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.

Explore Your Archive 2016 - Hairy Archive Day

Today is “Hairy Archive” day in this year’s Explore Your Archive campaign. Archivists across the country have been scouring their collections to tweet examples of unusual references to hair and illustrations or photographs of hair or hairy things which can be found in their archives. Examples have included this photograph submitted by The National Archives of a Mrs Dawson from Grays, Essex who won 1st Prize in the Hair Competition at an amusement park known as the Kursaal in Southend-on-Sea, Essex on 19th August, 1908. Her hair must be all of 5 feet long.

Victorian gentlemen feature on many of the tweets, sporting impressive beards and moustaches so there is a preponderance of well groomed, male facial hair.

Casebook F5 in the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum archives held by West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield holds something hairy and different dating from 1843. Sadly no photographs at that time and no illustration so I’m stealing a few paragraphs from my book Proper People where I write briefly about one of the patients, including a transcription of her physician’s entry in her case notes.

Forty-one year old Martha BELL from Bilton cum Harrogate was readmitted to the Asylum on 10th February, 1831, having previously been discharged, cured, on 20th March, 1826. Her case notes contain a surprising description of Martha. 

December, 1843. Face pale, features coarse and strong, chin covered with a beard 9 or 10 inches long, which she wraps up in curl-papers: she is demented and deluded, has a most violent temper and noisy tongue if anything irreverent is said of her beard on which she prizes herself. 

On this occasion Martha BELL spent over 30 years in the Asylum before her death, at the age of 71, on 14th May, 1861.

So it not just well-groomed male facial hair which can be found in our archives!

Explore Your Archive 2016

The ExploreYour Archive campaign for this year, organised jointly by The National Archives and the Archives and Records Association (UK and Ireland), launched at the weekend with the aim of encouraging the curious among us to take better advantage of the wonderful opportunity for “time travel” through accessing the archives available to everyone in our local records offices, museums and local studies centres. The family history magazine Who Do You ThinkYou Are has published an excellent article (free to download) by genealogist Laura Berry providing 25 reasons why family historians should visit archives of which there are over 2,000 from which to choose. 

Let me add to Laura’s great advice by saying that archive research is tremendous fun and can be so rewarding. Family history research is almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle without knowing quite what the final picture looks like. You’ve got lots of pieces through sitting at your computer but the picture isn’t complete. The missing bits are mixed up with others in different archive boxes so you need to search through them for pieces that fit. Solving that puzzle demands great persistence but when you have finished the result will have been well worth the effort.

I used to think that archives existed to protect their boring contents from the public and that they were only accessible for high brow academic research. That could not have been further from the truth. My epiphany happened about six years ago while studying for my Diploma in Genealogy, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies with the University of Strathclyde. That is when I first realised that there is real family history treasure to be found in the archives but one needs to go hunting to find it.

John and Eliza DAVENPORT

For my first year project I had decided to go far beyond the conventional family tree and undertake wide ranging research into the lives of my maternal great-great-grandparents. Around 1869, 55 year old agricultural labourer John DAVENPORT, having spent his entire life in the village of Wormleighton, Warwickshire moved his wife, Eliza THORNTON, and seven young children five hundred miles north to Cruivend, Inverness-shire, Scotland.  Employed as a “hedger” he and Eliza produced six more children before his death in 1891.  What was life like for the DAVENPORTs in Wormleighton and Cruivend?  What could possibly have motivated the couple to migrate to Scotland?  How might they have travelled?  I wasn’t going to find any of the answers to those questions on Ancestry or the like so I got out of the house and took myself down to the Midlands.

Wormleighton was part of the estate owned by Earl Spencer (of whom Lady Diana Spencer was a descendant). I wanted to be able to look at old maps and any other records relating to the Spencer estates to see what I could learn about Wormleighton before John made his epic journey. I had consulted The National Archives online catalogue before my first ever visit to any archive, Warwickshire County Record Office, so I had some idea what I might be able to find. There I was able to consult old maps, parish registers and obtain general background on Wormleighton. 

Local newspapers provided one nugget when I was able to read about John’s father Polemus having won a £5 prize from the Warwickshire Agricultural Society for having produced eight children. I have only ever been able to find seven of his offspring!

Archive material for the Spencer Estates are held at Northamptonshire County Records Office. It will be many a day before such a disparate collection of papers and books are ever made available online. Without being there I would have missed the second nugget, a small bound notebook known as the Estate Order Book principally used to make a note of materials that needed to be procured. In it, estate factor John SELBY had recorded details of a confrontation in March 1868 between him and John’s neighbour, John BULL over the cutting of a boundary hedge. Insight is given to the likely condition of John DAVENPORT’s cottage “….the drainage and cesspools of the sculleries, which drainage had become very imperfect”. There is a lesson here as if I had just assumed it was a shopping list of materials I would never have found the reference to John DAVENPORT. It is always worth leafing through any records you find.

