Asylum at Heavitree, Exeter.

[Special Needs Girl]

Hi

Does anyone know where the patients who died whilst in the asylum at Heavitree, Exeter were buried?

Did the Asylum have its own burial ground like some other institutions did?

I have contacted Exeter Bereavement Services and local churches but cannot find a burial plot for Thomas Jones who died 6 February 1906.

Thomas’s home was Cardiff and because of an agreement with Devon, patients from Cardiff were sent to Heavitree Asylem in the early 1900s because the county asylum was full. Cardiff built its own metal hospital which opened in 1908.

Thomas was not repatriated to Cardiff.

Many thanks
SNG

[CaroleW]

Associated post here

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=873535.0

[Special Needs Girl]

Yes CarolW

I was asking about the Asylum and why patients from Cardiff were sent there.
I have learned a lot from the people who kindly gave information. There was an agreement with Cardiff and Devon.

I have now asked a question within the Devon group regarding burials of patients from the Asylum in  Heavitree.

I noticed that someone had asked a question regarding another Asylum and there was a list of burials that the questioner could check to see if her person was on it.

I wondered if there was a list for the Asylum in Heavitree.

[AlanBoyd]

Although there is no answer to your question, there is some useful background, if you haven’t seen it, here:

http://www.heavitreelocalhistorysociety.co.uk/articles.html#articles-digby-asylum

[AlanBoyd]

Just realised that your title says Wonford House. According to the article Wonford House was a private asylum also in Heavitree. The municipal asylum was a different place.

added: here is an old OS map that shows both sites. Wonford House is in the top left corner of the map, the new asylum is east and slightly south over by the north-south railway.

https://maps.nls.uk/view/101444392

[Special Needs Girl]

Thanks AlanBoyd

I was informed that the official name for the Asylum at Heavitree was the “Wonford House Asylum” by Devon Archives.

[Special Needs Girl]

Thank you AlanBoyd for that very interesting article about Heavitree. It is a much larger area that I initially thought. Full of history too.

I assumed the Asylum would have been like the one my father worked in from the 1950s to the 1980s in Hanwell, Middlesex. That had been built in a village and although the buildings are now in a built up area there seems to be more in Heavitree.

In St. Bernard’s, friends and or relatives of the patient who had passed away were allowed to take the body away for their choice of burial. If this was not the case, the deceased were buried in unmarked pauper’s graves in a designated area in the hospital grounds.

After being unable to find a burial for Thomas in both Cardiff and Exeter, I wondered if Heavitree Asylum had a burial area in the grounds.

I have removed (Wonford House) from the title so readers know that I am talking about the Heavitree Asylum.

SNG

[Janelle]

Yes CarolW

I was asking about the Asylum and why patients from Cardiff were sent there.
I have learned a lot from the people who kindly gave information. There was an agreement with Cardiff and Devon.

I have now asked a question within the Devon group regarding burials of patients from the Asylum in  Heavitree.

I noticed that someone had asked a question regarding another Asylum and there was a list of burials that the questioner could check to see if her person was on it.

I wondered if there was a list for the Asylum in Heavitree.

Hello SNG

Heavitree asylum would have been required to register all deaths locally, so your man would have been registered at St Thomas RD.

Do death certificates in UK at this period state the intended burial place ?

If Heavitree had an on-site burial ground it would be much discussed by the local historical society and others, records at Devon Heritage Centre, and visible on maps or plans for the period.

There are burials for folks with abode given as Wonford House in the burials parish register for Heavitree.

I worked with another transcriber to put the burial records for Devon County Asylum, Exminster, into FreeREG last year. Jeff Ellis kindly donated his transcripts of that asylum’s own burial ground to us for including on FreeREG.
The full details of his work are in GenUKI.
He made a note of folks not buried on site and we researched the Devon parish registers to complete the picture.

All the Exminster asylum deaths were registered at St Thomas RD, so your asylum would have done the same.

Jeff accessed to the County asylum case files lodged at Devon Heritage Centre. Are the Heavitree files there too ?

Hopefully some of the above is of use.

Janelle

[Special Needs Girl]

Good morning Janelle,

Thank you for all that information, very interesting and informative.

Yes Thomas’s death of 6th February 1906 was registered at St Thomas RD.

Sadly no death certificate we have ever received (from the start of issue and our own parents more recently) states where the person was buried. In fact a person cannot be buried until a death certificate has issued.
When someone dies the death has to be registered in the registration area in which they actually pass away so when someone dies away from their usual abode, it is harder to find a burial place (unless they were taken back to the area they lived in and buried with family).
Of course it is hard anyway in some cases especially when there is a “common name” like Thomas Jones.

When I stated that I had seen records of another Asylum in Devon, it was Exminster. I just couldn’t think of the name when I was typing my message.
It is fantastic when work like this has been done and it makes life so much easier for people when they are researching.
You must have both worked really hard compiling all the information and creating the “file”. Not an easy straightforward task.

I have tried looking for the Parish Register of Burials for Heavitree on FH sites but cannot find entries for Thomas in 1906.
I have contacted the Rector directly and am awaiting a reply from him.
Perhaps I need to give him a small nudge by way of an email.

Best wishes
SNG x