Calendar of Speaking Engagements 2017/2018

David Scrimgeour has enjoyed a successful first year as a speaker delivering his inaugural illustrated presentation “Early Asylum Life” to family and local history societies, Probus clubs and other interested organisations across Yorkshire and beyond. With his entertaining and educational style of delivery, feedback confirms that David’s talks have been much enjoyed with his latest in September, 2017 being complimented by Marion Moverley of Upper Dales Family History Group as “an excellent and very detailed presentation which raised a lot of interest” and alerted the audience “to sources that some of us had not thought of before”.

David has spent considerable time researching and developing a new presentation “Evolution of Asylum Patient Photography” to place before interested groups in 2018 and beyond. Audiences who haven’t yet heard “Early Asylum Life” are recommended to first book that presentation as an introduction to the subject.

Early Asylum Life:

The audience travels back in time, becoming a “fly on the wall” in one of the 19^th century’s earliest County Asylums in England, the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Yorkshire which opened in 1818. The voices of the insane poor are heard through the words of their physicians, relatives, and very specially, the patients themselves, using material from the UNESCO award winning collection of original case notes and other asylum records held by West Yorkshire Archive Service. Listeners learn in intimate detail about why they were committed, how they were treated and what became of them and their families.

Evolution of Asylum Patient Photography:

The archives of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield contain hundreds of photographs of the insane poor. Rare examples date from 1868, by which time pioneering photographers at other institutions had been capturing patients’ images since the 1850s. Asylum Director James Crichton-Browne, the driving force behind the use of photography, corresponded with celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin enclosing numerous patients’ portraits, usually annotated with a diagnosis of their illness. Through a presentation rich in images captured nearly 150 years ago the audience learns what motivated photography, how it evolved during the 19^th century and what legacy remains today. 

Contact David at david@scrimgeour.biz to check his availability.

Bookings taken for “Early Asylum Life”

Lancashire & Manchester Family History Society, Oldham Branch	Mahdlo Youth Zone Egerton Street OLDHAM OL1 3SE	2pm, Saturday 14th October, 2017
Leeds Probus Club	St Matthews Church Meeting Room Wood Lane Chapel Allerton LEEDS LS7 3QF	10.30am, Thursday 9th November, 2017
Sheffield & District Family History Society	Cemetery Road Baptist Church 11 Napier Street SHEFFIELD S11 8HA	7.30pm, Monday 20th November, 2017
Low Moor Local History Group	Aldersgate Methgodist Church Cleckheaton Road Low Moor BRADFORD BD12 0TW	2.30pm, Friday 2nd February, 2018
Huddersfield Local History Society	University of Huddersfield Brontë Lecture Theatre Room BLG/05 Queensgate HUDDERSFIELD HD1 3DH	7.30pm, Monday 26th February, 2018
Barwick-in-Elmet & Scholes Probus Club	John Rylie Centre Carrfield Road Barwick in Elmet LEEDS LS15 4JB	10am, Tuesday 27th February, 2018
East Yorkshire Family History Society	Beverley Cricket Club Recreation Park Lane Norwood Beverley HU17 9HX	7.30pm, Tuesday 1st May, 2018
Doncaster & District Family History Society	Doncaster School for the Deaf Race Course Roundabout Leger Way DONCASTER DN2 6AY	7.30pm, Wednesday 27th June, 2018
Spen Valley Historical Society	Catholic Church Hall Dewsbury Road Cleckheaton BRADFORD BD19 5DL	7.30pm, Wednesday 12th September, 2018

Bookings taken for “Evolution of Asylum Patient Photography”

Bradford Family History Society	Glyde House, Little Horton Lane, Bradford, BD5 0BQ	10.30am, Monday 21st May, 2018
Harrogate & District Family History Society	St Paul’s UR Church Hall Belford Road HARROGATE HG1 1JA	7.30pm, Tuesday 16th October, 2018

Intense Study Affects Student's Mental Health

Some weeks ago Yorkshire's national newspaper, The Yorkshire Post carried an article entitled "Mental health of students 'may suffer from fast-track degrees'. Plans to introduce two year degree courses had been criticised by university chiefs, teaching unions and student representatives for threatening the mental health of students.

