Index of English and Welsh Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals
Based on a comprehensive survey in 1844, and extended to other asylums.

The Lunacy Commission Contents Page Mental Health History Timeline 1842-1844 1844 Lunacy Report

All County Asylums open in 1844 are listed and all Hospitals receiving paupers. Workhouses mentioned in the 1844 report are listed. The table lists all licensed houses receiving paupers in 1844 and shows which were commended and which severely censured in the 1844 Report.

In the 1844 Report, all asylums apart from workhouses are listed, but only some the workhouses with lunatic wards. This was because the Inquiry Commission did not systematically visit workhouses in the way that it did the other asylums.

After the 1844 Report, legislation ensured that public asylums were provided for all areas of the country. These new public asylums are shown in white on green.

National Health Service Psychiatric Hospitals were classified as "Mental Illness" or "Mental Handicap". I am adding listings of the Mental Handicap ones (1970s) on yellow.

Some hospitals will appear on the green and the yellow, usually because they started as chronic asylums in the late nineteenth century.

There are some asylums in grey that do not fit in to any of the above categories, but are conveniently included on this page. These include hospitals not receiving paupers in 1844.

The table is arranged geographically:

London,
South East England,
South West England,
Wales, Welsh Border and West Midlands away from Birmingham,
Birmingham and West Midlands
East Midlands and Lincolnshire,
Cheshire and Lancashire,
Yorkshire,
Northumberland and Durham.

Some prices for weekly costs of maintaining paupers 4d: a useful pauper farmed in Wales, 1/6 tp 2/6: average for pauper lunatics or idiots farmed in Wales, 2/9: Ellen Davies, a harmless idiot, farmed with Edward Grey, 4/1d, not including clothes: Cheshire paupers at Cheshire County Asylum 5/- a "dangerous" and "dirty" lunatic farmed in Wales, after Haydock's competition 5/6d: Cornwall paupers at Cornwall County Asylum 6/- Lancashire paupers at Lancaster County Asylum 6/- to 7/- excluding clothes: West Auckland 7/-: Haydcock Lodge in 1845 7/- a "dangerous" and "dirty" lunatic farmed in Wales, before Haydock's competition 7/6: Haydcock Lodge in 1844 7/- to 8/- including clothes. Wreckenton 7/6 to 8/- including clothes. Laverstock House 8/- (including clothes): Belle Vue, Devizes, Fiddington House, Fisherton House, Dunston Lodge, Gateshead Fell, Bensham, 8/- excluding clothes: Hull Refuge 8/6: Bottom price for private patients at Haydock Lodge 8/- to 9/- Kingsdown House 9/- including clothes: Lainston House, Gloucestershire County Asylum, Droitwich Lunatic Asylum, Hoxton House (London), 9/- excluding clothes: Green Hill House 9/- to 9/6: Hilsea Asylum 9/8d farthing: Bethnal Green (London), 10/- : paupers from outside Cheshire at Cheshire County Asylum 10/- including clothes: Duddeston Hall, Peckham House (London), 10/6: paupers from outside Cornwall at Cornwall County Asylum Welsh patients at Lancaster County Asylum 10/6d excluding clothes - but an "admission charge" of £1..1/-. Plympton House 10/- to 12/- excluding clothes: Hereford Lunatic Asylum 12/- including clothes: Liverpool Lunatic Asylum

London

Hanwell (1st Middlesex) County Asylum
[A Sarah Rutherford case study]
Built 1829 to 1830. Opened 16.5.1831
Architect: William Alderson. Peter Cracknell classifies it as Corridor form. Jacobi classifies it as a distinct form.
Landscape: Designer D. Ramsay
Built in what was then country. Closest market town was Brentford. Technically in Norwood Parish, but known as the Hanwell Asylum from the beginning as it was much closer to the centre of Hanwell than to Southall or Norwood. See GENUKI (1868 National Gazeteer)
For the early history of Hanwell see the biography of James Clitherow
Tessa Speight's history
Superintendent January 1831 to early 1838: William Ellis. Matron, Mrs Ellis
Visiting physician from 1832: Alexander Morison
1834: The Hanwell Lunatic Asylum by Harriet Martineau
From about 1835 to about 1840, George Peacock Button was house surgeon. He witnessed William Ellis's will in April 1839. He became superintendent of the Dorset County Asylum.
Extra wings added 1837/1838
Architect: William Moseley.
Superintendent April 1838 to 1839 Gideon John Millingen
Superintendent 1839 to 1844: John Conolly, who abolished mechanical restraint.
"old mode of treatment" - "new methods"
October 1839 51st Report Visiting Justices
January 1840 52nd Report Visiting Justices
April 1840 53rd Report Visiting Justices
July 1840 54th Report Visiting Justices
January 1841 56th Report Visiting Justices
April 1841 57th Report Visiting Justices
July 1841 58th Report Visiting Justices: they had "been imperatively called upon to annul the appointment of the Reverend Francis Tebutt as chaplain to the asylum. His duties will cease on the 11th of the month, and he will be succeeded by the Reverend Thomas Burt"
October 1841 The Fifty-ninth Report of the Visiting Justices of the Lunatic Asylum of Hunwell. The Resident Physician's Report, and the Report of the Chaplain, . This formed the basis of an extensive review in the a New York newspaper on 2.4.1842
1844 to 1852 John Conolly visiting physician Hanwell). Conolly became the proprietor of Lawn House and Hayes Park
1.1.1844: 975 patients. All pauper. 1844? 14.6% of patients epileptic
Superintendent: April to August 1844: John Godwin (not medical)
Visiting Physician: J. Conolly M.D.; House Surgeons: J. Beyley, M.D.; Davies M.D.
1845 John Hitchman succeded Dr Nesbit in charge of the female side. William Chapman Begley was (at about the same time) in charge of the male side. They each had salaries of £200 a year.
15.1.1848 Full page illustration and short article "Twelfth Night at the Hanwell Asylum" in the The Illustrated London News
1850 John Hitchman became superintendent Derby County Asylum
From about 1850 to about 1872, W.C. Begley was resident medical officer (Annual Reports). William Chapman Begley had witnessed William Ellis's will in April 1839.
A third floor added in 1859.
13.11.1861 Theodore Edward Edwards, a patient, killed himself. An autopsy [inquest?] was carried out by Thomas Wakley. Hospital records show that Theodore was buried within the hospital grounds. A descendent would like to know where were this is. We have located the burial ground on an 1868 map. In the late twentieth century, a Regional Secure Unit was built on these grounds.
July 1873 R R Alexander, MB, CM. appointed Assistant Medical Officer in the place of J. Hawkes who went to Westbrooke House Asylum in Hampshire.
Biography of a patient (Alfred Woodhurst) admitted 1877
1880 Large chapel (surviving) built to replace a smaller one. The asylum now had nearly 2,000 patients.
1881 Census: Middlesex Lunatic Asylum, Norwood, Middlesex. There are two medical superintendents: Joseph Pake Richards (married, aged 40, surgeon) and Henry Rayner (unmarried, aged 39, physician). Isabella Elizabeth Hicks is Matron.
Became a London County Asylum in 1889.
About 1894?: Robert Reid Alexander M.D. resident medical superintendent; Rev. Robert Andrews MA. chaplain; James William Palmer, clerk & Alfred Henry Larcome, steward.
Hanwell Mental Hospital from 1929 to 1937.
St Bernard's Hospital from 1938 to 1980. Uxbridge Road, Southall, UB1 3EU.
By 1960 known as St Bernard's, Southall. It had 2500 staffed beds
Sometime before 1962, Andrew O'Brien visited his uncle in St Bernard's Hospital. It was "like a small town in itself". There was a church, a laundry, and a point on the Grand Union Canal where barges brought the coal for the Hospital. He can remember the tall Victorian wards and that there seemed to be many patients in each ward, and white coated male orderlies who seemed to spend some of their time lighting patients cigarettes. He felt very sad and could not face going again after his second visit.
In 1971 it had 2,039 beds, 189 in locked wards.
Mary Nettle a patient, for three months, "in St Bernard's, a horrible Victorian asylum".
Two general hospitals: King Edward Memorial Hospital and Claypond's (started as an isolation hospital) form Ealing Hospital between 1978 and 1980.
Ealing Hospital built adjacent to St Bernard's. A District General Hospital "in the form of a multistorey concrete slab with lower blocks around it" (Scher, P. 1999)
[ Ealing Hospital weblink]
By 1985, staffed beds reduced to 950
"Since then St Bernard's, a Grade II listed building, has become a 'wing'" [of Ealing Hospital], "albeit a large one, comprising the central and eastern parts of the original, the western part having been sold for redevelopment." (Scher, P. 1999)
West London Mental Health Trust weblink

The address of West London Healthcare NHS Trust is St. Bernard's Wing, Uxbridge Road Southall, Middlesex UBI 3EU. 020 8574 2444. (Community services, Mental health services)

Stephen James, Head of Partnerships and Diversity, Ealing Primary Care Trust writes (26.8.2005) "There is a large range of [psychiatric] services (including inpatient and forensic) provided by West London Mental Health Trust (WLMHT) at the site. There is also a museum, which I understand the Trust cannot open regularly because of lack of funds".

Three Bridges Regional Secure Unit St Bernard's Hospital, Uxbridge Road, Southall, Middlesex, UB1 3EU established 1980s?

" The burial grounds were used for building the Regional Secure Unit (RSU). Any human remains that were uncovered were removed and later re- interned in the "Garden of Remembrance". This is the small upright rectangle one can see in the Google aerial photo - If you compare it to your old map you can make the match easily. The garden of remembrance is the above the left hand canal lock and directly above the lock's left-hand gate. To the immediate right is a parking lot with white hospital vans and the RSU is the complex further the right with the semicircular crescent." (Paul Champion, email 12.8.2006)

mid 1990s? Corsellis Brain Collection moved to St Bernards?
"Inner Space" by Peter Scher in Hospital Development 1.3.1999 has history and present development
2003 use: "Part luxury housing and part psychiatric hospital"
(external link history of Hanwell district) (external link Boston House)

Museum and Chapel of St Bernard's Hospital, Uxbridge Road, Southall. Georgian. Formerly the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum. "Not suitable for under-16s". I can sadly confirm that the Hanwell hospital museum has permanently closed and the collection dispersed. Some of it went to the Gunnersbury Park Museum http://www.hounslow.info/gunnersburyparkmuseum (prior permission is required to view as it is not on display) and some to the Welcome Trust (I think this would have been the apparatus and other clinical hardware) and the London Metropolitan Archives took the records and papers. (Paul Champion, email 12.8.2006)

Surrey County Asylum
Springfield, near Wandsworth
Nick Hervey says that the asylum was "in response to the growing expense of farming out the county's chronic insane to private licensed houses in the metropolis" and that " Sir Alexander Morison who was appointed as Visiting Physician before building commenced, carried out a survey of these patients".
"The site at Springfield Park, Wandsworth was bought from Henry Perkins, a wealthy brewer and partner in the firm of Barclay and Perkins, who had himself obtained the freehold from the 2nd Earl of Spencer"
1838 Building started
Architect: usually stated to be E Lapidge, but Nick says he was only one of the designers and that it "was done to the design of William Moseley, who was the County Surveyor for Middlesex and had previously been working on extensions at Hanwell". - Corridor form
The present "Main Building", built around a lawn and fountain area (See external link), appears to be the centre of the original corridor. Some of the corridors and main rooms (not all) have a pronounced slope, some running down towards the south-west of the building. One (at least) main corridor slopes towards the southeast. Does anyone know why this is?
opened 14.6. 1841 Cost: Total £85,366..19..1d. Comprised of Land: (97 acres) £8,985..9..5 - Buildings: £67,467..1..10 - Furnishings etc and preliminary expenses: £7,514..19.3 (1844 Report p.222)
Nick Hervey says that 299 patients were brought in on the day of opening, increasing to 385 in the first year. They included 172 from Peckham House, 51 from Hoxton and 54 from Bethnal Green. However, patients may have moved in from these asylums earlier as their movement was noted in a report for the year 1.6.1840 to 31.5.1841.
1.1.1844: 382 patients. All pauper.
Superintendent: S. Hill, Surgeon
1844 At the time of the 1844 Report, Surrey was the most modern county asylum. Its construction was generally approved of. "the house and galleries generally are warmed by the circulation of steam, and the introduction of hot air through apertures in the floor. The temperature is regulated by stop-cocks, and kept between 56 degrees and 58 degrees. There are open fires, with proper guards, in the several day rooms on the female side; and it is proposed to adopt them also in the male division". (1844 Report p.20)
1848-1858 Hugh Welch Diamond (1809-1886), photographic pioneer (External links: RSM, Getty, Leggat, Pearl Science and Society Picture Library), was Resident Superintendent of the Female Department. See Lutwidge 1853 and Millar 1853. He appears to have left to set up his own, high class, lunatic asylum in Twickenham
Until about 1857, Alexander Morison, Charles Snape and Hugh W. Diamond were the medical officers connected with Surrey Asylum
About 1860 John Meyer appointed Resident Physician. William Orange was Assistant Medical Officer
1863 John Meyer and William Orange move to Broadmoor. James Strange Biggs became Resident Physician
1881 Census: James Strange Biggs, physician, aged 53, was asylum head
1889 to 1912 Hugh Gardiner Hill medical superintendent. His son, Harold, a family historian, was very proud of the way his father carried on Robert Gardiner Hill's non-restraint work at Springfield. The graves of Hugh and his wife Rosie are in the Magdalen Road Cemetery not far from Springfield
Transferred to Middlesex County Council after the 1888 Local Government Act, when it was known first as Wandsworth Asylum.
From about 1918 known as Springfield Asylum.
A detached annexe for 260 "low-grade mental defectives, 180 children and 80 adults" was built under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act.
April 1916 A detached block of the main asylum used as Springfield War Hospital for severe or protracted cases
for the care and treatment of soldiers and pensioners suffering from neurasthenia or loss of mental balance (Hansard 12.4.1920)
1919 Post Office Directory: Middlesex County. Beechcroft Road, Upper Tooting, SW17 and Garrat Green, Burntwood Lane, Tooting SW17. Reginald Worth MB medical superintendent; Gayton Warwick Smith, MD assistant medical officer; Rev William Parkinson Iddeson, MA, chaplain; Thomas W. Beale, clerk to the asylum.
1926 Nurses were instructed to show kindness and forbearance with "example being better than precept" (Regulations and Orders of Springfield Mental Hospital, London). (external link)
In 1939 "Springfield (Mental) Hospital" had 2,000 patients, 83 acres of farm land and 14 acres of garden. There was close cooperation between Springfield and Westminster Hospital.
Spring 1978 Springfield Words
Now Springfield Hospital (external link), 61 Glenburnie Road, London, SW17 7DJ.
Autumn 2002: Reported still open, or closed and empty (street map - multimap. Simon Cornwall: Was to close but parts have remained opened. 30.1.2006: from David Gardiner-Hill "It is definitely open and a Mental Health Trust associated with Georges Hospital Trust. The Gardiner Hill Unit has unfortunately changed its name though signs to it still litter Tooting/Wandsworth!! I have visited on open day, and seen the old history exhibition in the mortuary. The superintendent's house Hugh Gardiner Hill lived in is now offices overlooking the golf course in the grounds, but I have recognisable photos of the drive and gardens of this house when Hugh's children were babies and a lovely one of his wife in a 1906 car, also a record of speeding ticket from a newspaper. Speeding was newsworthy".

