Lunatic Asylum records - ancestry

[kiterunner]

The main database:
UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers 1846-1912 (http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=9051)

Also:
England and Wales Criminal Lunacy Warrant and Entry Books 1882-1898 (http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=9162)

England Criminal Lunatic Asylum Registers 1820-1843 (http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=9163)
(this one is a very small database.)

Looking at the main database, ancestry's index includes a data item called "Institution Place" which seems to be a county name that they have deduced from the name of the asylum. This county name can be completely wrong, so I would recommend ignoring it!

For instance, I found my relative Wm Bowskill listed at Fisherton, which it shows as "Institution Place - Ayrshire, Scotland" but it should surely be Fisherton House Asylum, Salisbury, Wiltshire, which accepted criminal lunatics before Broadmoor, according to Wiltshire Council's website. Very interesting for me as I have long been wondering where my relative was before he was placed at Broadmoor.

(Speaking of Broadmoor, ancestry have relocated it to "Pembrokeshire, Wales"!!!)

[Phoenix]

And Colney is almost certainly NOT in Norfolk.

Thanks for this, Kite as it has mopped up exact date of admission (and death) for several people. And confirmed that I had identified correctly the odd person from initials in the census.

[Mary from Italy]

Thanks, Kite, off to look.

[Lindsay]

* Sigh *

Still no sign of GG grandma, supposedly shut up in a lunatic asylum so her wicked hubby could get his hands on money she inherited.

[Nell]

thanks KR

I've found a distant much-removed aunt, who was in Thorpe Lunatic Asylum 1861- 1892 when she died. BUT I discovered through these registers that she was in Colney Hatch for nearly a year.

I assume she was sent back to Thorpe as she was born in Norfolk.

[Merry]

I found four of mine who turned out to have only been in the asylum a matter of days before they died (much less time than I'd imagined). One other turned out to have been incarcerated for 25+ years :(

[Nell]

Particularly pleased to find another Dunt, who was in asylums 1882 to her death in 1890, so I wouldn't have got that info from the censuses.

[maggie_4_7]

I found my Berrywood two - very sad I wonder why they were there. Both women and died there in the 1890s.

I know there is a few more but having difficulty finding them.

[JayG]

Would anyone mind having a look at the record for Ada Gash in Durham please?

[Nell]

Jay

Ada Gash was admitted 27 Jan 1904 to Durham. Her date of discharge or death (it doesn't say which) was 19 Apr 1904. Admission number was 13369.

[Phoenix]

Can I just say that while we are all haunted by the idea of the asylum as dreadful places, in which dreadful things happened, when they were set up they were better than many of the other options.

I have read some of the records for Brookwood in Surrey, and what comes across is a cutting edge system, trying to cure the inmates. Didn't succeed, but then we don't do too much better today.

On a slightly different topic, did you know that prisoners on average put on a stone in weight while in jail? However dull the diet might have been, it was considerably better than starving on the street.

[JayG]

Thanks Nell. Need to see if I can find out anymore info as that might be my great great grandmother. She a had stillbirth and premature birth in the same year and I think it might be around that year, can't check as I don't have access to my tree right now.

[Nell]

Phoenix

Good point. It was better than the early days in Bedlam where looking at the loonies was a tourist attraction. The patients would have care, routine, work and regular meals. I'm sure there were abuses - but there are now, despite all the policies and protocols and watchdogs etc in place. Mental health has always been the Cinderella of our health services, probably because its the hardest to understand.

As you know, our school was surrounded by asylums - Cane Hill, Netherne and Warlingham Park. Originally they were built in the countryside but suburbs encroached. I was always a bit nervous when we went to one of them to sing carols at Christmas!

[Janet]

Thank you, Kite. I've found that my Emily Louisa Wilson was admitted 2 Jan 1909 to Menston in Yorkshire where she died on 14 May 1924. Fifteen years, then.