Patients and Inmates ~ what's the difference ?

Originally Posted by Rachel

Hiya
I was actually doing a bit of an idle search on FMP after an email from my NZ cousin (we share gt gt grandparents) and have spent the past few years bashing our branches into shape, swapping info and doing the fine-tuning !

Gt gt aunt Rebecca was easy to find in 1911 and then it sort of took off


Sue ~ it definitely says Epsom and not Ewell
Will PM you with the relevant bit of image as I don't know if it's OK to put it on the website

A fascinating day and I've not made a start on anything I had planned !

Oh but isn't it nice when you get to the bottom of something though

[Rachel]

Originally Posted by maggie_4_7

Oh but isn't it nice when you get to the bottom of something though

FANTASTIC !!!!!!! I never imagined the 1911 census would unearth so much

Now, if only I could find the other 2 gt gt aunts ........

[Langley Vale Sue]

I agree the image has Ewell crossed out. The actual address of St Ebba's is Hook Road, Epsom, but Ewell is only about 500 yards from the perimeter of the grounds, hence Ewell Epileptic Colony. The ennumerator may well have been a local person and they tend to be very territorial! Epsom is Epsom and Ewell is Ewell. LOL

From memory, back then the local authority was Epsom Council and Ewell was added later. Without looking in my local history books I can't be sure of the dates or exact name the local authority went under.


Each 'mental' hospital was a community in it's own right and almost self sufficient. Each had a farm where inmates worked the land and tended the animals and a laundry and bakery and kitchens. There was a railway line which ran into the hospital grounds from the local station and even now, with huge housing estates built on each of the former hospital sites, traces of the railway can still be seen, along with some buildings which have listed status.

[Olde Crone]

Back to the original question - surely the difference between "patient" and "inmate" would be (in this context) that a patient was bedbound, ill, or suffering from some condition which required active nursing care whereas an inmate was just someone who lived there and was in normal active health apart from epilepsy.

Perhaps an inmate would be expected to work, a patient wouldn't.

I used to live a few hundred yards from Friern Barnet Hospital which was the largest North London mental hospital. This was actually known by several names, one of which was "the colony". The Colony was an area of the hospital set aside for epileptics and covered many acres. Another area was known as the Farm and again occupied many acres.

As Sue said, these hospitals were the size of towns and Friern housed literally thousands of patients, who spent their whole lives there.

All gone now and sold off for executive housing. Although these hospitals could be terrible places for those kept in locked wards, for others they were a place of safety and sanctuary in a world which had no time for those afflicted by mental problems.

OC

[Uncle John]

Or a place where sanctimonious relatives got bothersome relatives shut away (e.g. Bill Oddie's mother at Napsbury (I think), south of St. Albans. That was another place with its own railway siding.

[Rachel]

Originally Posted by Uncle John

Or a place where sanctimonious relatives got bothersome relatives shut away (e.g. Bill Oddie's mother at Napsbury (I think), south of St. Albans. That was another place with its own railway siding.

Blimey ~ it's all very well having a healthy imagination but I'm getting visions of Auschwitz


OH has been telling me about a few people he's met who had ECTs and how appalling they found it

[Olde Crone]

I have a dim memory, which may NOT be correct, that the station which served Friern Barnet (New Southgate Station) had a private entrance which led to a track through the grounds of the hospital.

At the time the hospital was built, there would have been more people living in it than were living in the surrounding area, so it would make sense to have a railway station right on its doorstep.

OC

[Uncle John]

The siding to Napsbury Hospital still existed when I started commuting from Luton to London (1967) and the last traces only disappeared when the main line was electrified c. 1980.

[Rachel]

OC many thanks for your posts. I'm beginning to get an idea of what institution life may have been like in the early 1900s.
Some thoughts make me shudder but then, looking at the photos on Sue's thread

http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplo...nCemetery.html

the buildings and setting look almost pleasant ~ I guess that would have been good PR anyway !

This has been quite amazing.
Until now, the name Dora was just that, a name on a page and previous searches for a marriage or a death produced nothing sensible but now here she is, a real person with a life albeit tragic.
The whole family has come to life for me ~ oh dear poor gt gt Aunt Rebecca.

1911 finds her husband in the workhouse, their only son in another institution (Church Army Labour House), their only daughter in Epsom ~ so far away from Fulham, where they lived, that I wonder how often anybody could visit. Also there had been another child ~ 3 born and 2 still living ~ another one for me to investigate.

Thank you all so much

[Rachel]

It may be of interest

This is Rebecca's mother (Dora's grandmother)

http://genealogistsforum.co.uk/forum...ead.php?t=3281