London Licensed Houses receiving paupers:

Warburton's, Bethnal Green
1.1.1844 562 patients. 336 pauper and 226 private.
COMMENDED IN 1844

Hoxton House
1.1.1844 396 patients. 315 pauper and 81 private.
SEVERELY CENSURED IN 1844 REPORT

Peckham House
1.1.1844 251 patients. 203 pauper and 48 private.
SEVERELY CENSURED IN 1844 REPORT

St Marylebone See Peter Higginbotham's site

First workhouse established in 1730, after the Workhouse Test Act. A local Act of Parliament, passed in 1775, enabled the Vestry to build a new workhouse. Under this, the administration of poor relief in the parish was conducted by Directors and Guardians of the Poor who included thirty parishioners appointed by the Vestry. The old building was used as an infirmary.

1792 new infirmary block for 300.

War led an widespread increase in pauperism and St Marylebone was over-full with 1,168 inmates in 1797. The Guardians resorted to out-relief without demanding entry into the workhouse.

1815: Lord Robert Seymour, a Director of Poor for the Parish of Saint Marylebone was "in the practice of visiting the insane poor of that parish at Mr Warburton's, Bethnal Green"

1844 Report page 87: "In the Lunatic wards of the Marylebone Workhouse there were admitted in the years 1842 and 1843, 190 paupers considered as insane. Some few of these, however, were stated to be only under temporary excitement. The overseers of this parish could obtain admission into the Hanwell Asylum for only twenty-seven of these 190 cases..."

Workhouse Masters:
1842-1850 James Jones
1850-1851 W Barlow
1851-1856 George Whelan
1856 Richard Ryan (the "woman flogger" of a London ballad)
1857 James Barnet

1847 approval for Marylebone workhouse to become a temporary asylum for lunatics. (Hervey, N.B. 1987)
On lists of licensed houses as "St-Mary-le-Bone. Workhouse":
30.6.1846: Licensed to Dr Boyd with 35 patients
30.6.1847: Licensed to Dr Boyd and T. Jones, surgeon, with 68 patients
1.1.1849: 79 patients, 30 male, 49 female. All pauper.

London Workhouse Union

Westminster Union See Peter Higginbotham's site

Archives Metropolitan Archives contain Registers of patients maintained by the Union in imbecile asylums 1885-1895 (reference WEBG/WM/52/1) and 1896 - 1902 (reference WEBG/WM/52/2).

1885-1895 relates to Hanwell*; Banstead*; Colney Hatch*; Cane Hill*; Hoxton House*; Bethnal House*; Grove Hall, Bow*; Peckham House*; Salisbury, Fisherton House*; Kent County, Barming Heath*; Camberwell House*; Kent County, Chartham*; Moulsford nr. Wallingford; Bristol Borough; and Claybury*

1896-1902 relates to the ones marked with an asterisk (*) above, plus Exeter Borough, Heavitree; Surrey County, Brookwood ; Nottingham Borough, Mapperley Hill ; Dorset County; Glamorgan County; Dorchester; Northampton County, Berry Wood ; Wadsley nr. Sheffield; Warwick County, Hatton; Isle of Wight, Newport; Bristol City, Fishponds; Lancashire, Haydock Lodge; Bexley; Stone nr. Dartford; Manor at Horton; Lancashire County, Prestwich; Winson Green; Hertfordshire County, Hill End; Leicester Borough; Middlesex County, Wandsworth and West Sussex, Chichester

St George's Hanover Square
See Peter Higginbotham's site
Fulham Road Workhouse and Infirmary
See Peter Higginbotham's site
Observation Ward
"At least half of the cases admitted to the male mental ward, or observation ward, ... between 1917 and 1923 were ex-servicemen". Less than half of the ex-servicemen were sent on to an asylum. Most were sent home after a few days. There was a statutory maximum of 14 days. "The inmate was usually put on a regimen of eggs, milk pudding and beef tea". Bromide and paraldehyde were used and there was a padded cell. (Barham, P. 2004, p.202)

Fulham Hospital

In the early nineteenth century, the City of London and its parishes had a diversity of institutional resources to call on to accommodate pauper lunatics. It controlled Bethlem Hospital. St Lukes was just outside its "square mile", as were the large private pauper asylums at Hoxton and Bethnal Green. Many of the parishes had their own workhouses and, in Hoxton and elsewhere, there were also several private workhouses (pauper farm houses).

Bethlem Hospital

1377: the Bishopsgate Bedlam (St Mary of Bethlem)
1403: visited
1536 on: monasteries dissolved - City gets Bethlem
1559: Bethlem on oldest map of London (sketch map)
1615 Oldest surviving written lyrics of the ballad Mad Tom of Bedlam
1618 Helkiah Crooke (1576-1648), physician to James 1st, non- resident "keeper"
1633 An enquiry into the affairs of Bethlem Hospital led to Helkiah Crooke's dismissal
From 1634 a resident steward was responsible for the practical management. Also from the 1630s there was a (non-resident) physician.
1676: Moorfields Bedlam and pay to view insanity (sketch map)
[A Sarah Rutherford case study]
Architect: Robert Hooke
The Bedlam page on Molly Brown's tour of Restoration London
1684 Edward Tyson (1650-1708) physician
1698-1770 Ned Ward's The London Spy
1700 David Irish in Guildford advertised "good fires, meat, and drink, with good attendance, and all necessaries far beyond what is allowed at Bedlam"
1701 Henry Mackenzie The Man of Feeling
1704 Swift's Tale of a Tub
1708 Death of Dr Edward Tyson
2.10.1728 James Monro appointed physician
1730s: wings for incurables added. These necessitated alteration to the airing courts.
1737 A General Committee of about 46 Governors appointed to administer Bridewell and Bethlem on behalf of the (large) Court of Governors
24.7.1751 John Monro appointed physician with his father
4.11.1752: death of James Monro. John sole physician.
From the 1750s a resident apothecary was appointed.
21.4.1764 Following holiday riots at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, it was ordered that constables and assistants be placed in the galleries during the forthcoming holiday. (Hunter and Macalpine 1963 p.427)
John Monro's 1766 Case Book
1770 Visiting restricted to people with tickets of admission from a Governor. By 1779, visiting was restricted to Mondays and Wednesdays (by 1794, "between the hours of ten and twelve o,clock in the forenoon". On 22.5.1779 it was ordered that the number of visitors on one ticket be limited to the person who it was made out to and three others, to curb the "great number of persons admitted". (Hunter and Macalpine 1963 p.428 + 429)
1772 John Gozna Apothecary to Bedlam.
1787: Thomas Monro appointed assistant to his father
27.12.1791: death of John, Thomas Monro succeeds
1795: John Haslam (born London 1764, died July 1844) succeeded John Gozna as Apothecary to Bedlam.
October 1796: Mary Lamb fearful of being confined in Bethlem
"There are many persons now living who can remember passing the gates of old Bethlehem and hearing, as they passed, the cut of the lash and the screams of its victims". (1849 memo on new style asylum)
31.12.1798 241 patients
1799 201 patients admitted
Bethlem on 1799 map of London (sketch map)
31.12.1799 243 patients
1800 235 patients admitted
31.12.1800 266 patients
1801 195 patients admitted
31.12.1801 237 patients
1802 185 patients admitted
31.12.1802 201 patients
1803 180 patients admitted
31.12.1803 220 patients
1804 150 patients admitted
"N.B: During this Year one of the Wings of the Hospital was taken down" (p.390) [Probably refers to 1804, could be 1805]

1804 to 1806 Urbane Metcalf a patient for the first time. His case note on his second stay (1817-1818) say "he is frequently engaged in the occupation of a tailor.. but I am informed that he gets his living out of doors as a hawker and pedlar." In 1817 he considered himself heir to the throne of Denmark, and was suffering as much from depression as delusions. He was discharged cured. "I spent twenty-two months in that dreary abode, Old Bethlem Hospital; not more I believe than six weeks during that time I was incapable, through indisposition, of judging the occurrences that daily took place. From the supineness of the then physician, the cruelty of the apothecary, the weakness of the steward, and the uncontrolled audacity of the keepers [scenes took place that should have been discovered if only six humane people a year had visited] but what was the fact? it stood in the midst of the most populous city in Europe... was almost daily visited by some of the most exalted characters in the country, as well as by feigners. Part of the time, I occupied the next room to... Norris... the iron bar to which he was fastened stood at the foot of my bed."

Begining of June 1804 Medical officers requesting further confinement for James Norris, which might be secured by allocating two cells to him, one for day, the other for night, with a door between. "but on account of the way in which the Hospital was kept constantly filled by patients from the Army and Navy, it was not thought advisable to adopt this plan" [which] "would necessarily prevent some one patient from being detained in the hospital" (25.6.1814, p. 378-379). [12.5.1815, John Haslam was asked whether "nine or ten years ago" there were empty cells. He replied "I think, from the war, we had them pouring in from the Transport Board and the War Office" (p.103)
16.6.1804 Governors sign order that James Norris "be put in the iron apparatus, prepared for him" (p.382)
31.12.1804 186 patients
1805 44 patients admitted
Decline in numbers may have been due to deteriorating conditions of the building making some parts uninhabitable. [At some time] many pauper lunatics were moved to Warburton's in Bethnal Green
31.12.1805 127 patients
1806 64 patients admitted
1806: Transport Board responsible for naval maniacs. See description of relations with Hoxton House etc
31.12.1806 135 patients
1807 54 patients admitted
31.12.1807 126 patients
1808 85 patients admitted
31.12.1808 147 patients
1809 103 patients admitted
31.12.1809 143 patients
1810 92 patients admitted
31.12.1810 147 patients
1811 99 patients admitted
31.12.1811 148 patients
1812 88 patients admitted
31.12.1812 146 patients
1813 106 patients admitted
31.12.1813 143 patients
1814 93 patients admitted
31.12.1814: 119 patients.
25.4.1814: Edward Wakefield's first visit
2.5.1814 Edward Wakefield's party visit the women's galleries where they find a side room with ten chained patients clothed only in blanket gowns. In a cell on the lower gallery they found William Norris, 55 years old, who said he had been confined about fourteen years. [Norris is William in Wakefield's account (p.47 following) and James in the account by the Governors of Bethlem (p.376 following).
7.6.1814: drawing made of William Norris, in restraint
1815: St George's Field Bedlam and criminal lunatics.
Piddock, S. 2002: Linear design: wards over three full storeys and an attic floor. Men and women accommodated in mirror wings on either side of a central administrative section. Accommodation primarily in single cells with a small spur ward on either side providing three cells for the noisy. Arlidge, J.T. 1859 "argued that most, if not all, lunatic asylums were based on the design of Bethlem Hospital, itself based on the monasteries which had provided the early asylums for the insane".
July 1816: John Haslam and Thomas Monro not re-appointed, but Thomas succeeded by his son, Edward Thomas Monro and another (jointly appointed) physician, Sir George Leman Tuthill (born 1772, died 1835). Reforms in the management introduced about this time included keeping case notes on patients. The British Library Catalogue lists To the Governors of the Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem, etc. [Asking for support in his candidature for the post of physician to the Hospitals] by Sir George Leman Tuthill, London, 1816.

1.6.1817 to 12.11.1818 Urbane Metcalf a patient for the second time. On his release he published a pamphlet The Interior of Bethlem Hospital which he sold around London (3d a copy?). "I... became again a patient in the New Bethlem Hospital, and am happy to be able to state that I found many alterations in the provisions, and in other things that greatly added to the comfort of patients, and to the honour of those governors through whom those alterations were effected. I found there were four galleries, and that the patients in one gallery had seldom access to those in another, except when in the green yard, and the establishment to be considerably larger, but not so many patients. I became Dr Tothill's patient, and was put in the upper gallery, Thomas Rodbird keeper. I wish to observe that I have read the printed rules of the establishment, and their principle is good, the comforts of the patients are secured in every respect, but these regulations are departed from and the keepers do just as they please." Urbane then lists the staff [this is of the male side] as Physicians: Drs Tothill and E.T. Munro; Apothecary: Mr Wallett; Steward: Mr Humbly; Porter: Simmons; Keepers: Allen and Goose (first gallery or basement); Dowie (second gallery); Blackburn (third gallery); Rodbird (fourth gallery); Cutter: Vickery. "It is to be observed that the basement is appropriated for those patients who are not cleanly in their persons, and who, on that account have no beds, but lay on straw with blankets and a rug; but I am sorry to say, it is too often made a place of punishments, to gratify the unbounded cruelties of the keepers. The present physicians, I think too supine: providence has placed them in situations wherein they have it in their power greatly to add to, or diminish from the comfort of the unfortunate; I have known patients make just complains to them, which have been received with the utmost indifference, and not at all attended to." Urbane arranges his complaint under sub-headings of the keepers and officers names, attempting to show how the institution is being run for their benefit, at the expense of the patients

March 1819: E. Wright appointed Apothecary Superintendent
October 1830: Dr E. Wright, Apothecary Superintendent, dismissed, having forfeited the confidence of the Governors. [Note that he calls it "the Royal Hospital of Bethlem"]
Consultant physician (with E.T. Monro) from 1835 to 1853: Alexander Morison
1837 extensions to the building

1841 Census: (ages of adults are given to nearest five years) Nathanial Nicholls, Steward, 50. Hannah Nicholls, 45. John Thomas, Apothecary, 45. Mary Thomas, 35. Henrietta Hearn, Matron, 40. John Hearn, 20. William Brown, Porter, 50. Thomas Medley?, Gate Keeper, 40. Elizabeth Medley, 30. Mary David, Kitchen Maid, 30. Charles French, Cutter of Provisions, 30. Three Laundry Maids. Twelve male Keepers. Twelve female Keepers. William Howard, Gardener, 35. Mary Pandigrath, Housemaid, aged 15. Harriet Eliza Hunter, aged 15 (an officer's relative). Five female servants to officers and two male. 167 male patients. 166 female patients, 333 total patients.

Friday 7.4.1843 Mr Hume (MP) objected to £4,122 being "granted for defraying the expense of maintaining criminal lunatics in Bethlem Hospital". He visited them "many times at intervals, and there were several...who appeared to him to be perfectly sane. Mr Hatfield, among others. Hume wanted a way that "offenders... who had their intellects restored...should no longer enjoy comparative impunity".

1844 Bethlem Hospital, St George's Fields, South London. 1.1.1844: 355 patients of whom 90 were criminals. Bethlem was outside the Metropolitan Commission's investigative authority. For statistical purposes: "In the absence of any specific information ... we have entered the Criminal Lunatics ... seventy Males and twenty Females, as Paupers. We have also assumed that the remainder of the Patients ... generally, are of Private class, although we have reason to believe that some of them are maintained, wholly or in part, at the charge of Unions or Parishes" (1844 Report p.186)"

The Lancet 15.2.1845: Editorial comparing Bethlem unfavourably with Bicêtre and Salpétrière in Paris which are "open to all pupils and medical men, who have a right to follow the physicians in their daily visits to the wards". "The directors of Bethlem have, it is true, lately relaxed the extreme severity of their regulations, and distributed amongst the schools a few tickets of admission, for which we give them due credit, but this relaxation of former rules is by no means sufficient. Every facility should be afforded to students to acquire a familiar knowledge of insanity, and our hospitals ought to be freely open..."
1846: Dome, designed by Sidney Smirke, added
1852:: Critical Report
William Charles Hood became Resident Medical Superintendent
1862 W.C. Hood became a Chancery Visitor. Succeeded as Resident Medical Superintendent by William Rhys Williams
1878 William Rhys Williams became a Lunacy Commissioner. Succeeded as Resident Medical Superintendent by George Henry Savage.
1863: criminal lunatics sent to Broadmoor

1881 Census: "Bethlem Royal Hospital", St Georges Cross, Southwark - St George Martyr, Surrey. Resident Officer (Physician) George Henry Savage, widower, aged 38, born Brighton. His housekeeper and housemaid. A friend, Wilhelm Von Speyr (physician aged 28), from Basle in Switzerland was visiting. William Edward Ramsden Wood: Medical Officer (Physician), aged 31. His wife, children and servants. The Gate Porter and his wife. Under Storekeeper. Cutter of Provisions. Assistant Hall Porter. Edmund Smeeth, married, aged 63: Head Attendant Male Side and 15 male and 21 female "Attendants on Insane". A laundress. A housemaid. Another female domestic servant. About 255 patients, only about 94 of whom were men. There were also two "other" and one "visitor". The Gardener, Richard Whibley, and his large family, lived at St Edwards Schools in St Georges Road. Two of his daughters were training to be teachers.

