In 1991, I published a paper entitled ‘Whatever happened to Henry Maudsley?’, ^{Reference Rollin, Berrios and Freeman1} in which I had deduced that the most likely reason for his sudden and inexplicable disappearance was the onset of an attack of clinical depression.

I further deduced that his malady was primarily precipitated by the death of his wife, although secondary factors were at work of which there are two main ones. The first was that his was a childless marriage so that the loss of his wife resulted in the loss of his only emotional prop; second, his father had behaved in an identical way when his wife, Maudsley's mother, had died.

It was only after the publication of my paper that I realised that my explanation, although certainly feasible, was based on mainly circumstantial evidence, so that, instead of solving the enigma of Maudsley's disappearance, I had complicated it. But it was too late; I had no option but to rest my case. And this is how the position would be today if serendipity had not taken a hand in the game.

It happened that while researching material about the Victorian alienists, I came across a paper, previously unknown to me, by Dr Thomas Walmsley concerning Sir James Crichton-Browne, probably the doyen of psychiatrists at that time.

Dr Walmsley refers in this paper to the occasion when Sir James delivered the first Maudsley lecture to the Royal Medico-Psychological Association in 1920. It is in this paper that Sir James ‘recalled the optimistic and energetic Henry Maudsley with whom he had been friendly in the 1860s. With some feeling [the use of this expression is important in that any demonstration of emotion in public at that time would have been considered infra dig], he contrasted the morose and reclusive Maudsley of later years.’ ^{Reference Walmsley2}

I remember that at this point I emitted a whoop, a mélange of joy and relief – my supposition as to the disappearance of Henry Maudsley had been vindicated!