researching relative who died in Severalls Hospital in Colchester

[shelen]

Hi,

I have been trying to find out what happened to my great aunt Agnes Kate CRICKMORE (my granny was fairly vague when asked about her, and never told stories about her, although she did about the rest of her family.  She led us to believe that she died young).  I now have her death certificate and it turns out that far from having died in maybe her early 20s, she died in 1975 in Severalls Mental Hospital, in Colchester (where they lived as children).  But I haven't managed to find out any more.  The Essex Record Office say they have no records left, and Severalls no longer exists.

Has anyone any ideas of where I could go from here?

[nanny jan]

Hi,

Welcome to Rootschat. 

This might be a good place to start:

http://severallshospital.co.uk/

Good Luck!


Nanny Jan

[nannyj]

You could try contacting the health authority?
Although I went through proni (the Northern Ireland equivalent of the GRO) I was emailed a transcript of the reason for my great grandfather's admission to a mental hospital. They had to get permission to send til me, but the results were very interesting!!

[clairec666]

I've had a quick look at the 1911 census and the 1939 register. In 1911 Agnes is living with her parents and siblings. If she had a mental impairment from an early age, this would have been recorded on the census.
In 1939 I've looked at the free preview (you have to pay to see the full record), and it doesn't give any names of people living at the same address as Agnes... possibly she was living alone, or there's a chance she was already a resident of a mental hospital by this point and each patient was transcribed as a separate household... it's worth buying some pay-per-view credits to look at this record.
Electoral rolls might be useful too - you can browse electoral rolls for Essex in 1918 and 1929 at SEAX (http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/result_details.aspx?ThisRecordsOffSet=11&id=302556), but since the records for Colchester are arranged by street name, it would help if you know the address her parents were living at in 1911.

[nannyj]

Hi. I had some credits left that needed using up. She is at severalls mental hospital in 1939. There's loads of other patients names listed. She is described as incapacitated. Birth 20/7/1897. She's one of the only women with her actual birthdate. The others just have the year. There are hundreds of women there. There are two hundred just from surnames beginning b to early f. Agnes is one of the youngest. Lots of women there born 1850s and 1860s.

[nannyj]

On wiki, it suggests there were about 2000 patients there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severalls_Hospital

[shelen]

Thank you all so much!  That is so interesting!   
I didn't know about the 1939 preview. I shall look on it.  My hunch is that Kitty (Agnes Kate) was in Severalls by the early 1920s.  Their mother died in 1906 when the family lived in Witham.  by 1911 they were in Colchester, and the City and County Directory for 1910 shows Frank Crickmore (their father) at 78 Wimpole Road.  Then the 1911 Census they are at 64 Winnock Road. 
In 1921 their grandmother in Braintree died, then in 1922 brother Bill emigrated to Australia, and in 1923 father Frank followed.  My grandmother, Mary, had moved to London with a friend, and I think their other sister Vera was with the housekeeper in Bournemouth.  So it is as if the family fell apart.  They all kept in touch until they died - apart from Kitty who almost might not have existed.  When asked, my grandmother would say things such as: "perhaps she died of a broken heart, dear".

I did try the Essex Health Authority a while ago but they said that records are only kept for 20 years after a person's death.

[nannyj]

Wiki suggested that girls were sent there by their families after unmarried pregnancies or after being attacked. Maybe the former after what your grandmother said ... died of a broken heart? Your grandmother might not have been allowed to see her?

[nannyj]

Did Frank Crickmore have a brother called Robert who married who married a miss k rust? There's a mention in the paper of robert's wedding and that Frank was the best man? Robert and Frank's father in this article is also r crickmore. seems like kate was the sunday school teacher and that they got the train from the station at rayne and honeymooned in brighton if these are the right people?
wedding 21 Feb 1891, article is on the 27th. the bride was given away by her mother as her father was deceased. bride dressed in blue travelling dress trimmed with fox fur and a hat to match!