1882 Charity commissioners gave permission for paying patients to be admitted. 1896 extensions to the building

1930: Kent Bethlem Hospital

1948 Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals amalgamated as a single postgraduate teaching hospital in the new National Health Service.
1967 The Maudsley took over the management of the district catchment area service for the mentally ill.
The Bethlem Museum was established in 1970, as a small exhibition space in the new building which housed the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital archives - external link
1991 Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals become an NHS Trust.

1997 Bethlem Royal Hospital 750 years old
The Bethlem Gallery is a permanent exhibition space in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital. The gallery was set up in 1997 to provide opportunities for artists who have experienced mental health problems.
March 1997 Psychiatric Bulletin "The Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust will be celebrating its 750 Anniversary of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, with many events during 1997 including a joint Royal College of Psychiatrists and Maudsley Winter Meeting to be held in London in 1998. Further details for events: The Anniversary Office, The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SES 8AZ (Tel: 0171 919 2014; Fax: 0171 9192171)".
3.6.1997 All in the Mind BBC Radio 4: "Bedlam" Presented by Professor Anthony Clare. Programme to mark the 750th anniversary. Wellcome Film and Audio Collections shelf mark MFAC/HM/97.06. source

Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum
Monks Orchard Road
Beckenham
Kent BR3 3BX

Royal Bethlem Hospital Museum   other museums

external link to map with arrow pointing to present site Notice the sites of several other asylums in south London.

For Bethlem's history: see the Timeline for 1377, 1676, 1815, 1852, 1863, 1930, on this site Follow external links for The word "Bedlam": lovatts.com - xref entry Brief History of Bethlem, by Patricia Allderidge - archive Catholic Encyclopedia West Beckenham Association history - archive Museum of London web exhibit at http://www.museum-london.org.uk/MOLsite/exhibits/bedlam/bedlam.htm archive Mad Tom of Bedlam lyrics and midi from the Living History web. Using a Civil War tune. Tom O'Bedlam's Song. Fuller version Bedlam on stage from the Shakespeare's times website Robert Hooke's architecture (Moorfield's Bedlam) The Bedlam page on Molly Brown's tour of Restoration London History on the John Snow site Texts of visits to Bedlam on Jack Lynch's site Web exhibition of Hogarths' prints - inluding the Rake's Progress Hogarth prints on the ArtArchive site Donald Cousin's visits remains and plaques For today's Royal Bethlem: BBC Mental Health "Inside a hospital" South London and Maudsley NHS Trust Catalogue of Records

In the 1860s Bethlem became a hospital for the "superior class". Criminals were sent to Broadmoor and paupers to: City of London Lunatic Asylum (map link) (See also the London County Council asylum at Bexley) Built by the Corporation of London at Stone near Dartford, Kent during 1862 to 1866. Designed by James Bunstone Bunning, the City's Clerk of the Works (later City Architect and Surveyor). Opened 16.4.1866. (Later additions made) 1881 census: Medical Superintendent: Octavious Jepson (Widower); Assistant Medical Officer: Frank William Marlow From 1892, private patients were admitted. From 1924 known as the City of London Mental Hospital. From 1924 able to receive voluntary boarders The Committee of Visitors had originally been composed of the Aldermen and Recorder as Justices, but under the Local Government Act 1888 the Justices powers and duties passed to the City's Court of Common Council which appointed 12 of its members to be the Visiting Committee. 2 Women were added to the committee from January 1931 (Under the Mental Treatment Act 1930). In 1948 the hospital was transferred to the Minister of Health under the National Health Service Act 1946. Became Stone House Hospital, Cotton Lane, Stone, Dartford, Kent, DA2 6AU. The hospital is due to close and will be converted into luxury apartments. The City of London Record Office has most of the archives (to 1948/1949), but some appear to be in the London Metropolitan Archive St Clement's The City of London Union Workhouse opened in 1849. At some stage it ceased being a general workhouse and became Bow Infirmary. Peter Higginbotham's site says: "In 1909, it was vacated by the City of London Union who had decided to concentrate their work at Homerton in the former East London Union workhouse which had just been substantially enlarged. After a period of standing empty, the building was re-opened on 1st March 1912 as Bow Institution. It was later renamed the City of London Institution, then in May 1936 it was renamed St. Clement's Hospital which it is still known as today." I do not know at what stage it became a psychiatric hospital. It passed from the City of London Poor Law Union to London County Council in 1930 and, about the same time (from about 1929), had, or was, a Mental Observation Unit. It became part of the National Health Service in 1948. January 1956 - December 1957 120 patients admitted to Long Grove Hospital from Bethnal Green. 89 were traced for Enid Mills' survey. Enid Mills gives the following background information: If the "Duly Authorised Officer" is summoned to the East London Area, the patient may be taken by ambulance to Long Grove or one of six psychiatric observation units: Dulwich, Bow, Batteresa, Fulham, St Pancras or Tooting". 1962 (Hospital Plan) St Clement's, Bow had 60 beds in 1960. By 1975 expected have 140. There were no other inpatient facilities named in the City/East End area, but in the whole North East Metropolitan area there were 121 psychiatric beds in unnamed general hospitals and it was planned to increase these to 1,460 by 1975. 1965 St Clement's responsible for psychiatric services in E3 and E4 (PRA 1970, p.18) 1967 St Clement's responsible for psychiatric services in the whole of Tower Hamlets (E1 - E3 - E4) (PRA 1970, p.18) St Clement's Hospital (from 1936) was administratively absorbed by The London Hospital in 1968 and became The London Hospital (St Clement's), 2A Bow Road, London, E3 4LL. There were psychiatric outpatients clinics in 1940 at: London Hospital, Whitechapel, E1. - Mile End Hospital, Bancroft Road, E.1. - St Bartholomew's Hospital, EC1

Kingsley Hall April 1965 Ronald Laing - Aaron? Esterson - and David Cooper co-founded the Philadelphia Association. About July 1965 to 1970 Kingsley Hall used by the Philadelphia Association as a therapeutic community. At some time (before Autumn 1967), Ronald Laing evicted Robin Farquharson for non-payment of telephone bills. External link to History of Kingsley Hall - 19.3.2010 "A Pageant of Survivor History - Mental patients in poetry, story and song from the 18th to 21st century" - September 2012 The Residents tell their stories.

St Luke's Hospital probably not receiving paupers in 1844 17.6.1750 Meeting in the King's Arms in Exchange Alley that decided to found a hospital: Founders Thomas Crowe, physician; Richard Speed, druggist of Old Fish Street; William Prowing, apothecary of Tower Street; James Sperling and Thomas Light, merchants of Mincing Lane; and Francis Magnus (250 year history booklet) Opened 1751 Upper Moorfields, opposite Bethlem. (see sketch map). Took its name from the new parish of St Luke's "The first patients were admitted in July 1751. In February 1753 the number was increased to 57. From 1754 some incurable patients were readmitted and for some time the numbers remained steady: 50 curable and 20 incurable patients. The staff consisted of the keeper and his wife plus two male and two female attendants." (250 year history booklet) William Battie (1703-1776) was physician to 1764 1781 Samuel Foart Simmons (born 17.3.1750, died 23.4.1813) became physician. "From this time... he devoted himself almost exclusively to the treatment of insanity... he attained a high reputation and from it accumulated an ample fortune." 1782 Thomas Dunston moved from being "senior basketman" at Bethlem 1786 moved to Old Street. (New building designed by George Dance and erected 1782 to 1784?) Mr and Mrs Thomas Dunston became Master and Matron from 1786, previously (from 1782) they had been head man keeper and head woman keeper. Their son, John Dunston, apothecary, married the daughter of Thomas Warburton 1810 Benjamin Rush refered to "Dr Dunston" "physician of St Luke's Hospital... eminent for his knowledge of diseases of the mind" February 1811 Samuel Foart Simmons resigned as physician. Appointed consultant physician. His son did not wish to succeed him, but did wish his university friend, Alexander Robert Sutherland, to succeed. One of the unsuccessful candidates was George Leman Tuthill Alexander Robert Sutherland elected physician: "The House also for private patients at Islington was consigned to Dr S. on certain valuable considerations" 1812 Samuel Tuke visited St Lukes and compared ideas with Thomas Dunston. In a manuscript memorandum, he wrote: "There are three hundred patients, sexes about equal; number of women formerly much greater than men; incurables about half the number. The superintendent has never seen much advantage from the use of medicine, and relies chiefly on management. Thinks chains a preferable mode of restraint to straps or the waistcoat in some violent cases. Says they have some patients who do not generally wear clothes. Thinks confinement or restraint may be imposed as a punishment with some advantage, and, on the whole, thinks fear the most effectual principle by which to reduce the insane to orderly conduct. Instance: I observed a young woman chained by the arm to the wall in a small room with a large fire and several other patients, for having run downstairs to the committee-room door. The building has entirely the appearance of a place of confinement, enclosed by high walls, and there are strong iron grates to the windows. Many of the windows are not glazed, but have iron shutters which are closed at night. On the whole, I think St Luke's stands in need of a radical reform." (Quoted Tuke, D.H. 1882 pages 89-90) 1813 Mrs Foulkes prosecuted for keeping lunatics without a licence in a house owned by Thomas Dunston. 1816 Evidence of John William Rogers (a surgeon dismissed by Warburton) that Thomas Dunston received £500 a year from Warburton for recommending patients. Mr and Mrs Dunston had a joint salary from St Luke's of £150 and St Luke's, at one time, had 700 people on its waiting list. Dunston was also said to board lunatics in single houses. (Morris, A.D. 1958, apparently from 1816 Select Committee Reports) 1816 Death of Mrs Dunston, the Matron. Thomas Dunston's title became "Steward" 31.3.1829 After setting fire to York Minster, Jonathan Martin was found not guilty on the ground of insanity. He was confined in St Luke's, where he died 3.6.1838 1829: John Warburton MD elected physician 1830 Death of Thomas Dunston, the Steward who had been in day to day charge of St Luke's since 1782 From 1830 some attempt was made to separate patients according to categories. From 1833 recognised as important to provide some form of occupational therapy for patients "From 1833 it was recognised that it was important to provide some form of occupational therapy for patients. This was another idea supported by Dr Sutherland and also by John Warburton. Whilst this was a step forward they nevertheless maintained some older forms of treatment such as the use of occasional forcible restraint. This was said to be necessary because the number of staff employed to care for the patients was relatively small, in fact a ratio of 7 to 1." (250 year history booklet) 31.8.1833 Clementina and William John Stinton had a baby girl who they christened Clementina Stinton at Saint Luke Old Street on 25.9.1833 1841 Census: Henry Lambert, aged 24, Resident Apothecary. William Jno Swinton, aged 37, Steward. Clementina Stinton, aged 39, Matron. Eight year old daughter (same name as Mrs Stinton] and a second Matron (Harriet Camerow?) aged about 60. Apart from Henry Lambert, the above were all born in Middlesex. Clementina Stinton, born Middlesex about 1834, was living in Lewes in 1881. The 1841 Census return was certified on 7.6.1841 by "Wm Jm Stinton, Steward of St Lukes Hospital for Lunatics". 1841 Alexander Robert Sutherland retired as physician and was succeeded by his son AlexanderJohn Sutherland 1842: A chaplain was hired and a chapel was being built 1844: Steward: Mr Stinton 1.1.1844: 93 curable patients, 84 incurable Henry Monro was a physician from 1855 to 1882. 1860 AlexanderJohn Sutherland retired as a physician to St Luke's From 1871 the Governors began to examine the possibility of acquiring a site for a second building in the country which could be used for convalescent patients. 1881 Census: George Mickley (Physician, unmarried, aged 37) [May previously have worked at Wyke House], Resident Medical Superintendent; Francis William Edward Hinners (unmarried, aged 23) and Edgar Vivian Ayre Phipps (unmarried, aged 24) Resident Clinical Assistant Surgeons. Steward: Thomas Collier Walker, aged 72, born Scotland. Matron: Charlotte Eliza Walker, aged 65, born Douglas, Isle of Man (presumably husband and wife), living with unmarried and unoccupied son and daughter of Steward, both born in Scotland: George Lyell Walker, aged 47 and Margaret Jane Walker, aged 40. 1882 The practice of having a husband a wife as Steward and Matron of the hospital ended. (250 year history booklet) In 1893 Nether Hall, near Ramsgate, was taken over for the benefit of [convalescing] female patients. Initially the property was rented but in 1901 it was purchased by the Hospital. 12.6.1904 to 5.11.1905 painted postcards from Edward O. Cole (patient). The research for most of the information from 1871 to the present was carried out by Jean Cullen, present owner of these postcards. 1910 the Hospital bought the Welders Estate near Jordans in Buckinghamshire, with the intention of building a substantial convalescent home. The project was never brought to completion, but an Encyclopedia reference in 1922 refers to new buildings being constructed at Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. "When St Luke's Hospital closed at the end of 1916, all the remaining patients were either discharged to their homes or transferred to other institutions. In 1922 it was suggested that a psychiatric unit should be instituted by St Luke's in cooperation with a General hospital. This led to the funding by the St Luke's charity of both an out-patient clinic and a psychiatric in-patient ward at the Middlesex Hospital. This continued until the new St Luke's-Woodisde Hospital opened in 1930." (Richard Morris to Jean Cullen) 1917? Site of Old Street St Luke's sold to the Bank of England. Until later than 1958, the building was used as a printing works for Bank of England notes. 1930 "Third St Luke's" opened in Woodside Avenue, Muswell Hill after an "association with Middlesex Hospital" that began in 1923" 1930: Woodside Nerve Hospital 1940: St Luke's Woodside Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders 1948 St Luke's Woodside, Woodside Avenue, Muswell Hill, London, N10 3HU 2001 250 year history booklet

Guy's Hospital Lunatic Ward not receiving paupers in 1844 1.1.1844: 25 private patients George Savage physician for psychological medicine to Guy's Hospital to 1906. 1906 Maurice Craig (1886-6.1.1935) physician for psychological medicine to Guy's Hospital to 1926 external link - (offline) 1926 Robert Dick Gillespie physician for psychological medicine to Guy's Hospital

Batavia Hospital Ship Moored in the Thames, off Woolwich, this ship received naval patients from Hoxton House when they were considered fit for convalesecence. It also sent patients to Hoxton House and Bethlem.

