Obtaining Asylum Records

[LizzieW]

My OH had thyrotoxicosis aged 17 (1960).  It took ages to diagnose as they didn't expect it in a young person.  He ended up at Christie Cancer Hospital, Manchester as it was thought he had a tumour behind the eye and it was the medical staff there who got the diagnosis right.  I can't remember whether the local GP did blood tests or not.  I know it was the optician who told him he should get his eyes checked out, so everyone obviously thought it was something to do with his eyes.  Nowadays, doctors are much more aware of the symptoms and can arrange a quick blood test for diagnosis.

Unfortunately, as quite often happens, after years on medication, the thyroid function becomes normal and then flips the other way.  So now he has an underactive thyroid   Our 2nd son also has an underactive thyroid, so they are both on medication.

Lizzie

[monkeymagik]

HI again,  this is veering off the topic of Asylum "RECORDS" but I
just found this clip on youtube if any one has a specific interest in Stanley Royd Asylum.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Luut0g4Mmw   


If any one IS interested also found footage of,
Hellingly Asylum East Sussex
High Royds  Leeds
Cherry Knowle Sunderland
Whittingham Preston
Cane Hill  (Surrey I think)
plus others,

Some are derelict, Stanley Royd has original footage of both in & outside the Asylum. It is strange what you can find on Youtube isn't it 


Lizzie Windsor87, very interesting about thyrotoxicosis,  a now treatable condition resulted in people being committed to an asylum back then.  Lizzie, I Would love to think of my uncle gardening!

I have been looking at the link by acorna & it mentions the 100 year rule, because of that, I may require written permission from next of kin, that would definitely spoil my chances but gonna give it a whirl.
Nic

[Jean McGurn]

Great Grandmother died in 1903 in Stafford Lunatic Asylum. She was in there in 1901 census described her as a lunatic inmate but the death certificate states she died of senile decay.

Where would she have been buried? Would the family have been contacted to let them know she had died?

I am wondering why her son (she had been living with him and his family in 1891 census) had her committed and if he would have had any compassion to arrange the burial.

Presumably I should write to Staffordshire  County Archives to get details?

Jean

[LizzieW]

I am wondering why her son (she had been living with him and his family in 1891 census) had her committed

Maybe senile decay was similar to alzheimers and she  became too much for the family to cope with.  Who registered her death? 

I expect, if you post on Staffordshire board, someone will be able to tell you of the churchyards, cemeteries in the area in 1903 to help you find where she was buried.

My 2 x g.gran died of senile decay aged 83, but she was still living with one of her sons.

Lizzie

[monkeymagik]

Hi Jean, my relative was taken back to his home town to be buried thats the only reason I found about him. I was searching through a burial register for some one else & found him. His place of death was listed as the Asylum.

I found the book below fairly interesting it discusses some of the myths around why people were committed by family members. For example one idea was that unruly/wayward/difficult family members needed too much looking after & families needed to work so they had them committed.

http://books.google.com/   The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present
By Edwin Fuller Torrey, Judy Miller

In 1800s Women could be divorced on the grounds of Lunacy, a husband could have his wife committed & then get a divorce, usually the chap would then remarry a younger women! apparently this happened quite a lot in the early 1800s.  Ive read about cases were alcoholism and even the menopause have resulted in people being committed.

Generally though, Violence toward another family member seems to be the main reason for having a relative committed.
Nic


Added:  I came across this,  I have changed the wording so I don't get told off for copyright.

Whether inmates were recorded as suffering from Mania, Melancholia or some other disorder, generally what seems to have instigated their committal is violent behavior toward a member of the family, self or neighbor.
In most cases people were not committed because they were Ill but because they became violent or threatened to attack someone.
Families often admitted that the relative had been ill for months/years & nothing was done until they became violent. Equally people who did not show any previous signs of mental Illness were committed after an unexpected threat or attack.

[Jean McGurn]

Thanks Lizzie

The death was notified by the Medical Superintendant at the County Lunatic Asylum Stafford. Cause of death was Senile Decay P.M. certified by a doctor. Presuambly the Asylums doctor.

G.gran had survived her husband by 14 years.

Thanks also Nic for the info on how one could be committed. I thought  it tragic than an old lady would end her life in an asylum just because her family couldn't/wouldn't look after her in her old age. She was 82 when she died

Jean

[monkeymagik]

This link has copies of English Mental Health law forms.

The form that was printed in 1943 relates to the 1913 and 1927 Mental Deficiency Acts.
& includes the statutory definitions.

    http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/forms.htm#Admission

It wasn't all bad 
Routine distribution of alcoholic drinks to mental patients would  be unthought of today, yet in the formative years of lunatic asylums, beer was standard issue. A staple item in the supposedly healthy Victorian asylum diet, beer also served as inducement for patient labour. Around the mid-1880s, this commodity was abolished throughout Britain’s mental institutions.



Windsor87, a prospectus ?  for the Aberdeen Royal Mental Hospital.
Apologies if you have already seen it.

http://www.daviot.org/HouseofDaviot.htm

[Simon G.]

That was something on the lines of what I was told.  I didn't believe a word of it.  How can one person's medical records contain the records of hundreds of other patients.

While I was working with my local record office, on occasion I was asked to research asylum records for people who had paid for research to be done.  With those records at least, they were all in large volumes containing literally hundreds of records for a multitude of patients and unless you were presented with the volumes open to the exact record for your ancestor then it was next to impossible not to see the records for other inmates.  Whether these were originally in these volumes or had later been rebound I've no idea, but they were complete inmate records (filed, if I remember correctly, by date of "discharge" rather than admission...it's as if they were bound once the records were no longer "needed", as it were, and there were quite a lot of volumes - some available to public inspection, other withheld on the discretion of the county archivist due to the nature of the documents).

[LizzieW]

Simon

How strange, to bind all the records together.  Even so, if they were filed by date of discharge and the authorities persist in using the non-existent 100 year rule, that would mean every patient, whose notes could be seen by a member of public looking for their own ancestor, must have been discharged or dead for at least 100 years, so what possible interest could those records be to anyone.

I was also told that the mental asylum I was interested in, destroyed most of its records after 30 years, and only sent to the archives those of historical interest.  As I now have copies of the two sets of records I wanted, I can't think what  interest either of the records could possibly be to historians.  The first one gives a diagnosis of delusions and being demented. The treatment was "morals and hygiene" (whatever that means, especially as on admission it stated he was a healthy and well nourished man with clean habits, who was apparently deaf) and he was transferred to the Annexe a few months after his admission in 1907 and stayed in the asylum until his death in 1964. 

The other set of records stated that my ancestor was cheerful and loquacious, but confused and childlike, no treatment was suggested.  He died a couple of months later of a syphilitic disease.

Lizzie