Mental Hospitals - More help needed please.

[andycand]

[

NIGEL - You ask who certified the death certificate and what was his/her qualification.  It is signed by a Registrar.  Also I'm not sure what you mean when you say "assuming a professional person is named on the death certificate, tracing this persons employment may enable you to identify the institution".  Forgive me for appearing stupid, but how would I trace the Registrar to an institution.

Hi

What Nigel is referring to is that on a death certificate it usually gives the cause of death and says as certified by a medical practitioner, are you saying that the cause of death was certified by a Registrar?, if so, then he could be a Medical Registrar for the Mental Hospital. It's sometimes possible to identify an institution through the name of the certifying doctor.

Andy

[nigelp]

Hi busybod,

20th century death certificates will normally contain four names:

1. The full name of the deceased;
2. The Registrar or Assistant Registrar who recorded the death;
3. The informant who notified the Registrar or the Assistant Registrar of the death; and
4. The person who certified the cause of death (this appears beneath or alongside the cause of death).

As mentioned by Andy the person to whom I am referring is 4. A mental institution would normally have a suitably qualified person to make the certification and enquiring about this person may enable you to solve the problem. Of course, it is possible that the person who certified the cause of death was not an employee of the institution.

Nigel

[busybod]

Hi Nigel and Andy

Thank you both for your responses.

Yes, the death certificate has all these 4 names on. In the "cause of death" column it gives the cause of death and then underneath "Certified by -----------------------" and the name, no job title.  So who he was is anybody's guess. But the end column is signed by the Interim Registrar. So if you have any ideas as to how I'd go about tracing either of these people I'd be most grateful.

Thanks again.


Busybod

[nigelp]

Hi busybod,

Are there no letters (ie which identify the qualification) after the name of the person certifying the cause of death?

If there is no identification of qualification the options would appear to be to revert to the institutions concerned and enquire as to whether they employed someone by that name in 1931 or check the records which are open to public inspection at the Records Office.

The Registrar or Interim Registrar is only the official recording the details of the event and is not relevant.

Nigel

[busybod]

Hi Nigel

No Nigel there are no initials or anything after his name, but I've googled it (J Shaw Bolton) and he appears to have been the Medical Director of West Riding Asylums.  He has the initials MD, FRCP after his name.  So the mystery deepens.


Busybod

[nigelp]

Hi busybod,

The information you have provided and details from the attached two links suggests that the death was at West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum (later known as Stanley Royd Psychiatric Hospital).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Bolton_(rugby_player) - click on Did you mean: Reg Bolton (rugby player)
http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/index.php?targetid=117

The above details suggest that the records have either not been searched thoroughly (in response to your enquiry), been destroyed or been transferred to the Records Office.

Nigel

 
 

[busybod]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for that.  It's as I suspected all along, she was in Stanley Royds and I dont think they've bothered to search the records or, as you say, they've not been searched thoroughly.  But I'm now getting to the point where I'm thinking is it worth pursuing this.  My reasoning is that if they have got the records they'll only quite the 100 year rule at me.  What do you think - is it worth pursuing do you think?


Busybod

[andycand]

Hi

According to the 1931 Medical Register he was Joseph Shaw Bolton M.B., B.S. 1894,  M.D. 1895 U. Lond.,  F.R.C.P. Lond., 1909. and his address is West Riding Mental Hospital, Wakefield so, as you say, the mystery deepens.

Andy

[andycand]

Hi

The link below has details of the records held by the West Yorkshire Archive Services and it seems to include Clinical & Patients but whether there is a restriction on access I'm not sure.


http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:PJMp6g8P_zgJ:www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp%3Fid%3D2272%26page%3D27+%22west+riding+mental+hospital%22&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

Andy