A second Middlesex County Asylum, known as Colney Hatch Asylum, was opened on 17.7.1851. It had 1,293 patients in 1858. Corridor form 1851 William Charles Hood (1824-1870), first medical superintendent. 1862 W.C. Hood appointed to Bethlem 1879 After-care Association for Poor and Friendless Female Convalescents on Leaving Asylums for the Insane 1881 Census. Household of Henry Hawkins 1889 Became a London County Council asylum 1893: A small room was set aside "for microscopic observations" to supplement gross anatomical findings by histological examination. See Claybury. In 1915 the Board of Control reported "under consideration the provision of a laboratory for clinical and pathological research". In 1924 it reported "a useful laboratory" staffed by a specially trained male nurse and supervised by an assistant medical officer. Hunter, R.A. and Macalpine, I. 1974 pp.165-166 Became Colney Hatch Mental Hospital from 1918 to 1937. "The Cockfosters extension on the Piccadilly line.. started at a ... slow pace. In February 1934 Arnos Grove station had served only 500,000 passengers.The proximity of a mental hospital, sewage farm and cemetery were blamed for hindering development." Colney Hatch was renamed Friern Mental Hospital in 1937. But even in 1955, when my grandfather became a patient, it still had to be explained that the new phrase was "mental hospital", and that this meant a different attitude to the one perpetuated by we schoolchildren calling one another "Colney Hatch cases". From 1959 it was Friern Hospital, Friern Barnet Road, New Southgate, London, (N11 3BP) (map). 1958 Halliwick House opened in the grounds of Friern 1965 Lionel Kreeger appointed consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Halliwick Hospital. Worked with Pat de Mare to establish a therapeutic community culture employing small and large groups. He moved to the Paddington Centre for Psychotherapy in 1973 1967 Sans Everything 1968 Camden Association for Mental Health In 1971 Friern Hospital, had 1,862 beds. Hunter, R.A. and Macalpine, I. 1974, Psychiatry for the Poor is a substantial history of the asylum from 1851 to 1973, and one of the best insights into asylum life. 1980 Friern 2000 "celebrating the hospital's achievements and looking forward to the next millennium. LMA, H/12/CH/A/30/6." (Barbara Taylor) 16.7.1981 Care in the Community Green Paper North East Thames closure plans July 1983 "the hospital learned its fate from a televised news announcement" (Barbara Taylor) 1984 Camden Mental Health Consortium established in response to the planned closure of Friern 1985? John Hart's first period in Friern. Testimonies Project 1987 Islington Mental Health Forum "now well established". They "have started a Friern Interest Group which meets at the hospital". 1988 and 1989 Barbara Taylor's periods as an in-patient. 1989 "I entered Friern for the third time and remained there for over six months. My stints in Friern came midway through the closure process... Most of the ward nurses had left and been replaced by agency staff. The ward across the stairwell from mine was empty, having been burned out in a major fire shortly before I arrived. Corridors were sealed off, therapy rooms locked up, the old apple orchard was choked with weeds. The kiln in the pottery workroom broke down and was not repaired; a little pot that I left in the firing queue was thrown away. Yet for me Friern was truly an asylum. I entered it on my knees: I could no longer do ordinary life, and giving up the struggle was an incalculable relief. My home in the hospital was a locked acute ward with a deservedly violent reputation: a Dickensian barrack of crumbled brickwork and peeling walls, reeking with fag smoke and teeming with ghosts; but for me it was a sanctuary. I settled in quickly, got to know people, acquired a lot of new survival skills... I was very wretched most of the time, and often frightened, but I felt safe from what I feared the most: myself. This was a huge plus, and I wanted to stay forever... By the end of the 1980s, I was deeply embedded in the world of the chronically mentally ill. I had lost my home, and was living in a psychiatric hostel. When I was not in Friern, I was at the Whittington day hospital (later made notorious by Clare Allen in her bestselling novel Poppy Shakespeare) or at the Pine Street Day Centre in Finsbury. I still had friends and connections from earlier days, but I spent most of my time with other mental health users with whom I often felt more comfortable than with old chums" (Barbara Taylor) 6.7.1990 Adjournment Debate House of Commons 23.1.1991 "After Friern": A meeting to discuss the health authority proopsals for re-accomodating Friern patients after 1993" organised by Haringey Community Health Council Mental Health Forum. Friern closed in April 1993. It is a listed building which has been converted into luxury apartments (Princess Park Manor). At one time it was considered as a site for Middlesex University. You don't have to be mad to live here 2003 use: "Gated housing development" 1.11.2006 Visit to Princess Park Manor: A billboard advertises "Individually designed quality apartments set in thirty acres of stunning parkland". The parkland is the ground in front of the asylum, which is planted with trees. Barnet Borough have created Friern Village Park out of the land in front of the west wing. This is open to the public daily from dawn to dusk. The Middlesex coat of arms above the asylum says "East Saxons" Friern Cemetery: In 1883 a memorial to an unknown pauper lunatic was erected in the grounds of Colney Hatch Asylum. "2,696 inmates of the asylum were buried here from 1851-1873. The inscription recording the fact was removed after the advent of the Mental Health Act 1959 to unburden the hospital of its past. From 1873 patients were buried in the neighbouring Great Northern Cenetry 'where by a considerate arrangment of the visitors, funerals are privately conducted, and not in forma pauperis (Chaplain's report, CHA 1877) Hunter, R.A. and Macalpine, I. 1974 p.69) Two Metropolitan Asylum Board asylums were opened for chronic London patients in October 1870: Leavesden at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire and Caterham Asylum in Surrey. Later asylums built by the Board were Darenth, Belmont and Tooting Bec. The Lunacy Commissioners visiting in 1904 were: Sidney Coupland, H.F. Gifford, F. Needham, Harold Urmson, E. Marriott Cooke, F. A. Inderwick, A. Hill Trevor. The Metropolitan Asylums Board was abolished in 1930, when its functions were transferred to London County Council This extract from a 1911 encyclopedia shows how the provision of "asylums" was only a small part of the Board's functions: "The Metropolitan Asylums Board, though established m 1867 purely as a poor-law authority for the relief of the sick, insane and infirm paupers, has become a central hospital authority for infectious diseases, with power to receive into its hospitals persons, who are not paupers, suffering from fever, smallpox or diphtheria. Both the Board and the County Council have certain powers and duties of sanitary authority for the purpose of epidemic regulations. The local sanitary authorities carry out the provisions of the Infectious Diseases (Notification and Prevention) Acts, which for London are embodied in the Public Health (London) Act 1891. The Board has asylums for the insane at Tooting Bec (Wandsworth), Ealing (for children); King's Langley, Hertfordshire; Caterham, Surrey; and Darenth, Kent. There are twelve fever hospitals, including northern and southern convalescent hospitals. For smallpox the Board maintains hospital ships moored in the Thames at Dartford, and a land establishment at the same place. There are land and river ambulance services." Peter Higginbotham has just (autumn 2004) added a comprehensive history of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to his website October 1870: Caterham Asylum opened Architects: Giles and Biven - Dual Pavilion May 1871 nearly 1,400 patients 1872: Long report of a visit (on the Rossbret site)   Rossbret picture 1878 An outbreak of enteric fever in Caterham and Redhill did not affect the asylum or the troops in Caterham barracks who were supplied with water from the asylum well. (R.H. Firth 1908 p.60) 1881 Census: Medical Superintendent: George Stanley Elliot, aged 36.Metropolitan District Asylum for Imbeciles, Caterham, Surrey. May also have been known as Caterham Lunatic Asylum for Safe Lunatics and Imbeciles. The names of patients are given in full, not just initials. 24.5.1920 "Ottington Street, Wolling Road, Camberwell. This is where my life began. After I was born, my mother was in bed, my Grandma Brewer heard a knock on the door... it was my dad coming home from the army" (Joseph Deacon p.13) 1920 Caterham Mental Hospital 1926 "my mother's life ended when I as six years old. My Auntie Em took me over, and Grandma Deacon looked after me for a little while. And my auntie had a lot of work to do... At seven years old, I went to Carshalton Hospital for more treatment. They could not understand me when I went to the toilet... Carshalton sent me away to Roehampton, Queen Mary's Hospital for more treatment, and the nurses were very good to me... On 12th February, 1928 my dad told me that I was coming to Caterham. On the following Thursday, 16th February, I came to Caterham. I was first nursed on the female ward" (Joseph Deacon pages 14-15). 1941 St Lawrence's Hospital, Caterham, CR3 5YA "The girls came to see me... They tried to speak to me but I could not answer. My friends told the girls I could not speak. They said they knew, my brother had told them... I was still working in the mat shop and in 1941 Mr Treece got two new boys from the female side. The boys were Ernie and Victor. Mr Treece asked Ernie to help me sort out he wool. When I wanted something or to tell him something I made some noises to make him understand. It was not easy at first but Ernie did not give in. He tried very hard until he began to understand me... [One] Sunday... my cousin Ann and her friend came to see me... I wanted to talk.. There was nobody who could understand me. I made signs and pointed to Ernie. Mr Harris understood me and brought Ernie and I introduced him to my cousin. He understood me. That's how it all began. This was the first time I started to talk a little. We asked her how she liked the A.T.S. I was twenty-two at the time. My cousin was very pleased that she could understand me. Ernie was very good. When she went home she told Grandma how she was able to speak to me through Ernie. (Joseph Deacon p.21-22) 1950s Peter, a Hackney boy, was on a ward with 60 patients. There were four rows of beds plus beds on the veranda. When the weather was bad, they cleared the beds and kicked a ball around the ward. His mother was horrified on her first visit at the thick chunks of bread plus chunks of cheese which were served for tea - But the residents had a terrific appetite. The "children" were taken out for walks in crocodiles. In those days, staff had to rely on patients to help with bathing. At 3pm one round of bathing started, at 7pm a second round. The residents wore old clothes - "like Meths drinkers in the East End". 1971 listed a Mental Handicap Hospital with 1,902 beds 1974 Tongue Tied by Joseph John Deacon, a resident in St Lawrence's since 1928, published by the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. "Joey Deacon has cerebral palsey, seriously affecting all four limbs and his speech and Ernie Roberts is the only person who can really understand him. But Ernie cannot read and write. So as Ernie listened to Joey's story and then repeated it intelligibly to Michael, Michael wrote it down. The handwritten version was then typed by Tom at the rate of four to six lines per day". 10.6.1981: St Lawrence's and Borocourt featured unfavourably in a television documentary Silent Minority "St Lawrences in the 1970s became known as you say through Joseph Deacon's book and film Tongue Tied, and from the documentary Silent Minority. Joseph lived in MC1 (Male C1) and spent a lot of his time on the cosy verandah. Across the airing court was another long verandah where the residents seen in Silent Minority spent their aimless days (MD1). MC1 was a well run homely ward. MD1 was a stark place. Just 10 yards of court separated them. And on the top floor above MD1 was MD3, the lock up ward. Joseph would have heard the shouts from up there when one of the residents went 'up the wall.' 'You'll be sent to D3' was a threat to patients from other wards. Most of the time it was relatively calm. It was a lock up ward, but many of the residents were let out unsupervised to go to work at the concrete works - making slabs and gnomes." (Alastair Fear, who met Joseph Deacon when working at St Lawrences in 1975-1976, and who also worked there, for a while, about the time of Silent Minority) See Timeline for the history of St Lawrence's The third Middlesex County Asylum was opened at Banstead, in Surrey, in 1877. See Miniature city under medical mayor - For "chronically insane pauper lunatics" - Also Banstead Places Architect: Frederick Hyde Pownall - Dual Pavilion Landscape Designer: Alexander MacKenzie National Grid Reference TQ 263 613 Address Sutton Lane, Sutton, Reigate, Surrey Database information that Banstead became a Surrey asylum is incorrect: "Banstead Asylum was built and maintained by the Middlesex Justices prior to 1889. It became the responsibility of the London County Council on 1 April 1889" (London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue), which is confirmed by the following: 1900 89 year old patient's death certificate shows him as dying from "chronic brain wastage" in "the London County Asylum, Banstead". (information from Richard Seymour) 1897/1898 Cheam Parish Council: Water and sewerage file - Correspondence re contamination of water supply from Banstead asylum burial ground 1.1.1927: 1,976 patients of whom all but 142 were Rate Aided. 845 were men, 1,131 women. In 1926 the proportion of recoveries to admissions was 20.0%. The proportion of deaths to the asylum population was 7.1% In 1960s and 1970s (about), part of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Area Health Authority (West London) 1982: Plans for closure and concentration of services on Horton October 1986 Closed Demolished 1989 "High Down and Down View, two state-of-the-art prisons, were built on the site in the early 1990s" Archive link Middlesex JPs were discussing the need for a fourth asylum in 1881. This was to have been Claybury, but local government reorganisation in 1888 transferred this project to the new London County Council. Middlesex asylums after 1888 In 1889 Middlesex lost much of its population to the new London County Council. There was a massive reorgansiation of London asylums, which I am still trying to work out. Hanwell and Friern and Banstead became London County Council asylums. The Surrey County Asylum at Springfield became the Middlesex County Asylum. It may have been the only one until 1905 See Middlesex 1939 Ilford: Claybury Asylum at Woodford Bridge in Essex was opened in 1893. It was the fifth London County Council asylum. Built: 1889-1893 Architect: George Thomas Hine Peter Cracknell describes as the first Compact Arrow design. Edward Sackett was transferred from Brookwood in September 1896, and died from heart disease on 14.10.1899. Joseph Stockton died 20.10.1896 at London County Lunatic Asylum, Ilford, which was also the name of the asylum in 1900 (Registration District: Romford, Sub-District: Ilford) on the death certificate of Mr Hopson (55 years old), an upholsterer formerly of 19 Bee Hive Brick Lane, Whitechapel, who died there. His certificate was signed by the Medical Superintendent, Robert Youes (or Young?) [information from Joan Robblee]. The Central Pathology Laboratory Commissioners in Lunacy 1896 quoted Hunter, R.A. and Macalpine, I. 1974 p.165: "Even when the new Laboratory has been brought into use by the Specialist Pathologist for the County of London [Dr F.W. Mott at Claybury], there will still remain much useful work of this nature to be done in the several Asylums, for which due provision should be made". See Friern 1899 Start of Archives of Neurology from the Pathological Laboratory of the London County Asylums, Claybury, Essex Published: 1899-1907 and 1909-1934 Journal of Mental Science, April 1900, 46, 393: At Claybury Asylum provision is made for private patients who can claim a settlement in the county of London at a charge of 30 shillings a week, and for others at a charge of £2 (See 1890 Act) 1901 or 1902 Dr Macmillan, a medical officer at Claybury, read a paper on The History of Asylum Dysentery at Claybury to a meeting of the Southern Eastern Division of the Medico-Psychological Association. Dr Macmillan, himself, died of asylum dysentery soon after. (source) 1901 A department of Experimental Psychology established at Claybury with W.G. Smith (1866-1918) as director. Smith, a philosophy graduate (1889) of Edinburgh University, studied for his PhD (1894) under the pioneer of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt. He worked for several years in the United States, including a period with William James. Smith and Mott were founder members of the Psychological Society in the same year that the Experimental Psychology unit was established at Claybury. In 1905, Smith became the first lecturer in psychology at Liverpool University and in 1906, he became the first Combe lecturer in General and Experimental Psychology at Edinburgh University. (external link to biography) Report for the year ended 31.3.1902. Dr Robert Jones: medical superintendent. 2431 patients: 1015 men - 1416 women. 426 admissions during the year: 131 men and 295 women. 16% of men admitted had general paralysis. 14% of men and 9% of women were admitted suffering from alcoholic insanity. 148 patients were discharched recovered during the year, whilst 201 patients died. 50 died of general paralysis of the insane - 25 of tuberculosis - 24 of cardiac disease - 21 of colitis (asylum dysentery). "Asylum dysentery attacked 40 males and 81 females, and was responsible for 21 deaths, or over 10 per cent. of the total deaths." A 1911 Encyclopedia entry for Ilford says "Claybury Hall is a lunatic asylum (1893) of the London County Council". About 1952: Thomas Bewley's recollections of the dysentery wards 1955 Denis Martin appointed 16 page booklet printed in the occupational department at some time An Introduction to Community Methods of Treatment and Ward Management in the Psychiatric Hospital Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Woodford Green, Essex. "an introduction to the ... methods... developed in the hospital. This is a new and experimental approach... This booklet was originally written for the guidance of nurses commencing training at Claybury Hospital... As, however, all members of the staff have their part to play in such a community, a copy is being given to all staff". 1962 Denis Vincent Martin Adventure in Psychiatry: Social Change in a Mental Hospital With an introduction by J.S. Harris Oxford : Cassirer May 1971 Information for Patients and Relatives "patients and staff are members of a community. Each ward forms its own community and its members, patients and staff, attend meetings, sometimes daily, sometimes less frequently... In addition to the community approach, which is a major part of treatment in many of the wards, there are specialised methods of treatment appropriate to particular illnesses". Mentions psychological methods, different medicines (usually tablets) and electrical (ECT). "The Hospital Community... consists not only of patients, relatives and staff, but of all those people in the community who contribute so much to its work". 31.3.1994: 361 patients Claybury Hospital closed in 1997. Its address was Claybury Hospital, Woodford Green, Essex, 1GB 8BY. (map). Records: London Metropolitan Archives Simon Cornwall: Demolished and converted. Now Repton Park. (Claybury Wood) 2003 use: "Gated housing development" There is a book: A Hospital looks at itself - Essays from Claybury Goodmayes Hospital, Barley Lane, Goodmayes, Ilford. Essex. lG3 8XJ (map) External map shows boundaries proposed in 1885 for the new borough of West Ham   In 1898, the first Labour controlled local council was elected - West Ham. The building of a new lunatic asylum and the declaration of May 1st as a public holiday are listed amongst its many achievements (external link). 680 patients were transferred from the Essex County Asylum in 1901. On 18.3.1920 a stampless viewcard of Calais was addressed to West Ham Mental Hospital. George Jacomb of Plaistow died 8.1.1931 at West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital Goodmayes Essex. He left £1,056 9s. 1d to be administered by Ellen Mary Jacomb spinster. There was a stationary steam engine (derelict in 1980) here that was manufactured by Belliss & Morcom Ltd. of Birmingham in 1938. November 1969 Joan Martin's account begins New adult acute mental health facilities were being built at Goodmayes Hospital, to open March 2002, and "re-provide" 107 beds for people living in Redbridge - 62 for adults with acute mental illness, thirty beds for the elderly mentally ill and fifteen psychiatric intensive care beds. "Goodmayes is getting its first new facilities for seventy years". "The unit will have all single bedrooms, some with en-suite facilities, and has fully taken into account Government guidelines on sex segregation". "Patients will really feel the benefit of receiving their services in a purpose built, modern and light unit." Mental Health Matters North East London Mental Health Trust. Issue 9, July 2001. Brookside Young People's Unit, Barley Lane, Goodmayes, Ilford. Essex. lG3 8XJ (Same address as Goodmayes) "Mental Illness". Shown in a 1979 Directory as having 20 beds 31.12.1977. Bexley Asylum at Bexley in Kent was opened by the London County Council in 1898. (map link). Nigel Roberts has a set of plans for "the Heath Asylum Baldwyn's Park Bexley", with the name of "Geo T Hine 1896" on. The chapel was designed to seat 850 people. David Cochrane speaks of a "striking similarity to the design" Hine had used at Claybury Compact Arrow Website (October 2006) on the history of Bexley Hospital In 1907 a death certificate was signed "London County Asylum, The Heath, Dartford, U.D." (information from Michael Ball). The City of London Asylum at Stone was on the opposite side of Dartford. The Bexley Asylum became Bexley Hospital, Old Bexley Lane, Bexley, DA5 2AW. It has now closed. Between 2001 and 2007, Dartford Council plan to build houses on it, plus a new primary school and the "retention of community facilities" (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister). Kingswood Ward (archive) was a rehabilitation ward for adults with severe and enduring mental health problems. External link to Edenwood, Old Bexley Lane, Bexley - (partial archive) 27.11.2002: Bexley Water Tower comes down (partial archive) - See timeline. 5.5.2006 "I live in Bexley and the local asylum was known as Bexly Mental Hospital, it has now been demolished and is a vast estate of new houses which is still growing. They have kept the main building, i think because it was listed, and turned it into a fitness centre for the local residents" Susan Hammond - Rootsweb archive London County Council, established in 1889, inherited many asylums, and built many more. The ones it inherited from Middlesex were Hanwell, Colney Hatch, and Banstead and the project to build an asylum at Claybury. From Surrey it inherited Cane Hill and may have temporarily inherited Wandsworth. If so, Wandsworth (Springfield) was passed on (sold?) to Middlesex. The ones it built included Claybury, Bexley and the five Epsom asylums (below). In 1930, it took over institutions from the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