While researching asylum records at the new West Yorkshire History Centre in Wakefield an entry in an Admissions Register had caught my eye. Committed to the West Riding Asylum on New Year's day 1878, 20 year old Hartley Bracewell BARKER from Bingley had been suffering with mania for four months and was in weak health. His occupation was given as "Pupil Teacher" and the supposed cause of his insanity was "intense study". Hartley was discharged, recovered the following November.

Admission Register C85/601.
Courtesy of West Yorkshire History Centre

What had caught my eye in the admission register was the well known name of the magistrate who had signed the legal paperwork to commit Hartley to the asylum in 1878. Thirty five year old Titus Salt, DL JP was the youngest son of Sir Titus Salt, 1st Bt. of Saltaire fame.

Reception Order (C85/3/1 #7,633).
 Courtesy of West Yorkshire History Centre.

All was not well though as we can find Hartley in the 1891 census, now aged 34, living at home with his 64 year old widowed mother Alice, a grocer, in York Street, Bingley. The final column of the census return for Hartley contains the single word "imbecile".

No entry could be found for Hartley in the 1881 census so where could he have gone? Checking Ancestry's UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1912, I discovered that Hartley had been readmitted to the Wakefield Asylum in September, 1880 and spent the next nine years there before being discharged, not improved to return home to the care of his mum.

One final record in that same collection shows Hartley being admitted to Menston Asylum in October 1894. Menston was only seven miles from home so hopefully Alice was able to visit him. Hartley would spend the remaining 20 years of his life there before his death in October, 1914 aged 56.

"Intense study" had been blamed for triggering Hartley's chronic mental illness some 140 years ago. It certainly happened back then and I'm sure that the threat still exists today. Hopefully, with appropriate mental health support, sufferers can receive early help and avoid Hartley's fast-track to a lifetime of chronic illness.

Lunacy Patients in Guild One-Name Studies

Some weeks ago I was delighted to accept an invitation from David Burgess, Yorkshire West Regional Representative for the Guild of One Name Studies to speak at the Yorkshire regional meeting on 18 March in Wakefield. It seems very appropriate that I will be presenting “Early Asylum Life” in Eastmoor just a stone’s throw from what remains of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

I’ve been a member of the Guild for some years although to date I’ve decided not to pursue a study of all Scrimgeours worldwide. My hands have been full just mapping out my own ancestry. What has been of great value has been learning from other researchers many of whom have carried out significant studies spanning many years.

This meeting gives me another opportunity to tell fellow family historians about the great material to be found in asylum records. I found myself wondering how many of the potential audience could benefit from a dig around in asylum archives. With help from David Burgess, who was able to give me a list of 121 surnames being studied by our Yorkshire members and those from other parts attending next week, I have been able to carry out a bit of research to answer that question, with surprising results.

My first review involved matching that Guild list with the transcribed lists of West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Stanley Royd Hospital) discharges on the Yorkshire Indexers website. Nine pages contain 11,445 records, each representing the admission/discharge of one patient. That is only about one third of the total patient admissions 1818 – 1904 but still a significant sample. Thirty three Guild surnames appear in those records:

AINSLEY, AUTY, BEARDSHAW, BOYES, BROOKS, BURDETT, CANTRILL, DRAKE, ENTWISTLE, EYRE, FEATHERSTONE, GAUKROGER, GOMERSALL, HORSMAN, JUBB, LEEMING, LIGHTOWLER, MILSOM, MORTIMER, ODDY, RACE, SNOOK, SOWRAY, STOCKELL, STUTTARD, SUDDABY, SWIFT, TATTERSHALL, TETLEY, VICKERMAN, WAGER, WOODHOUSE, YOULE

Once duplicated first names are removed there are 94 discrete names of people who could be of interest. Being Wakefield patients there is a very high probability that case notes and committal papers survive which will provide significant information about the patient and their families and maybe even photographs.

