Lunatic asylums and workhouse

[suziq]

Hi all
I'm wondering if anyone can help find out more on why Domenico Poggio is taken into the London workhouse in March 1912 and he subsequently dies in there and Fortunato Savini is admitted to Banstead Lunacy asylum in June 1895 and dies in August 1895.  Were these places used as hospitals?
Many thanks for any help
Suziq

[Ruskie]

As both people died over 100 years ago you should be able to gain access to their records if they still exist. It is a matter of finding where they have been deposited.
Here is a link to information about Banstead:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=43

And a previous thread (note it is an old thread and records may be elsewhere or online by now):
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=220480.0

I am not sure what the "London" workhouse was, but you may find something useful here:
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/CityOfLondon/

Added: Do you know Domenico's year of birth and occupation? Do you have his death certificate?

[suziq]

Hi Ruskie
Hi Domenico's birth is ABOUT 1875, HE IS 31 ON HIS MARRIAGE CERT IN oCTOBER 1906. His date of death was 28th March 1912 and he was a domestic artist.  I don't have his death cert as I've just stumbled on this info.  He was in the Horton Institution in Buckinghamshire. The info is from the Lunacy patients admission.
Suziq

[Bookbox]

The Horton Asylum was in Epsom (Surrey), not at Horton in Buckinghamshire.
http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/horton.html

[suziq]

Oh sorry on Ancestry on the Lunacy admission list it says Buckinghamshire.
Suziq

[Ruskie]

I wondered if you'd seen Domineco's admission on Ancestry ... I thought it was for the workhouse though ....

[Bookbox]

According to the workhouse registers, he was admitted to the St Pancras workhouse on 20 March 1912 and discharged to the Horton Asylum on 27 March 1912.

The Horton Asylum is in Epsom, Surrey, not in Buckinghamshire. Ancestry's transcribers seem to have got it wrong.

ADDED - I've now found a related thread 
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=751723.msg6000835

[MaxD]

My grandfather spent the final twenty two years of his life in Banstead which in those less enlightened days was called a lunatic asylum but later became known as a mental hospital.  Essentially, the treatment of mental illness was far less well developed than it is today and illnesses like depression and mild personality disorders were often  "treated" by simply shutting the poor sufferers away.  Clearly, some inmates did have more serious types of illness but having seen my grandfather's records, it is equally obvious that many would nowadays be treated in the community.  So yes, the lunatic asylums were hospitals in the modern sense.

Asylums (the name on its own) and workhouse infirmaries were both sorts of hospitals, this is worth reading http://www.workhouses.org.uk/life/medical.shtml and also http://www.workhouses.org.uk/MAB/

maxD

[Bookbox]

According to the lunacy admission registers, Domenico Poggio was in the Horton Asylum overnight only and died there the next day.

The St Pancras poor law union records should include an Examination and a Reception Order for him.

The Horton Asylum registers should include at least an admission/discharge record for him.

Records of both institutions are at London Metropolitan Archives, but they are not online for 1912.