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.