Ann Pratt

Ann Pratt (born c. 1830) was a mixed-race mulatto woman from Hanover Parish, Jamaica, recognised for her pan-British Empire influencing pamphlet called Seven Months in the Kingston Lunatic Asylum and what I Saw There, August 21, 1860.

In the pamphlet's preface, Ann states "My object in coming before the public with the following facts [is] to make known to all, whom it concerns, the actual treatment of the unfortunate people that came within the walls of Kingston Lunatic Asylum.

"[1] In the pages of Ann's influential pamphlet, she details briefly her early life leading up to her admittance to Kingston Lunatic Asylum.

[3] According to Jones: "In her pamphlet Ann Pratt graphically described the worst of these 'acts of cruelty and ill-usage' – the practice of tanking – after Judith Ryan, the matron of the lunatic asylum, had ordered that [Pratt] be tanked ... forcibly holding patients under water."

When a fellow inmate died from the procedure, the matron and her two assistants were charged with manslaughter, but they were acquitted by a jury.