The second review was undertaken by matching the Guild list with the indexes of admissions to the South Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum which opened at Wadsley near Sheffield in 1872. I used the PDF versions available from Sheffield City Archives. Nineteen of the surnames identified above were also in those indexes but I also found the following 17 additional Guild surnames:

BANGS, BELCHER, BURT, CHURCH, CLIPSTON, GUMMER, HABBERSHAW, HAWLEY, HAWSON, HILLMAN, HOLROYD, STONEY, THORNILL, TWELFTREE, WALLAGE, WEM, WIMPENNY

Once duplicated first names are removed there are 148 discrete names of people who will be found in Sheffield Archives. Some may also be found in the Wakefield asylum records as patients were moved between the two asylums. Unfortunately case notes and committal papers have not survived for pre 1915 patients so you are only certain of finding the limited information in the admission registers.

My final exercise involved searches on Ancestry’s UK Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846 – 1912. I only used the surnames on the Guild list which had not already featured above. As those registers recorded admissions to all county and private asylums across the country, I was able to find nearly all of those remaining surnames.

ALLBROOK, ALLNAT, BERTIE *, BILBOW, BOWHAY, BRATHERTON, BRYER, CANVIN, CATTERICK, COCKERILL, CORNAH, CORNFORTH, DUNSFORD, ELSWORTHY, ESPLEY, ETCHES, ETHELL, FILBY, GOODLASS, GRIMMETT, HANWELL, HAVELOCK, I’ANSON, INSKIP, JOINER, LEWRY, LITTON, LOS, LUCRAFT, LUTWYCHE, MACKMAN, MALHAM, MASLIN, MOWFORTH, PARLEY, PARSONAGE, PERROW, POLL, POMEROY, POMERY, POSNER, PUTTOCK, RAMPTON, RIX, ROCKEY, ROWORTH, SINDERSON, SMALLBONE, SMELT, STARLEY, TATTON, THRING, TOLL, TRANAH, VANT, WARFER, WHINCUP *, WIGGALL, WINGHAM, WOODMANSEY

Surnames marked with * belong to patients admitted to Stanley Royd, Wakefield outside of the years covered by the first matching exercise.

Surviving material will vary depending on the asylum housing the patient.

In summary, over 90% (110 from 121) of Guild list surnames being studied by Yorkshire Guild members were also the surnames of lunacy patients held in Wakefield, Sheffield or elsewhere throughout the 19th and very early 20th centuries. That represents a small mountain of information to dig through looking for those nuggets that could open up fresh lines of enquiry or provide answers to missing persons.

Good luck.

Curious Anomaly in South Yorkshire Asylum Records

To help accommodate the growing numbers of pauper lunatics requiring treatment in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the South Yorkshire Asylum, much later known as Middlewood Hospital, was opened at Wadsley near Sheffield in August 1872.

South Yorkshire Asylum, Wadsley, Sheffield c 1928. (Sheffield Local Studies Library)

Four years earlier the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum had rented a large property, Mount Pleasant in Sharrow Lane, Sheffield which had been run as an annexe housing 75 patients. These patients were among the first removed (transferred) to take up residence in the new asylum. By the end of 1872, over 250 patients, all chargeable to the poor law Unions in the south of the Riding – Sheffield, Worksop, Eccleshall Bierlow, Rotherham, Wortley, Penistone, Thorne and Doncaster – had been removed from Wakefield to Wadsley, freeing up significant accommodation in that asylum. This movement of patients between asylums would continue throughout subsequent years as the West Riding authorities tried to cope with the ever rising demand for asylum beds.

For the genealogist, Sheffield Archives in Shoreham Street, Sheffield holds the surviving patient records for the South Yorkshire Asylum. Unfortunately, only patient admission registers exist for the period 1872 – 1915. Thereafter I am led to believe that patient case notes do exist but I have been unable to view those myself because of the 100 year restriction on access.

Some seven years ago, enthusiastic volunteers from Sheffield and District Family History Society undertook the transcription of the early admission registers covering 1872 - 1910. Their transcriptions have since been made available to researchers through Sheffield Archives website where you will find four downloadable PDF files organised alphabetically by patient’s surname, acting as the index to the actual admission registers.

More recently, the great work done by the Sheffield team has found a wider audience through the subscription website Findmypast where the 17,368 admission records have been made available under “Hospitals” in “Institutions & organisations”. Anyone searching for an ancestor might well find a record suggesting that they had been a patient in the South Yorkshire Asylum.