Epsom Protection Society website The Epsom Group 1890? London County Council bought all the land belonging to the Manor of Horton in Epsom, Surrey, to develop a complex of asylums which was to become the largest in Europe. The five hospitals built were The Manor (1899), Horton (1902), Ewell Epileptic Colony (1903) (later St Ebba's) Long Grove (1907), and West Park (1921). Simon Cornwall's tour of all 18.4.2003 This scan is from Barnett's Street Plan of Epsom and Ewell, purchased about 1973. The online Horton Country Park map (with history) shows the area on the east of this map. The usual approach to the institutions, when they were built, may have been from Epsom station via Chase Road to Hook Road, then up Hook Road to Long Grove, and so on. This is suggested by the houses along Hook Road going north from the railway bridge. Dates and architectural features suggest that many of these were built as homes for the staff. Near the bridge there are several with the date 1896, when the Manor was being built. Then there are ones dated 1902, when Horton was opened. These are followed by ones dated 1903, when Ewell Epileptic Colony was opened. Common facilities David Cochrane (1988 p.258) says that water, gas and electricity supplies were centralised for all of the estate. Sewage disposal was centralised. Similarly, the cemetery and the rail link to Ewell were for all the asylums. Sports centre built round boiler-house. David Lloyd Sports Centre, Epsom, website 1925: The Branch Secretary of the Epsom branch of the National Asylum Workers Union was Mr R.C. Baker, who lived at 20 Court Farm Gardens, [Manor Green Road], Epsom [post code now KT19 8SL]. This is in the back streets in the crook of Hook Road and Long Grove Road - south of the cricket ground. The Manor (which was a certified institution, not an asylum) had its own branch.. The open land north of West Park, and circling Long Grove on the south, east and north, is now Horton Country Park (External Link). (map) - See also ride and drive web. This land (or part of it) was farms for West Park and Long Grove. These became "surplus to requirements" and were bought (1973) by Epsom and Ewell Council to create the park. 11.6.2002: Hansard: Commons debate on future of sites - Mental Health Services (Mid-Surrey) - 1.29 pm - Westminster Hall MP's latest news The Manor Asylum (Epsom) or Manor House at Horton was originally meant as a temporary asylum, whilst Horton Asylum was built. Building may have begun in 1896. The asylum was opened in 1899. It consisted of the existing Manor House (restored) for staff, and corrugated iron buildings for patients. The scheme was disapproved by the Lunacy Commission, but approved by the Home Secretary. The architect was William C Clifford Smith, the Asylum Committee's chief engineer. It was opened for 700 female patients of the "comparatively quiet and harmless class". (Cochrane, D. 1988 p.257) Journal of Mental Science, April 1900, 46, 393: Provision made for about 60 female private patients at a weekly charge of about 15/- (not including clothes) (See 1890 Act) By 1901 approval was given for extra accommodation for 110 male patients required for manual labour power. (Cochrane, D. 1988 p.257) Became The Manor Certified Institution from 1921 to an unknown date. 1925: The Branch Secretary of the Nation Asylum Workers Union at Manor (Epsom) was Mr George G. Galey who lived at 4 Percy Cottages, Elm Road, Claygate (about three mile away in a straight line - perhaps he cycled). The other four hospitals seemed to have been one branch (Epsom). Became The Manor, Horton Lane, Epsom, KT19 8NL. 1962 (Hospital Plan) 1,200 beds in 1960. Plans to rebuild by 1971. By 1975 expected have 500 mental subnormality patients, and there to be another 700 in St Ebbas (converted) and 500 in "Horton new hospital". 1971 The Manor, Epsom 1,067 beds, 1,034 patients on 31.12.1971. 16% in dormitories with over fifty patients. (60% of adults sleeping in groups of less than 30. 93% of children sleeping in groups of less than 20, but the other 7% of children in dormitories of 30 or more). 25 security beds in locked wards. 1979 Manor Hospital Mid-Surrey Health District's mental handicap hospital with 800 beds July 1998 efforts to stop development March 2002 Progress report on redevelopment, and plans for other sites. Some ex-patients have been rehoused on Ethel Bailey Close. The rest of the site has been entirely redeveloped into around 340 new houses & flats. Re-development completed about 2000. Peter Cracknell's photographic tour 2003 use: "Housing" In addition to the buildings on the main site, The Manor had a large annexe called Hollywood Lodge on the triangle of land between West Park Hospital, Horton Lane and Christ Church Road." Christine Lawes The Manor Farm In reponse to the question "was there a farm on the land to the south?", Christine Lawes wrote "There ... was a self-sufficient market garden, worked by the patients in times past. It bordered Horton Lane. Up to about 1994 it was still a thriving organic market garden and sold fruit and vegetables to the public. After that date it gradually became more difficult to maintain as the residents were being moved out. At least up to a couple of years ago it had become more of a garden centre, selling plants to the public from some specially converted barns. I believe the garden centre is probably still there. Horton Asylum, at Epsom was opened in 1902. Simon Cornwall: Horton Asylum, Epsom, Surrey (Epsom Cluster number 2) Originally: Seventh London County Council Asylum. Built: 1902 Architect: George Thomas Hine (replica of Bexley Heath Asylum) 2,000 beds - 900 for men and 1,100 for women, although at first men exceeded women. 1906 Dr Bryan, first Medical Superintendent, dismissed 1913 Horton Light Railway opened Horton War Hospital (1915-1918); Horton Mental Hospital (1918-1939); 1920 John Robert Lord's story and reflections on the war hospital After the war, Horton was adapted to cater almost exclusively for women. 1922 1,605 patients - 187 men and 1,418 women 1924 Malarial therapy unit opened. 1.1.1927: 1,941 patients of whom all but 190 (all female) were Rate Aided. Only 270 were men. 1,671 women. In 1926 the proportion of recoveries to admissions was 23.2%. The proportion of deaths to the asylum population was 5.3% 22.1.1935 George Pelham (Trimmer), patient (archive) to 28.8.1939, when he was transferred to Longrove, probably because Horton became a general hospital serving the forces. Death Certificate of George Trimmer 1939 to 1949: Horton War Hospital 1949: returned to Mental Hospital. It became Horton Hospital, Long Grove Road, Epsom. 1950 Henry Rollin medical superintendent 1962 (Hospital Plan) 1,524 patients in 1960. Possible to be closed by 1975. (But 500 beds in "Horton new hospital" for mental subnormality) In 1960s and 1970s (about), part of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Area Health Authority (North East Health District). At this time, someone with a mental crisis in an office in West London, could find themselves taken to Horton, to the south of London. Paddington Day Hospital established for rehabilitation. Summer 1965 "Unfortunately, the doctor decided to send me to Horton Hospital for a rest" - (Joan Hughes) 1966 "I begged my GP to get me into hospital so as I could get some care and help" Daniel Morgan 1971 1,587 beds, 1,438 patients on 31.12.1971. 23% in dormitories with over fifty patients. 17 beds in a specialist psychogeriatric unit. 1979 1,203 beds Autumn 2002: reported closed and empty (map), but in good condition. Redevelopment has now started. (See Peter Cracknell's photographic tour (2003)). The developers have renamed it Livingstone Park. This name is not recognised by the council or the post office. A small modern enclave called Horton Haven is used by about 50 ex-patients. 460 houses and flats and a small retail store are planned for the rest of the site. July/August 2003 fire December 2003 Convenience store wanted for site There is a book: Asylum, hospital, haven: A history of Horton Hospital "Horton Cemetery. In memory of those buried in these grounds between 1899 and 1955". Words in black on a simple white plaque fixed to the railings of a field surrounded by trees on Hook Road, near the junction with Horton Road. It was a cemetery for patients from all five institutions. "... a strip of land in the elevated and well-drained north-east corner of the estate was fenced off to serve as an unconsecrated burial ground for pauper patients". (Cochrane, D. 1988 p. 258). (See George Pelham). The "burial ground ... was sold many years ago by the NHS to a developer. All the headstones were removed ... It has always been referred to as Horton Cemetery" (email 2004). Jane Lewis, Surrey History Centre (email 27.10.2005) advises that some burial records survive at the History Centre under reference 6336/1-2. They cover the dates 4.4.1902 to 29.3.1955. A burial plan of the area does not seem to have survived and the removal of the headstones has now made it impossible to try and find exactly where the original plots were sited, re-burying bones - a more detailed report - This says the last funeral took place in 1958. - but this may be a mistake - Each grave "usually housed three or four bodies", Headstones were removed before it was sold in 1983 by the North West Thames Regional Health Authority to "Marque Securities, a development company in Kingswood". Its bids to develop have been refused by the Epsom and Ewell Council. Horton Farm The triangle of land south of the cemetery, bordered by Hook Road, Long Grove Road and Horton Lane, has a building called Horton Farm. It is possible that the whole triangle was the farm estate. St Ebbas farm is on the other (west) side of Hook Road. Long Grove and West Park had their own farms (below). One website says each hospital had its own farm. Ewell Epileptic Colony (Epsom) opened in 1903 Simon Cornwall: Built: 1903. Architect: William C Clifford Smith (Epsom Cluster number three) Dispersed form. Charles Hubert Bond was medical superintendent from 1903 to 1907. Ewell (County of London) War Hospital or Ewell Neurological Hospital for the care and treatment of soldiers and pensioners suffering from neurasthenia or loss of mental balance (Hansard 12.4.1920) 1927 Not listed as a mental hospital, so presumably still Ewell Epileptic Colony. This epileptic colony is not mention in Jones and Tillotson's pamphlet on epileptic colonies. They do mention that the Metropolitan Asylums Board established units for epileptics at Edmonton and Brentwood, and that these were taken over by London County Council in 1935. The conversion of Ewell Colony to a Mental Hospital may have taken place as part of this process. Became Ewell Mental Hospital and then St Ebba's Hospital Hook Road, Epsom, KT19 8QJ 1962 (Hospital Plan) 865 mental illness patients in 1960. 700 mental subnormality patients expected by 1975. Later in 1962? it ceased being a mental illness hospital and became a mental subnormality hospital. 1971 611 beds, but 616 patients on 31.12.1971. 38% of adults in dormitories with over thirty patients. No dormitories with over fifty patients. 1979 St Ebbas Hospital was Sutton and West Merton Health District's largest mental handicap hospital with 629 beds - (outside District). A Parents and Relatives Group was formed about 1987 to campaign for retention of a village community. external weblink - August 2002 There is now (2004) a "village campus" with about 60 residents in a mixture of old and new houses. The council has approved construction of 280 houses and flats on the rest of the site. St Ebbas Farm is now used by Epsom Riding for the Disabled Association Long Grove Asylum, at Epsom built 1903 to 1907 and opened in June 1907. Tenth London County Asylum and fourth in the Epsom Cluster. It became Long Grove Hospital, Horton Lane, Epsom, KT19 8PU (map) Architect George Thomas Hine. A replica of Horton with differences to make it (a little) more like a Maryland, USA plan that was favoured. In the design, 500 beds were moved from the main (zig-zag) crescent to autonomous villas, each with its own unfenced garden. Charles Hubert Bond was medical superintendent from 1907 to 1912 March/April 1919? Felix arrested in St Martin's in the Fields. He lived in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was brought to Long Grove from the City of Westminster Union Workhouse, which was responsible for his expenses. See procedures for emergency admission. Maria Jose Gonzalez is researching Felix's history. 1.1.1927: 2,120 patients of whom all but 204 were Rate Aided. 1,091 were men, 1,029 women. In 1926 the proportion of recoveries to admissions was 24.0%. The proportion of deaths to the asylum population was 5.3% 1941 Felix died 1959: Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association formed. This provided links to Hackney (on the other side of London), where many patients came from. 1959 Richmond Fellowship founded. 1962 (Hospital Plan) 2,151 patients in 1960. 1,000 expected in 1975 1962 Enid Mills' study of patients published 1966 All figure (01 -) telephone numbers introduced for London. Booklet (below) has old style (Epsom 26200) telephone for Long Grove and new style (01-985-5555) for Hackney Hospital. about 1967 Long Grove Hospital Epsom. Information for Patients, their Relatives and Friends, a small booklet, produced by the Kingston and Long Grove Group Hospital Management Committee. At the back, it lists Out-Patient Clinics at Hackney Hospital (Monday and Wednesday 2pm); Kingston Hospital, Kingston upon Thames; Royal Hospital, Richmond; and Surbiton Hospital. 1971 1,625 beds, 1,373 patients on 31.12.1971. 10% in dormitories with over fifty patients. 36 beds in regional adolescent unit. 1979 1,183 beds. Kingston and Richmond [Surrey] Area Health Authority's mental illness hospital (outside district). (map) April 1992 closed. Clarendon Park (developers' name - not recognised by council or post office) housing development started in 1998. There is no housing for ex-patients. A portion of the "zig zag" ward blocks and most of the outlying original villas have been converted for flats and houses. (See Peter Cracknell's photographic tour). There are about 300 houses and flats. June 2002 re-development completed - facade preserved - interiors gone 2003 use: "Luxury housing" March 2004 why no affordable homes on site Long Grove Farm (see Horton Country Park map) was south of the asylum. The Horton Park Children's Farm is there now. However, the piggery of Long Grove was to the north-east, so the Long Grove Farm may have stretched round the asylum. David Cochrane says that London County Council replaced the name "asylum" by "hospital" in 1918. If this is so, the first name for West Park (given below, from the Hospital Database) was never used. West Park Asylum at Epsom was opened in 1921. Referred to by David Cochrane as "the eleventh and the last great asylum built for London's insane". Simon Cornwall: Architect: William C Clifford Smith. Built: 1912-1924. Eleventh London County Asylum. (Epsom Cluster number five) Dispersed form on an echelon plan By 1929 it was known as West Park Mental Hospital, and then, from about 1950, West Park Hospital, Horton Lane, Epsom, KT19 8PB. 1962 (Hospital Plan) 2,045 patients in 1960. 1,000 expected in 1975 1971 1,724 beds, 1,580 patients on 31.12.1971. 39% in dormitories with over fifty patients. (Only 8% of patients sleeping in groups of less than 30). 20 beds in a regional alcoholic unit. 17 beds in a specialist metabolic unit. 1979 Mid-Surrey Health District had its headquarters in the hospital. West Park had 1,217 beds (mental illness and geriatric). Manor Hospital was the local mental handicap hospital. Horton, Long Grove and St Ebbas were not local hospitals. Autumn 2002: reported closed and empty, but in good condition. (map). The local council has produced its own development brief for the site, which the NHS has yet (2004) to approve. The site will retain facilities for patients with challenging behaviour and the cottage hospital, which is only about twenty years old. Peter Cracknell's photographic tour Peter Cracknell's new site June 2003 sale of land, including West Park, Horton and part of St Ebbas 4.7.2003 plans to vary transport 30.9.2003 fire October/November 2003 consultation on plans March 2004: proposal for new hospital West Park Farm (see external link). Epsom Hospital intensive care unit