I also wanted to see what was held in the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness, Scotland, the town of my birth. John had gone to work for Lord Lovat and lived with his family in an estate cottage in Cruivend near Beauly. Sadly it became clear that I was going to have little luck with old estate records which I’m told were destroyed in a fire in the 1930s. The archive did hold other records which yielded valuable information. Valuation Rolls showed the names and occupations of John’s neighbours, Kilmorack Parish Records showed that Liza was the regular churchgoer in the family but it was the Inverness Poor Law records which threw up a big surprise. I discovered an 1892 Record of Application for Parochial Relief made by the widowed Eliza on behalf of her illegitimate grandson Daniel. Not surprisingly, that document opened up a whole new line of investigation.

Having spoken to the Council Cemeteries Department I discovered where and when John and Eliza had been buried. Armed with that knowledge I took the opportunity to visit Inverness Library where contemporary copies of The Inverness Courier were available on microfiche and I was able to find funeral notices for both of them. Today that newspaper is available online but it was not at that time.

During the second year of my course, I had visited the University of Glasgow Archives which hold a surprising array of historical records including those for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Lizzie SCRIMGEOUR c 1909

 When my family history research showed that my great-grandmother, Elizabeth SCRIMGEOUR had died of influenza in 1919 in Gartloch Asylum, Lanarkshire I contacted them to see what more I could find out about her time in what I thought must be an isolation hospital. When a large brown envelope arrived containing copies of her medical records I discovered that Lizzie had spent the last 15 years of her life in and out of mental hospitals. From the age of 36, she had suffered from serious depression following the still birth of what would have been her tenth child. Her case notes alone were fascinating but imagine my reaction when I discovered two photographs of my great-grandmother.

Lizzie SCRIMGEOUR c 1918

One, taken shortly after her admission to Woodilee Asylum contrasting starkly with a second much happier picture taken during her final spell at Gartloch.

Sometimes it just isn’t feasible to visit an archive in person. My experience of dealing with archives over the telephone and by email has been universally positive. You will find that the archive staff bend over backwards to help with your research and will often suggest alternative lines of enquiry.

Inspired by my experience with Lizzie SCRIMGEOUR and having spent a short time completing some coursework in my local archive, the Wakefield office of the West Yorkshire Archive Service, I returned there to have another look at their collection of material relating to what was latterly known as Stanley Royd Hospital, originally the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. This wasn’t on a personal family history quest, more to satisfy my curiosity regarding what I might find in their remarkably complete collection of patients’ case notes. I can still remember the extraordinary buzz I felt opening my first large case book to read the handwritten physician’s notes from nearly 200 years ago. I was hooked by a record set full of factual material some of which is stranger than fiction. Three years later, having trawled through an estimated 30,000 pages of handwritten doctors’ notes, visited five and corresponded with eight other archives to expand my research, I finally published Proper People. Early Asylum Life in the Words of Those Who Were There which explores the experiences of over 150 patients admitted between 1818 and 1869.

Finally a plug for Lunacy Records. My earlier post Searching Online for Early Asylum Ancestors looks at the registers available on Ancestry to help identify lunatic ancestors. If you find one, celebrate, as if their asylum case notes survive and you are allowed to access them, you may have struck gold. Beyond your ancestors age, occupation, place of abode and marital status, you may also find details of immediate next of kin, mentions of extended family members, the actual address where they lived, a physical description, what had led to their committal, how they had behaved and been treated while in the asylum and whether they had been discharged or died and if the latter, cause of death. The really lucky researcher might find personal letters or even a photograph among their records.

So leave the computer behind and go and immerse yourself in some archives. A whole new exciting chapter awaits.

Good luck with your treasure hunting!

Old "Fart" Avoids Chance Comment on US Current Affairs

To date my posts have primarily reflected my interest in genealogy and early asylum life. Being an aspiring wordsmith, I thought it was time for a change and that I should make a small tongue-in-cheek contribution to our use of the English language across the globe.

I was fascinated by the media discussion prompted by Canadian MP Michelle Rempel's use of "un-parliamentary" language in a recent debate when she passionately attacked government inaction regarding unemployment in her Alberta constituency. Rather than criticise Michelle's vocabulary I would like to congratulate her. Michelle's use of words may have narrowly averted an international incident and possibly even a lawsuit.

The moment was captured by CBC News and this video clip found its way onto uTube.

Michelle had asked "Why does this government treat Alberta like a 'fart in the room' that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge?"

MP Elizabeth May quickly interrupted to draw the speaker's attention to Michelle's use of an "un-parliamentary" word which she spelled out -  "F A R T". Elizabeth suggested that Michelle would probably want to withdraw it, prompting a McEnroe-like outburst of "Are you serious Mr Speaker?" Michelle did not withdraw her remark.

For those of you unfamiliar with the expression, my copy of The Chambers Dictionary 12th Edition explains the meaning of the word in question and suggests that its origins date back to Old English, perhaps 5th century Anglo-Saxon.