There is however a catch. The original admission registers have been accurately transcribed including the “age” of the admitted patient. From that age, a “birth year” has been calculated which is also shown in the Findmypast record although no birth year is shown in the original admission register. We genealogists use that birth year when trying to verify that we have got the right person so tend to place a great deal of store by it. For any patients admitted directly into the South Yorkshire Asylum their age on admission will allow a sensible estimate of their birth year to be calculated. The catch is that where a patient had been removed from Wakefield, the “age” recorded in the South Yorkshire Asylum admission register was actually their age on the date of their original admission to Wakefield.

William ROBERTS, 1871. Courtesy of WYAS.

For example, cutler William Roberts was admitted to the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield in 1852, aged 40. I researched William’s case for my book Proper People and found that he had been removed to the South Yorkshire Asylum in 1872. The admission register entry for that institution has been correctly transcribed and appears on Findmypast as follows:

William’s age is shown as 40, his age on admission to Wakefield in 1852, so his real birth year was circa 1812. The actual year would depend on his date of birth which is why it is always a good idea to use +/- 1 year when carrying out online searches. The birth year shown here, 1832, is out by 20 years, long enough for another family generation, so having the real potential to confuse the researcher.

Other patients who appear in Proper People and were removed from Wakefield to Sheffield include Patrick GANNON, Alice BROADBENT and Charles WILCOX. Their birth years have been understated by 18, 20 and 31 years respectively. My guess is that 5 – 10% of the earlier Sheffield admissions will be for patients removed from Wakefield so are highly likely to show an incorrect age and birth year.

Admission Register Entry for Charles WILCOX (Second from bottom).
Courtesy of Sheffield and District FHS.

This is an odd situation as nobody has actually made a mistake. The admission records had been faithfully transcribed and the data held on Findmypast is a true copy of those transcriptions.
When I brought this curiosity to the attention of Findmypast their response was that they accept transcriptions from third parties in good faith and that I should take the matter up with the data owners, Sheffield and District Family History Society. I did indeed discuss this with a very helpful lady from the society and she was surprised to learn of the "problem". I understand that she is due to discuss the matter with Sheffield Archives with a view to perhaps including a warning that there is misleading data in some of the admission register entries. I would have thought that Findmypast should also publish a similar warning for its paying customers.

Without my having conducted research into asylum records in both the Wakefield and Sheffield Archives this oddity might never have come to light. The challenge now must be to identify all the hundreds of patients removed from Wakefield to Sheffield and establish their correct age, thence birth year. Some of those patients records hold a clue as, just in the case of Charles WILCOX above, their Previous Place of Abode shows Wakefield Asylum, but this is not consistent throughout the record set.

Any fortunate family historian coming across an ancestor in Sheffield who had been removed from Wakefield will have the added bonus of being able to access their pre Sheffield case notes which will be held by West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS) and those may just contain a wonderful old photograph, as I found in the case notes of William ROBERTS above.

Note that WYAS is currently closed but reopens in a fantastic new building, the West Yorkshire History Centre, on 13 February, 2017.

Interview on BBC Radio Leeds

Back in 1966, a young Invernessian schoolboy was very excited to have been asked to participate in a "schools broadcast" on the Cairngorms for BBC Scotland. Fifty years later he was equally, and perhaps even more excited to have appeared on the Chris Stead morning show on BBC Radio Leeds.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was not nearly as nervous as I’d expected.

Chris set the scene and then asked me some questions about Proper People. I think I managed to answer without too much hesitation or “humming”.

My biggest worry had been about the 10 minute slot and how I could turn that into a sensible interview when I’d be very happy talking on my favourite subject for hours. Needn’t have worried as Chris managed it just nicely. Unlike me, he had clearly done it before!

Thank you so much to producer Sarah Whitham for the invitation. Amazon statistics suggest that I might even have attracted a few more readers.

Listen below to my interview which is reproduced with the kind permission of BBC Radio Leeds.