Maudsley Hospital In 1907, Dr Henry Maudsley offered London County Council £30,000 (subsequently increased to £40,000) to help found a new mental hospital that would 1) be exclusively for early and acute cases, 2) have an out-patients' clinic, 3) provide for teaching and research Buildings were completed in 1915 and an Act of Parliament was secured to make voluntary treatment possible. However, the empty buildings were taken over as a military hospital. Fourth London General Hospital by early 1915 Neurological section established acting as a clearing hospital for these cases. (source) By June 1918 known as Maudsley Neurological Clearing Hospital After the war, the Ministry of Pensions continued to use it for the treament of shell shock Hansard 12.4.1920 "The present status of the Maudsley Hospital is that of a Ministry of Pensions Hospital, but it is to be handed back to the London County Council in July next" The London County Council Mental Hospital was opened in 1923. 1.1.1925 Accomodation for 146 uncertified patients. Sometime: Maudsley Hospital Medical School officially recognised by the University of London. 1936-1948 Clinical Director Dr Aubrey Lewis 1939? Belmont and Mill Hill 1948 Maudsley Hospital amalgamated with The Bethlem Hospital. Medical School renamed Institute of Psychiatry. [external link] Its Department of Psychiatry was under the chairmanship of Dr Aubrey Lewis from 1945 to 1966 South London and Maudsley NHS Trust - web archive 2.6.2001 to 2.7.2007 1994 Conference held in the Maudsley Hospital for service users and mental health professionals with the aim of trying to bring about a dialogue between the two groups. (A service user initiative). From that conference and a similar second conference, a group emerged which decided to work on issues of concern to service users. Communicate Bethlem 750th 17.12.1998 First official meeting of SIMBA (Share In Maudsley Black Action), the Black Patient/User/Survivor group in the Maudsley Hospital, held in the Visitor and User Centre at the Maudsley.     "The Maudsley Hospital: Design and Strategic Direction, 1923-1939" by Edgar Jones, Shahina Rahman, and Robin Woolven. Medical History 1.7.2007 Central London clinics and nursing homes National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic British Hospital for Mental Disorders Beaumont Street, St Marylebone (close to Harley Street) in 1901 (census) and 1915 (trade directory) consisted almost entirely of nursing homes, some of whose patients were psychiatric (but not certified lunatics). Charlotte Mew died at 37 Beaumont Street in 1928. The Medico Psychological Clinic operated from 14 Endsleigh Street from the autumn of 1913 and then from Brunswick Square from July 1914 to 1923 - Medico Psychological was a contemporary term for what we would now call psychiatric. The Tavistock Clinic started in Tavistock Square in 1920. "In 1920, under its founder Dr Crichton-Miller's leadership, the Clinic made a significant contribution to the understanding of the traumatic effects of 'shell shock'". [See 1929, when, as Tavistock Square Clinic, it joint sponsored a conference on Mental Health] "The Tavistock Clinic in London pioneered child guidance and in 1931 set up the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency". (Stewart, J. 9.2009, p. 414 referencing H.V. Dicks 1970, p.3 "Both clinical and consultancy work was carried out in the Tavistock Clinic until it became part of the new NHS in 1948, and the Institute was founded as a charitable company". It moved to Malet Place. Then moved to Beaumont Street (where it was in the 1960s). In 1967 it moved to Swiss Cottage. "The Child Guidance Training Centre, founded as the London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington in 1929, was housed in the Tavistock Centre from 1967 until merging with the Tavistock Clinic's Department for Children and Parents, to become the Child and Family Department, in 1985. The Tavistock Mulberry Bush Day Unit was originally a part of Child Guidance Training Centre." H.V. Dicks 1970 Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic 10.1.2004 Internet Archive of web history, originally at (external link) St Thomas's Hospital, SE1 Out-Patients Clinic in 1946 1948 William Sargant appointed consultant psychiatrist Sleep room (Ward 5) established at Royal Waterloo Hospital? See 6.4.2009 The Cassel Hospital Originally at Swaylands in Kent. 1919 "As the First World War drew to a close, Maurice Craig helped to persuade Sir Ernest Cassel to fund a hospital for 'Functional and Nervous Disorders' at Penshurst, Kent, to treat neuroses in the civilian population" (external sources) "founded, at the end of the First World War, by Sir Ernest Cassel, who had been horrified by the effects of trauma and war on soldiers. The Cassel Hospital was set up to treat the civilian equivalent of shellshock, and admitted its first patient in 1921". Opened 23.5.1921: "Sir Ernest Cassel has devoted £225,000 for founding and endowing a hospital for the treatment of functional nervous disorders which will be opened at Swaylands, Penshurst, Kent, on May 23rd" The British Journal of Nursing 7.5.1921 The Cassel originally worked as an eclectic psychotherapeutic hospital. Thomas Arthur Ross (1875-1941) was the first Medical Deirector 1926 Robert Dick Gillespie (1897-1945) working at the Cassel Hospital. Also became Lecturer in, and Physician for, Psychological Medicine, Guy's (post Sir Maurice Craig) (external source) 1927 First edition of Henderson and Gillespie's A Textbook of Psychiatry - R.D. Gillespie described as "Physician for Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London - Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital Medical School - Assistant Physician, The Cassel Hospital, Penshurst, Kent - Pinsent-Darwin Research Student in Mental Pathology, University of Cambridge - Formerly Assistant resident Psychiatrist, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. 1936 An Inquiry Into Prognosis in the Neuroses: By T. A. Ross. Cambridge: University Press, 1936. 192 pages. Mainly "a study of the long range results of psychotherapeutic treatment of the neuroses at the Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders. This institution, called Swaylands, was founded in 1919, to furnish systematic treatment for the psychoneuroses on the basis that these disabilities had received too little organized attention and management from the medical profession. The interest of the founder, Sir Ernest Cassel, was aroused by the striking manifestations of neuroses among the soldiers in the world war. Dr. Ross was, until a few years ago, the medical director and moving spirit of the institution. Swaylands furnishes rather sumptuous physical accommodations and care for some sixty patients, whose residence varies from two to six months." (external source) 1933 to 1949 Cuthbert H. Rogerson - of Guy's Hospital, London, The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, The Cassel Hospital, Penshurst, England and other addresses - in correspondence with Adolf Meyer. (external source) Cuthbert H. Rogerson was the Medical Director by 1940, when the full name was Cassel Hospital For Functional Nervous Disorders [Swaylands, Penshurst, Kent.] 1940 Richard Crocket a locum psychotherapist External link to "The Cassel Hospital in Wartime" in the British Medical Journal 1941? Hospital moved to Derby - Richard Crocket joined the RAF 1946 Tom Main appointed Medical Director. He was undertaking psychoanalytic training and encouraged other psychoanalysts to work at the Cassel. It soon developed a psychoanalytic tradition and a psychoanalytic underpinning of the clinical work. Psychosocial nursing practice came to the fore as a way of dealing with regression, associated with intensive individual psychotherapy. The therapeutic community practice evolved from this way of working, and from the experiences of Tom Main at the Northfields Military Hospital during the Second World War. 1949 First mother and baby were admitted. From that experience the work of the Families Service evolved treating children and their parents. The Families Service specialises in the assessment and treatment of children and families affected by the impact of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. From about 1993 Cassel Adult Service has developed an integrated package of care, combining six months inpatient treatment, with a further two years of group therapy and psychosocial nursing for patients in Greater London 1994 a separate Adolescent Service established (external source) Mill Hill Emergency Hospital 24.8.1939 to about 1945 Run by the Mental Hospitals Department of the London County Council for the Ministry of Health, mainly for soldiers who had returned from the front suffering neuroses. Using a converted public school at Mill Hill. Psychiatrists from the Maudsley Hospital were recruited. Led by W. S. Maclay as medical superintendent and including Aubrey Lewis, Eric Guttman and Maxwell Jones. Their goal was occupational and social psychiatry. A 150 bed "Effort Syndrome Unit" was set up under the joint directorship of Paul Wood, a cardiologist, and Maxwell Jones. (Edgar Jones 10.2004) Maxwell Jones (1907-1990) See 1947. Belmont Asylum, Brighton Road, Sutton, Surrey was established by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in the premises of the South Metropolitan District School (Poor Law), probably in the first decade of the 20th century. It appears to have occupied the older part (boys school), whilst the girls school became Sutton and Cheam General Hospital. In 1930, it presumably passed to the London County Council. See Peter Higginbotham on the schools 1939? During World War Two, Belmont ("Sutton") was one of the "two evacuation centres" of Maudsley Hospital. William Sargant (24.4.1907 - 27.8.1988) and Eliot Slater worked there. One of them (Sargant?) had conceived the idea of a book on physical methods of treatment in psychiatry whilst working under Edward Mapother at the Maudsley in 1937. Sutton "tested the principles we have absorbed, in the hard school of work under pressure on the largest scale" (Preface to the first edition of An Introduction to Physical Methods of Treatment in Psychiatry by William Sargant and Eliot Slater 1944. On Sargant see Wellcome Library - Wikipedia (and talk page!) 1948 William Sargant at St Thomas's, after a period in the USA. 31.3.1964 Valerie Argent admitted to Belmont Hospital 27.5.1964 Valerie Argent escaped from Belmont Hospital A building next to Belmont Hospital was the Industrial Neurosis Unit (renamed the Social Rehabilitation Unit) in 1947, under Dr Maxwell Jones as medical director from 1947. It was opened with backing from the Ministry of Labour as a unit for rehabilitating unemployed peopls. It developed subsequently into a specialist facility for treating 'psychoaths' with group and community methods. It became Henderson Hospital in 1960, when it was made autonomous. In 1960, Maxwell Jones went to America and then, in 1962, to Dingleton Hospital in Scotland. Whilst the Henderson was one of the birth places of the therapeutic community, Belmont was associated with the physical forms of treatment favoured by Dr William Sargant. Belmont is closed, but Henderson continues in new premises: 2 Homeland Drive, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 5LT. See the Henderson Hospital web site - archive 2000-2006 Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood, Knaphill, near Woking Knaphill Asylum National Grid Reference SU 961 581 Erected 1862-1867 Architect: Charles Henry Howell - Peter Cracknell classifies it as Corridor and Pavilion. Too large for Conolly's ideal Landscape: Designer possibly Robert Lloyd; plants from Jackmans' Nursery, Woking. (The asylum landscape designer Robert Lloyd was head gardener here for thirty years and may have laid out the landscape when he arrived). Archive at Surrey Record Office. Opened as a second Surrey County Asylum in June 1867. 328 patients were received in 1867. On an 1873 map it is on Knaphill Common, south west of "Woking Convict Prison". "The site was selected for cheap land and the Surrey Justices purchased 150 acres in 1860 for £70 per acre... The asylum was designed to be self sufficient with its own gas works, sewage plant, a water tower with reservoirs holding one million gallons of water, the four acre Home Farm, and recreational areas. Occupational therapy was born and able patients put to work on making items the asylum needed such as furniture, baskets, rugs, tools, etc. and growing their own food. It was all commendably enlightened for its time and with building extensions the number of inmates grew steadily from 670 in 1875 to 1500 in the 1930s. Besides providing a great deal of local employment for nursing and maintenance staff the hospital became a major social centre for the district, organising fetes, shows, weekly dances, sports events and fund raisers." (John Quarendon's Surrey Walks: "Roots of Woking" downloaded from WokingAlive.com, or later from dirty boots is in the international archive) Edward Sackett (born 1840) was admitted to the [Workhouse] Infirmary, Russell Street, Bermondsey on 14.11.1874, but moved to Brookwood Lunatic Asylum a week later. 1881 Census: Edward listed as Henry Sackett. Assistant Medical Officers: James M. Moody (27 unmarried) and James E. Barton (36 unmarried) who was being visited by George H. Barton (aged 28), a stockbroker, and Thomas "Waklay" (medical student aged 29) who is probably Thomas Wakley (1851-1886), grandson of Thomas Wakley founder of the Lancet, who became joint editor with his father in 1886. Edward Sackett was one of thirty patients moved to the Berkshire asylum on 12.9.1882 to relieve overcrowding at Brookwood. His condition was described as "unimproved". Brookwood's contract with Berkshire expired 31.3.1884, when Edward was moved to the new asylum at Cane Hill. Between 1889 and 1909 it was the only Surrey County Asylum. Edward Sackett returned to Brookwood on 1.5.1895, but was sent to the London County Asylum at Claybury, Ilford in September 1896. 1909: From this point, Brookwood served the western half of Surrey. 