Note that Chambers classifies the word as "vulgar slang" so not normally used in polite conversation. Certainly in this part of the UK, we parents when bringing up our kids encouraged the use of an alternative word to describe what is after all a naturally occurring phenomenon. When in company, if our kids felt they just had to make reference to a "botty-pop" they had been taught to use the much more PC word "trump", usually accompanied by blasts of laughter.

Michelle's excellent choice of words in very plain old English made it perfectly clear what she meant. She also avoided causing any confusion given recent events in the United States where there will soon be someone in a rather oval room certainly wanting to be talked about and acknowledged by everybody.

This "old fart" (n a staid or curmudgeonly old person) is going to sign off here to peruse my latest copy of  Private Eye, thus avoiding the temptation to make gratuitous links between the two definitions above which I will leave to others.

Announcing Release of Proper People as eBook

Following numerous requests from the public I am pleased to announce that digital versions of Proper People. Early Asylum Life in the Words of Those Who Were There are now available to pre-order on Amazon, iTunes Store and Kobo priced at £9.99.  They will be delivered from 1st November 2016.

Speaking Engagements in 2017

Some years ago I realised that mental asylum records have the potential to enable we family historians to explore an almost untapped source of first hand information about our ancestors. Registers of asylum patients are slowly becoming available through the subscription websites and if the genealogist is lucky enough to find a match, they must then examine any surviving archives for more information. That is where they might just find that "gold nugget"........ as I did!

It is always a pleasure to take that message to other family historians so I am particularly delighted to announce five new Family History Society (FHS) speaking engagements that have recently been confirmed for next year. Huddersfield and District FHS, Chesterfield and District FHS, Rotherham FHS, Harrogate and District FHS and the Oldham branch of Manchester and Lancashire FHS have all booked dates when I will be delivering my illustrated presentation "Early Asylum Life". My aim is to take the audience back in time to experience what life was really like for inmates of an early 19th century county asylum by using material gleaned from the fascinating archives of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield. In doing so I am also demonstrating just what might be found in an ancestor's case notes.

All Family History Societies welcome visitors who usually pay a small entrance fee so if you fancy coming along to one of those events I'm sure that we'd all be very pleased to see you.

My calendar for next year is now as follows:

Wakefield Local and Family History Network	The Learning Zone, Library Main Floor, Wakefield One, Burton St, Wakefield, WF1 2EB	1.30pm, Monday 23rd January
Morley Family History Society	St Mary's in the Wood, Commercial Street, Morley, LS27 8HY	7.30pm, Wednesday 1st February
Huddersfield and District Family History Society	Town Hall, Ramsden Street, Huddersfield, HD1 2TA	7.30pm, Tuesday 7th February
East Yorkshire Family History Society	Carnegie Heritage Centre, 342 Anlaby Rd, Hull, HU3 6JA	7pm, Tuesday 21st March
Ossett Historical Society	Trinity Centre, Church Street, Ossett, WF5 8ET	7.30pm, Monday 27th March
Chesterfield and District Family History Society	St Hugh’s RC Church, Littlemoor, Chesterfield, S41 8QP	7.30pm, Tuesday 4th April
Garforth Probus Club	Garforth Working Men’s Club, Barley Hill Rd, Garforth, Leeds, LS25 1AU	10.30am, Wednesday 5th July
Bradford Family History Society	Glyde House, Little Horton Lane, Bradford, BD5 0BQ	10am, Thursday 6thJuly
Rotherham Family History Society	The Liberty Church, Station Road, Masbrough, Rotherham, S60 1JH	7pm, Thursday 6th July
Mexborough and District Probus Club	Swinton House Club, 20 Fitzwilliam St, Swinton, Rotherham S64 8RG	10.30am, Tuesday 15th August
Harrogate and District Family History Society	St Paul’s UR Church Hall, Belford Road, Harrogate, HG1 1JA	7.30pm, Tuesday 19th September
Upper Dales Family History Group	Harmby Village Hall, Brook Terrace, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 5PG	2pm, Wednesday 27th September
Oldham Branch, Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society	Gallery Oldham, Oldham Cultural Quarter, Greaves Street, Oldham, OL1 1AL	2pm, Saturday 14th October

If you would like to discuss engaging me as a speaker for your club or society please contact me on david@scrimgeour.biz.

 

Patient's "Drone" View of West Riding Lunatic Asylum

We now almost take for granted the ability to capture aerial photographs from a remotely controlled drone buzzing its way above our streets and buildings. Back in 1861, one talented inmate from Leeds was able to visualise what the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum would look like from a point several hundred feet in the air above and like the drone pilot today, his feet never even left the ground. With no digital photographs to work from he then captured his vision in a drawing which would be certified for its accuracy by the County Surveyor of the West Riding himself.

I first saw a print of that drawing in the Mental Health Museum in Wakefield some years ago. As someone who cannot draw to save himself, I was particularly impressed with the skill displayed to produce such an accurate view.

The artist, James WALKER, does appear in Proper People but I have today posted an article on my Early Asylum Life blog which explores his amazing drawing in considerably more detail. You'll perhaps imagine yourself flying through the Wakefield sky 155 years ago.

Enjoy!