Exploring Lincolnshire Archives - Lincoln Lunatic Asylum

Between 2012 and 2015 many happy days were spent in the search room of the West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS), Wakefield delving into the myriad of surviving records for the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum (WRPLA), a record collection that has since been recognised as a resource of national, if not international, significance. Beyond brief long distance forays into the archives of Bethlem Hospital, Fisherton House Asylum and Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum I had not studied records relating to other early asylums outside of Yorkshire. Inspired by November’s Explore Your Archive campaign I thought it was time to jump in the car and pay a visit to the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire.

Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (HOSP/LAWN/3/8/1)

Lincolnshire Archives in St Rumbold Street, Lincoln is the home for the surviving records from another early mental hospital, Lincoln Lunatic Asylum. Founded in 1819 by public subscription it provided treatment for both pauper and private patients. In 1885 it became known as The Lawn Hospital for the Insane and that is the name used to identify the collection in their catalogue. My own photographs of the records are displayed here with the kind permission of Lincolnshire Archives.

This was a just a one day “sampling” visit so that I could get some idea of the scope, completeness and age of the surviving records. By closing time I had been unable to examine the full range of records I had wished to check, for the simple reason that I had become engrossed with the content of those which I had been able to view. Being familiar with the WRPLA records held by WYAS I had some idea of the likely content to be found in Lincoln but I was still pleasantly surprised with what I discovered.

Minute Book, 1807 (HOSP/LAWN/1/1/1)

The Minute Book (HOSP/LAWN/1/1/1) provided an insight into the fund raising which went on to enable the hospital to be built, the first minute dating back to January, 1807. The fund raising committee then evolved into the asylum management committee.

Page from Director's Journal,
 (HOSP/LAWN//1/2/1)

Patient’s case books (HOSP/LAWN/2/12), organised by patient and showing the treatments given to them over time, only start in 1847, unlike WRPLA where they go back to the very earliest admissions. That is however compensated by the existence of three other record sets - House Surgeon’s Journals (HOSP/LAWN/2/1), Physician’s Journals (HOSP/LAWN/2/2) and Director's Journal (HOSP/LAWN/1/2/1). These are organised by date and diarise notes regarding each patient seen on a particular day.

Although some date ranges are missing and the poor condition of some journals means that they are “Not For Production” these journals should allow the patient researcher, pun intended, to build up a relatively complete picture of observations and treatment for each of the earliest patients. No such journals survive in the WRPLA collection but reference has been found to the fact that they had existed and had been used to retrospectively create the very earliest case books.

Admission Papers for John ROBINSON, 1820.
(HOSP/LAWN/2/11/0/1)

Bundles of still folded Admission Papers (HOSP/LAWN/2/11/0) survive being the legal paperwork required to admit a patient to the Asylum. There are some papers missing, including almost inevitably, those for the very first admission. The numbering of these admissions suggests that in its first 50 years Lincoln admitted around 2,000 patients in complete contrast to WRPLA which admitted around 11,500 patients over the same period. What I found particularly interesting was the different paperwork accompanying patients being admitted privately as all the earliest admissions to WRPLA were at least part funded from local poor rates.

Statutory Registers of Admissions (HOSP/LAWN/2/6) and Removals, Discharges and Deaths (HOSP/LAWN/2/22) survive for the period after 1845 when the Commissioners in Lunacy were formed. Reporting to the Home Secretary, this body took responsibility for the management of the country’s strategy for the treatment of the insane in county asylums, private asylums, workhouses and prisons.

Register of Patients' Work, 1836.
(HOSP/LAWN/2/18/1)

Two very distinctive registers survive which have no equivalent in the WRPLA collection. Only one Register of Patients' Work (HOSP/LAWN/2/18) exists. Dated 1836 – 1837 it initially shows the daily work allocated to named patients but quickly becomes just a record of who was working on each day, a simpler but still time consuming administrative task.

Page from Register of Restraints, 1829
(HOSP/LAWN/2/19/1)

The Register of Restraints (HOSP/LAWN/2/19) was of particular interest as in the 1840s Lincoln Asylum was hailed as being the first example of a system of patient management which did not need to use mechanical restraint. The earliest register (HOSP/LAWN/2/19/1) dated 1829 – 1832 reads like a shopping list for a torture chamber, for example, body belt and hobbles, so clearly things must have changed.


I will be delving further into the records and writing more about what I found in the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum archives over the course of the next few weeks.