1929 Rules for the guidance of the nurses, attendants and servants in the service of the Surrey County mental hospitals at Brookwood and Netherne produced by Surrey County Council (42 pages). Copy preserved at King's College London. It became Brookwood Hospital, Knaphill, Woking, GU21 2YP. Closure planned from 1986, but did not take place until 1994. "The surviving buildings have now been converted into luxury apartments". (Part of the site was developed as housing Percheron Drive, GU212QY). See Woking's Villages 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Cataloguing its records - archive Surrey County Asylum at Cane Hill was opened in 1883. It was originally the third Surrey County Asylum. (map link) - Brighton Road, Coulsdon, near Croydon, Surrey. "The hospital is located in Coulsdon, near Croydon, in South London. It is just to the west of the A23 which runs from Croydon to Brighton. Although it is so close to London, this is one of the points where the land becomes less urban, Coulsdon being a small town, with downs and farmland to the south. This is where the hospital is, on top of a hill opposite the Farthing Downs" Andrew Tierney Click on the plan for a picture of Cane Hill Architect: Charles Henry Howell - The ward blocks are arranged around a D shaped network of corridors. Ian Richards describes it as an example of the Pavilion Plan in which the wards where housed in long thin ward blocks arranged around a central corridor. The pavilion design was a development of the straight corridor plan (e.g. Friern) that led on to echelon plan asylums like Severalls). The design was popular in the second half of the 19th century and it was about this time that the Recreation Hall and Water Tower became a standard feature of asylums. The picture here is from a 1960s AtoZ reproduced on the urban explorations site. Edward Sackett was admitted from Moulsford on 31.3.1884, and moved back to Brookwood on 1.5.1895. London County Council Asylum, with provision for Croydon: 15.3.1889: Sub-Committees of the Provisional Councils of London and Surrey met at Spring Gardens, London, to make suggestions about dividing the relevant assets of Surrey (previously managed by the County Justices). It was suggested that Cane Hill be taken by London, with one-eighth of its accommodation reserved for the Borough of Croydon. (Information, with references, from Margaret Griffiths for Surrey County Archivist). [Croydon became a county borough in 1889, under the same legislation that created County Councils for London and Surrey] By an agreement dated 25.3.1890, backdated to 1.4.1889, London County Council agreed to "accommodate and maintain" in Cane Hill "all such pauper lunatics of the county borough of Croydon" for five years. Croydon would meet all the costs of caring for its patients. "There are periodic references in the minutes to lunatics being housed elsewhere although the majority were at Cane Hill. Croydon appointed officials to regularly inspect conditions." (Chris Bennett, archivist Croydon Local Studies - Croydon Library, who provided above information, with references). Cane Hill was probably used as Croydon's main asylum until 1903, when its own asylum was opened. - [Surrey was left with only one asylum: Brookwood - Netherne was built to ease the overcrowding.] Hannah Harriett Pedlingham Hill born 11 Camden Street, Walworth on 6.8.1865. She married Charles Chaplin senior on 22.6.1885. Charlie Chaplin was born 16.4.1889. See also Wikipedia (German) Hannah Chaplin was a vaudeville artist until her voice failed. After that she lived in rooms in Kennington, in Lambeth workhouse, or Cane Hill Asylum. Charlie Chaplin and his brother Sydney visited her in Cane Hill in 1912: "It was a depressing day, for she was not well. She had just got over an obstreperous phase of singing hymns, and had been confined to a padded room. The nurse had warned us of this beforehand. Sydney saw her, but I had not the courage, so I waited. He came back upset, and said that she had been given shock treatment of icy cold showers and that her face was quite blue. That made us decide to put her into a private institution - we could afford it now." They moved her to Peckham House for a few years (until the money ran out). 1918 Cane Hill Mental Hospital 1937? Cane Hill Hospital 1948 Under the South West Metropolitan Hospital Board 31.12.1971: 1,451 patients. In 1971 there were usually 1,750 beds with 83% occupied. 66 of these were in locked wards. 18% were in wards with 30 or more beds, 3% in wards of 50 or more beds. 1974 moved from the South West Metropolitan Hospital Board to the South East Thames Regional Health Authority (and Bromley Health Authority) 1992 The main part of Cane Hill Hospital closed. The surviving part is now Ravensbourne Trust Medical Secure Unit, Cane Hill Hospital, Cane Hill, Coulsdon, Surrey, CR3 3YL. Summer 1998 Andrew Tierney's first explorations of the Cane Hill site. Preserved by Simon Cornwall. "Living in East Surrey means there is a huge amount of these hospitals about... there are two very close to me: Cane Hill and Netherne... Well, the summer holidays were getting boring, so we had to make a choice. Now, they're both about as big as each other. They're both a fair distance from anywhere. They're both closed. I chose Cane Hill" 29.4.2002 Simon Cornwalls' walk around the perimeter of the Cane Hill site. 13.7.2002 Simon Cornwalls' first exploration of the interior of the Cane Hill site.   See Simon Cornwall's The Cane Hill Project on his Urbex (urban explorations) website - Internet Archive Simon Cornwall's site includes an archive of the original Urbex explorations (Andrew Tierney) - Internet archive Another web site was just called Cane Hill Mental Hospital - Internet archive - It is also preserved by Simon Cornwall Surrey County Mental Hospital at Netherne, Netherne Lane, Hooley, near Coulsdon, Surrey. Postcode was CR3 1YE. On the London to Brighton route. Between Croydon to the north and Reigate and Redhill to the south. See 15.3.1889 1898 Surrey Council selected Netherne as the site for a new asylum. - The Netherne farming estate was purchased for £10,000 Founded: 18.10.1905 Simon Cornwall: Architect: George Thomas Hine Built 1907-1909, at a cost of £300,000. Another source founded 1907 - "the asylum's opening date was even immortalised in stained glass at the back of the hall: 1907." Simon Cornwall 1.4.1909 A 960 patient hospital opened. "Four years later the foundation stone was laid by builder John Bowen". Netherne served the eastern half of Surrey and Brookwood the western Administered by a Standing Sub-committee of the Surrey County Council Lunatic Asylums Visiting Committee. December 1909 to March 1919 Private patients' registers exist for this period. 1914 Surrey County Council. Annual report of the County Asylums at Brockwood and Netherne. [Wellcome Library may have a series of these] First World War: took in large numbers of patients from "neighbouring hospitals, which had been taken over by the military". Food from the market garden contributed to national supplies and convalescent soldiers and German [Prisoners of War] were bought in to assist." 1920 Surrey County Council. Annual report of the county mental hospitals at Brookwood and Netherne for the year ended 31st December, 1919. With audited accounts for the year ended 31st March, 1919. 116 pages. Published Kingston-upon-Thames, 1920. Preserved in the British Library 1922 Surrey County Council. Annual report of the Lunatic Asylums Visiting Committee : in relation to the County Mental Hospitals at Brockwood and Netherne. [Wellcome Library may have a series of these] 1929 Surrey County Council. Annual report of the Mental Hospitals Committee : in relation to the County Mental Hospitals at Brockwood and Netherne. [Wellcome Library may have a series of these] 1929 Rules for the guidance of the nurses, attendants and servants in the service of the Surrey County mental hospitals at Brookwood and Netherne produced by Surrey County Council (42 pages). Copy preserved at King's College London. Second World War Six wards and two villas were used for air raid casualties. The hospital "helped assemble electrical parts for a nearby munitions factory and by the end of the war most patients were employed in sustaining the war effort. Being close to targets such RAF Kenley and a main road/rail link to London, several bombs fell in the grounds including one in the nurse's home which failed to explode." 1946 Edward Adamson (died 1996) employed as Art Master to work with the patients. 1948 Management transferred to the National Health Service. Netherne continued to serve the eastern half of Surrey and Brookwood the western. Hospital management came under the overall control of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. the hospital came under the direct control of the Netherne Hospital Management Committee from 1948 to 1964. Rudolph Karl Freudenberg was Medical Superintendent from the 1950s to the 1970s 1960 Moyna Peters, aged sixteen, had had difficulty keep her jobs. She saw Dr Freudenberg as an out-patient at Redhill General and was admitted to Netherne on 1.5.1960 1960-1968 Used, with Severalls and Mapperley in a study of institutionalism and schizophrenia - Published 1970 1971 Film by Lionel Mishkin on The work of sculptor, Rolanda Polonsky (born 1925 - died 1996?) interviewed at Netherne Hospital while she was being treated there for schizophrenia. "We wish to thank Doctor R. K. Freudenberg, Edward Adamson, and the Netherne and Fairdene Hospitals for their help in making this film possible." (source) Hospital under the direct control of Redhill and Netherne Group Hospital Management Committee - formed in 1964 on the amalgamation of the Netherne Hospital and the Redhill Group Hospital Management Committees. The latter body administered a number of institutions. 1970 Cherchefelle, a housing association, formed to provide supported housing for people suffering with mental health problems in the Redhill/Reigate area. November 1972 "The Labour Exchange said I had to get some psychiatric treatment or they could not continue paying me my benefits". (Moyna Peters) Moyna became a day patient. In her life story, she lists some of the changes between 1961 and 1972. "The hospital had become more open and free, more normal, in fact". August 1974 "Into the Community" Became Netherne and Fairdene Hospital about 1982. Later Netherne Hospital, Coulsden, CR3 1YE 1984 Edward Adamson in association with John Timlin, Art as healing published London by Conventure. 68 pages, illustrated, chiefly in colour. Based on the Adamson Collection of paintings by patients. ISBN: 0904575241 August 1986 Moyna Peters moved from her family home to a house in Woodlands Road, Redhill February 1991 Moyna Peters left Hedgefield Villa to live in a house run by Cherchefelle 1993 A pictorial history of Netherne Hospital, by John C. Welch and George Frogley, published Redhill by East Surrey Health Authority. 60 pages. ISBN: 0951648721 (paperback) Simon Cornwall: Closed in 1994. Redeveloped as housing. Netherne hospital closed in Spring 1994. (Access to Archives note) March 1995 "Netherne Hospital finally closed. It had been slowly closing down for years past. The whole system went over to Care in the Community where we would all be looked after in smaller units in Reigate and Redhill, Merstham and Horley. Instead of the enormous hospital we would all be in community homes and group homes. The acutely ill would go into Capel Ward at the East Surrey Hospital. - I feel that Care in Community really works for me. (Moyna Peters) 7.9.1995 Death of Michael James Raymond (born 1922), Consultant psychiatrist, Netherne Hospital KW- Raymond, Michael, 1922-1995. 1995 Moyna Peters her Life Story 1996 Gleeson Regeneration submitted an outline planning application to develop a new village with 520 homes, a retirement complex, business centre, shop, public house and other facilities. (another link) About 1998 Andrew Tierney decided to explore Cane Hill rather than Netherne. 17.5.1999 Andrew Tierney's first exploration of the Netherne site (Internet archive) The site has had a guard for many years, has new style connected phone boxes within the grounds, as well as electrical power." "...large sections of the front of the hospital have been entirely demolished (unfortunately this means the boiler house etc...). The tower will remain for a while...it has cellphone transmitters on it.... Many of the outbuildings have already been knocked down, but the main building still stands....The architechture of the more decorative buildings is gothic (take a look at the tower), but most of the wards are of very simple design." 2000 Construction work on the village began and "shortly afterwards" the first new residents moved in. 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Now Netherne on the Hill - See Simon Cornwall's tour on 14.1.2006 Wikipedia "43 of the 185 acres are being developed to provide housing and community, commercial and sports facilities. The new village will have a mix of homes ranging from large detached properties and luxury apartments to retirement homes and social housing (25%)". source St Lukes Church (see Moyna Peters' story) has been "redesigned internally" as a leisure club with a swimming pool and gym exclusive to Netherne Village residents. 2007 Netherne Community website history page January 2009 Moyna Peters told some of her story on Radio Four's State of Mind Tooting Bec Asylum, opened in 1903 by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, mainly for people with senile dementia. 1919 Post Office Directory: Tooting Bec Asylum (Metropolitan Asylums Board), Tooting Bec Road, Upper Tooting, SW17. Edwyn H Beresford LRCP medical superintendent It became Tooting Bec Mental Hospital in 1924 and, in 1930, passed to the London County Council. In 1937 it became Tooting Bec Hospital. Address: Tooting Bec Road, London, SW17 8BL Closed May 1995 demolished 1996/1997 1919 Post Office Directory: also lists a private asylum: Newlands House Mental Hospital. Tooting Bec Road SW17. J. Noel Sergent, MB, BS London, proprietor and resident physician.

