the Mental Patients' Union founded in London in 1973.[2] It was founded by Thomas Ritchie, and Robin Farquharson was also a participant.[3] Unlike many other examples of anti-psychiatry SUMP was based on a sense of solidarity amongst a small group of patients detained in locked wards.[1]
The idea of a union for inmates of mental hospitals was first posed by Archie Meek, a 91 year old geriatric patient. He made this remark to Thomas Ritchie, another patient who was helping Archie shave at the time.[2] Ritchie was at the time a state patient – a provision under Scottish Law for the indeterminate detention of a mental patient – under which he was detained for 8 years.
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