Mental Hospital Ratcliffe on Trent

[malc2202]

I need a little advice here please,

I have just recieved my grandads death certificate dated 1931,it says he died at the Mental Hosital in Radcliffe on Trent.
What i would hope someone could answer is why would he have been there, was it because he had become a lunatic?
It says on the death cert that he had died from (a) Pulmonary Congestion (b) Chronic Bronchitus.
it puzzles me because his occupation states he was from Sutton in Ashfield.
Would he have just gone there for health care or was he classed has a lunatic.
Many thanks for any answers /Suggestions.
Malc

[CaroleW]

This link has a bit of info in it.  It is more than likely he was a mental patient. 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=2517&page=78

 

[malc2202]

Thanks CaroleW
i had a feeling it was because of that and not because he was poor and it was somewhere to spend his last days.
Malc

[Nottschick]

Hi
I have a relative who spent a while at Saxondale in the 1960s following a complete nervous breakdown.  In it's time it was quite a good place and helped my relative a great deal. I am sure that your grandfather would have received caring attention but died because of other causes.  I hope that helps.

NC.

[LH35]

Saxondale  was an Hospital  where one went to be cured and helped ,  as Nottschick put about her relative ,.

[malc2202]

Thanks Nottschick and LH35 for your replys.

Maybe due to his condition he was having a breakdown.All his life he was a hardworking man being a contractors Haulier up until 1915 when he served in the Great War till 1919 and from his service records i know he served in France and Belgium and he got a gunshot wound to his face and leg.
After the war he became a miner until he died of Brochitus.
I would like to know where he was buried and maybe if possible view his records at the Nottingham Archives but i know sometimes records like these,certain things may be prohibited.

Once again thanks for taking your time to answer.
Malc

[larkspur]

Hello Malc, my great uncle died in Radcliffe hospital in 1925. He suffered from "shell shock" after being wounded and gassed in France. In 1919 he was declaired as having 100% disability with manic depressive psychosis, he was sent home from France and put into the old Newark Workhouse, I have letters from his mother begging for him to be sent to Radcliffe so he could get the help he needed, as he was in the wrong place in her view.
His death certificate says he died of "general paralysis of the insane" He was 29 years old. The place of death was Notts County Mental Hospital Radcliffe on Trent.
Maybe your grandfather was having flash backs or some other problems from his time in the war. Then, sadly we did not have the means to help people with post traumatic shock and they ended up where they did. Iam sure he was not a "lunatic" just a very troubled man.  My gt gt aunt was classed as a lunatic on one census- she was an epileptic.....

[malc2202]

Thanks Larkspur for your time and reply,

Now i do have the feeling that he was there mainly on health grounds and yes maybe he was having a breakdown of some kind,
As you say post traumatic stress was not really understood at the time and as i said in my 1st post, he had suffered gun shot wounds, so this could have been part and parcel of why he ended up here.

Malc.

[Jane Eden]

Hi

I have lived in Nottingham most of my life. Mapperley Hospital was the City asylum and Saxondale the County Asylum. I am a bit surprised that he was from Sutton which I would class as North Notts and I thought they would have had an asylum up there.

Anyway I worked at Mapperley and was there when they had the centenery and therefore got quite interested in the old ways. For Saxondale see

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/saxondale01.htm

I had a relative there in the 1970s.

To get back to your relative. There are some easy reasons and some harder reasons to get your head round so don't get too upset if I say things that you do not want to know. This is the problem with family history.

Saxondale was an asylum, ie a mental hospital. He would not have been there for bronchitis, lung disease or any other physical illness although that may have been what finally killed him. If he was from Sutton was he a miner? This could account for the lung disease.

He may have been epileptic, depressed, schizophrenic or bipolar disorder (both probably not recognised then) or he may have had a sexually transmitted disease such as syphilis (I knew you would not like this). I became quite attached to the story of my great grandad who looked great in his photos but died in Saxondale at the age of 40 in 1915. I was told he died because he needed some medicine and the war broke out and could not get it any more. It turned out it was syphilis which without antibiotics caused fits and psychiatric symptoms. Penicillin was not available to the masses until after the 2nd world war in the late 40s and 50s and several of the older patients in the hospital when I started in the mid 1970s were there because if they were male they had syphylis or if they were female they had an illegitimate child. Unbelievable these days.

As far as the epilepsy and other mental illnesses don't forget that the modern drugs for epilepsy, mental illnesses and depression also did not exist. There was virtually nothing before the late 1950s and 1960s with great advances in each decade of the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. The drugs before the 1950s were barbiturates which just sedated the patients. When they became agitated it would have been more barbiturates or paradehyde to sedate them even more. There was also Electro Convulsive Therapy for depression.

There are of course many other reasons but unfortunately the records are closed I think for 100years. Notts Archives have the records so if you really want to know contact them and if you are the nearest relative you may be able to access them if you fill in enough forms.

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/home/leisure/archives.htm

The staff there are very helpful but are bound by the rules and quite rightly so.

I hope this helps and is not too depressing.

Kind regards

Jane