Fountain Asylum Established as a fever hospital in 1893 Architect: Thomas W Aldwinckle 1911: "the hospital was redesignated as a mental hospital and became used for the accommodation of the lowest grade of severely subnormal children. (Peter Higginbotham) 1919 Post Office Directory: Metropolitan Asylums Board Fountain Asylum, Tooting Grove, Tooting SW17 Thomas Brushfield MA, MB, MRCS medical superintendent; Cedric Davis, steward; Miss Flora Harris, matron. In 1930, administration of the hospital passed to the London County Council who retained it as a hospital for mentally defective children. The Royal College of Surgeons (England) has archived Case notes on c. 4000 children - photos, treatment, school work, clinical histories, post- mortems, etc; photo album of staff, hospital, entertainments etc from 1914-1927 (Hospital Database)). In 1959 as a consequence of the Mental Health Act the children from the Fountain Hospital were transferred to Queen Mary's Children's Hospital, Carshalton. (external link) Closed 1963 The Fountain was demolished in the 1960s and the site is now occupied by the St George's Hospital" (Peter Higginbotham)

Pauper lunatics from Croydon went to the Surrey asylum at Cane Hill, and this continued when Croydon became an independent County Borough in 1889. However, the "Lunacy Visiting Committee" of the new "County Borough of Croydon" also made arrangements for patients to be kept in the Isle of Wight County Asylum (1897-1902), others may have gone elsewhere. 1894/1895 Purchase of site for Croydon Borough Asylum approved by the Home Office. (MH 83 County of Surrey) 1897/1903 "Croydon Borough Asylum, Warlingham: architects appointed for planning construction; plans approved by the Home Secretary." (MH 83 County of Surrey) 16.3.1899 Thomas Percy Rees born in Carmarthenshire. When he became a psychiatrist, he was generally known as T.P. Rees Built at a cost of about £200,000 (Kelly's 1913) 26.6.1903 - Croydon Mental Hospital opened in Chelsham and Farleigh, about a mile north east of the centre of Warlingham. The name "Mental Hospital" was used from the begining, at the suggestion of Dr Edwin S. Pasmore, who was appointed as the first medical superintendent before it opened. Croydon Mental Hospital: House Committee minutes 1904-1937 held by Croydon Archive Service. 1910 "Three new blocks, consisting of five wards, were added at a cost of £33,000". (Kelly's) Wednesday 5.4.1911 "Dr Pasmore, Medical Superintendent of the Croydon Mental Hospital... said that it was now recognised that a mental nurse should have medical and surgical training, and at Croydon one ward was fitted up as a hospital ward." (British Journal of Nursing 15.4.2007) 1913 Kelly's Directory: Crodon Borough Mental Hospital - Chelsham, Whyteleaf. Medical Superintendent, Edwin S. Pasmore MD London - Assistant Medical Officers: William M. Ogilvie MB CM - Herbert M. Barncastle MRCS LRCP - William Bertram Hill, MD BC - Clerk and Steward Walter Brookfield Swain [All the other public ones in Surrey were listed as Lunatic Asylum (or some variation) - This was the only "Mental Hospital"] A structure of red brick ... available for about 650 patients". The East Surrey Bus Routes called it Chelsham Mental Hospital from 1923 to 16.4.1930 when it became Croydon Mental Hospital. On 1.1.1937 they changed it to Warlingham Park Hospital. ("You'll end up in Warlingham" - Croydon children's abuse in 1950s/1960s). May 1925: The Branch Secretary of the Nation Asylum Workers Union at Warlingham was "Mr E.F.Carter, County Mental Hospital, Warlingham, Surrey" 1.1.1927: Croydon County Borough Mental Hospital 656 patients of whom all but 114 were Rate Aided. 206 were men, 450 women. There was a very high proportion of women to men in comparison with most asylums. In 1926 the proportion of recoveries to admissions was 67.6% (The highest in England and Wales). The proportion of deaths to the asylum population was 6.7% January 1927 The Croydon Advertiser and Surrey County Reporter published an obituary of Edwin S. Pasmore. March quarter 1927 Death of Edwin S Pasmore, aged 62, recorded Godstone (which includes the hospital) 1927 T.P. Rees moved from Napsbury to be deputy physician superintendent. 1935 T.P. Rees became superintendent. His "first act" was to open the iron gates at the hospital entrance, after which they were not shut again. Over the next few years, all ward doors were unlocked during the day, while nearly all restraint and isolation of patients were abolished. (DNB) Warlingham Park Hospital Committee minutes 1937-1948 are held by Croydon Archive Service. 9.6.1949 Thomas Percy Rees, MD, MRCP, Medical Superintendent, Warlingham Park Mental Hospital, awarded an OBE in the King's birthday honours. World Health Organisation report on The Community Mental Hospital - T.P. Rees was one of the authors. 1954: Introduced out-patient nurses. 4.2.1954 Thomas Percy Rees, MD, MRCP, OBE, a member of the Royal Commission to inquire into the certification and detention of mental patients 1956 Christopher Mayhew, MP spent a few days in one of the wards in preparation for the television series The Hurt Mind. "As I went in I felt a certain apprehension, but after a few hours... I felt completely at home". There was a "porter's lodge" where he booked in. His legal status is not stated, but he presumably signed in as a voluntary patient. His bed was in a ward "for light cases - alcoholics and neurotics". This part appears civilised. In the morning he sits in the living room of his ward and reads morning papers with other patients. Later he has dinner with others in the dining room. He also visited the sitting room of the "best women's ward", where one woman arranged flowers, another played the piano and three others watched television. Elsewhere in the hospital he visited a "dormitary crammed with beds". This is the worst ward he has seen - dealing with the "hard core of chronic patients". Deputy Chief Male Nurse, Mr Relph (John Ralph, died 1972?), was interviewed. He said that the old hospital was like a prison and described how staff often had to "retaliate" when patients became violent and often "hit back in self defence". Drugs, ECT, insulin and "open doors" had put an end to all of that. The Chief Superintendant (T.P. Rees) was interviewed. He described the hospital's main successes as the removal of the rails around the hospital and handing over of responsibility to patients. During 1956. T.P. Rees left Croydon and started a private practice in Harley Street. He was made a freeman of the borough. Stephen MacKeith may have succeeded Rees at Croydon. January 1957 Warlingham Park featured in "Put Away", the first programme of The Hurt Mind, the first BBC television documentary about mental health. 22.12.1962 The Lancet "The Future of district psychiatry" by A.R. May, A.P. Sheldon and S.A., Mackeith 2.6.1963 Death of T.P. Rees December 1965 Community Mental Health Journal "Change in a British Psychiatric Service" by Alan Sheldon, formerly Registrar, Warlingham Park Hospital. "Changes in the Croydon Psychiatric Service consequent upon the adoption of a community mental health orientation are described, and the effects of the initial phase of implementation are noted in terms of data collected for a year preceding and following this phase. The major effects are seen in reduction of readmission rates to the mental hospital, and in a redistribution of patients among the wider range of facilities" March 1983 Letter in Psychiatric Bulletin from Stephen Pasmore, Ham Gate Avenue, Richmond, Surrey, about his father, Edwin S. Pasmore. The Clock Tower, described as hideous in 1908, is now a Grade two listed building. The hospital was closed in February 1999, and demolished in summer 2000, but the clock tower and many trees have been preserved. The site is being redeveloped for housing. Postcode CR3 9YR 2003 use: "Water tower preserved as symbol of development" visit Croydon in the Past website

Holloway Sanatorium Virginia Water, Surrey Opened as a private asylum in 1884 Closed December 1980 2003 use: "Gated housing development" See Wikipedia

Lingfield Training Colony 1894: Opened Became St Pier's School, St Piers Lane, Lingfield, Surrey RH7 6PW 19/23.3.2001: pdf: Ofsted report

Latchmere Special Hospital for (Army) Officers Latchmere, Ham Common, Richmond, Surrey. A private house before the first world war. Taken over in November 1915 with beds for 51 officers. (external link and another ). In March 1920, Mrs. M. J. Shepperd, Sister, Special Hospital for Officers, Latchmere, Ham Common, Surrey, was awarded the Royal Red Cross (Second Class), by the King, in recognition of her valuable services in connection with the War (British Journal of Nursing 27.3.1920, p.124 - pdf-) ---- "MI5's Secret Interrogation Centre - Latchmere House - 'Camp 020' - at Ham Common, Richmond", After the Battle --- Latchmere House: "The Prison Service took over the site from the military in 1948. As a Prison Service establishment it has had several roles as a young offender institution, remand centre, and a deportees prison. It became a resettlement prison in 1992". HMP Latchmere House, Church Road, Ham Common, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 5HH Operational Capacity: 198

See out-patient clinics at London, Mile End and St Bartholomew's in 1940 Hackney (East London) All in-patient beds were at Long Grove Hospital, Epsom, about 25 miles away on the other side of London, until the psychiatric unit opened at Hackney Hospital. Date that outpatients clinics started at Hackney Hospital is not known. But none listed in 1940. If the Duly Authorised Officer was summoned to a crisis in Hackney in 1956-1957, the person might be taken by ambulance to St Clements (or another London observation unit) or directly to Long Grove. 1959 Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (PRA) started at Longrove and in Hackney. 1962 Enid Mills' Living with Mental Illness. A study in East London published. Reports of the Institute of Community Studies number 7. Published: London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962. 1962 Start of PRA research project to study mental hospital admission and discharge rates for Hackney and Tower Hamlets and the available community services, in relation to the national statistics. [John Reed gave 1967 as the date some psychiatric beds opened at Hackney Hospital. Before this there were out-patient clinics, but the in-patient beds were at Long Grove Hospital. However, the in-patient beds at Hackney Hospital appear to pre-date 1967 - See below]. 1966 All in-patients passing through Long Grove - St Clements - and Hackney ("the main psychiatric hospitals serving East and North London") were included in the PRA survey. "The total number of patients discharged who were previously admitted from East London was 2061. 37% were discharged from Long Grove, 52.8% from St Clement's Hospital, and 10.2% from Hackney Psychatric Unit" (PRA1968, p.6) Long Grove Outpatients clinics at Hackney Hospital Monday and Wednesday at 2pm 1967 John Reed appointed Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry to St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College. Born 16.9.1931, BA Cantab 1953 - MB BChir 1956 - MRCP 1958 - DPM 1964 - FRCPsych 1974 - FRCP 1974 - Prior to working in the City and Hackney "went into psychiatry and after a spell at Bexley Hospital worked at the Maudsley Hospital under, among others, Professor Sir Aubrey Lewis and Professor Michael Shepherd". Died 9.10.2009 February 1968 Publication of The Mental Health of East London by the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association. 1970 Publication of Mental illness in City and Suburb - A study of the geographic distribution of psychiatric pateients discharged to Aackney, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Enfields and Waltham Forest by the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association. April 1974 After this date, all hospital admissions for mental illness were to units within the borough. (But existing patients remained at Long Grove). St Lawrences, Caterham, previously the catchment area hospital for mental handicap, ceased taking Hackney patients in 1974 Friday 6.5.1974 First meeting of the Hackney Hospital Mental Patients Union 1980 and 1981 John Bligh's survey of patients in hospitals outside Hackney revealed at least 80 mentally ill patients at Long Grove and about 200 patients dispersed in mental handicap hospitals in a ring around London, including: St Lawrences: 161; Farmfield: 2; The Manor, Epsom: 13; St Ebbas, Epsom: 2; Darenth Park, Kent: 11; South Ockendon, Essex (the closest): 7; Harperbury, Hertfordshire: 1; Leavesden, Hertfordshire: 10. In 1980 Hackney's Director of Social Services told councillors that mentally handicapped people were no longer sent outside the borough "except in exceptional circumstances". 1981 There were 80 mental illness in-patient beds at Hackney Hospital, 73 at the German Hospital and six at St Bartholomews. 1981 BBC2 Soap/Drama "Maybury" produced with assistance from Hackney psychiatrists. Rumour suggested that the psychiatrist hero, Eddie Roebuck, played by Patrick Stewart, was modelled on John Reed. There are clear similarities between F Block in Hackney Hospital and the psychiatric block at Maybury General Hospital. On page 98 of the book, for example, we learn that at Maybury (and possibly only at Maybury" "we do it all without any chronic units"... "we're trying to show that it can all be done in the community". 25.11.1982 and 26.11.1982 "Cinderella No More. A Conference about the development of Comprehensive Psychiatric Services" organised by the Community Psychiatric Research Unit, Hackney Hospital, at Robin Brook Centre, St Bartholomew's Medical College. A paper by John Reed "The elements of an 'ideal' service - The clinical view" "describes and comments on experiences in City and Hackney as a background to discussion of what might constitute an 'ideal' package" Winter 1984/1985 Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee established Wednesday 25.6.1986 Dr John Reed's farewell party in the Academic Centre, Hackney Hospital. 1986 Homerton Hospital opened, but geriatric and psychiatric wards remained at Hackney Hospital John Langdale Reed, Esq., M.B., B.Chir., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.P sych., Senior Principal Medical Officer, Department of Health, appointed an Honorary Physicians to Her Majesty for a period of three years from 1st February 1990. March 1994 Hackney Patients Council founded 1995 "Hackney Hospital Closure Under Way" Robin Farquarson House 37 Mayola Road, Hackney Established by mental patients for mental patients Opened July 1973, closed August 1976 One of the residential houses set up by members of the Mental Patients' Union

Mental Handicap Unit in Hackney Eastern Hospital The Eastern Hospital, Homerton Grove, London, E9 6BY was demolished in 1982 to make way for the new Homerton Hospital. Amongst its last residents were a group of severely disabled children who moved to a hostel in Malpas Road, Hackney. The Eastern Hospital had a long history as a fever hospital and as a hospital for diseases of the skin. Its use as a home for children with learning difficulties is not mentioned in the extensive historical notes on the Hospital Database. Hamhp News

Mental Handicap Hospitals North East of London 1835 James Henry Pullen born in Dalston, London in 1835. He was first admitted to Essex Hall and then to Earlswood. External link to to the museum of his works - archive Royal Eastern Counties North Station Road, Colchester Established 1849 for young inmates of Royal Earlswood By 1858 all patients transferred to Earlswood. 1859: Eastern Counties Asylum 1.2.1868: Feature in The Builder about an infirmary refers to Essex Hall Asylum for Idiots (See Rossbret) Royal Eastern Counties Institution for Mental Defectives c.1948 - 1972 Royal Eastern Counties Hospital 1962 In her journal, Valerie Argent calls this Essex Hall (the term she always used), whereas her psychiatrist writes "Royal Eastern Counties Hospital, Essex Hall, Colchester" About 1970 Cherry Allfree admitted from Lexden House. 1972: Essex Hall 1979: 338 beds (Mental Handicap) 1986: Closed Also in Colchester Health District, for mental handicap, in 1979: Turner Village Hospital, Turner Road, Colchester, 476 beds [From Essex Hall] "We used to go to Turner Village to see some films. They'd walk you there in twos - There would be a long file of us walking up the street - 'There goes the people from Essex Hall' - the boy weren't allowed to sit with the girls - because they thought you'd want to kiss and cuddle". (Cherry Allfree) Lexden House, Lexden, Colchester, 78 beds "I was already 19.. it was more like a bin than Kingsmead... I was there for twelve months... and from there went to Essex Hall". She was moved there after running away from Lexden Hosue more than once. (Cherry Allfree) Barker House, Coppings Road, Clacton on Sea, 43 beds Brunswick House, Mistley, Manningtree, 43 beds Severalls Hospital had 38 beds for mental handicap "If the doctors thought you needed treatment... you'd be carted off to Severalls to have electric shock treatment... Or if it was something worse -- you'd be sent to Rampton". (Cherry Allfree) Ramsey Lodge, Oakley Road, Dovercourt, Harwich, 37 beds Crossley House, Marine Parade, Clacton-on-Sea, 33 beds "holiday?... the people who weren't allowed out... or weren't able to visit their parents went to this house in Clacton... It was run by the staff". "where everybody gets cross". (Cherry Allfree) Hillsea, 10 East Hill, Colchester, 30 beds Handford House, Queens Road, Colchester, 20 beds Kingsmead, Straight Road, Colchester, 10 beds "She got in touch with a social worker - who got in touch with a psychiatrist - a lady psychiatrist - who, in fact was jointly in control of the Royal Eastern Hospital Counties Group - and the psychiatrist gave me an intelligence test. Although the test was good they still sent me to Kingsmead... A 'hostel' ... it was part of the 'bib' ... it was just like a 'mini-bin' ... People were drugged up... I was there for two years ... the social worker took me to Lexden House (Cherry Allfree) South Ockendon Colony Established 1932 Became South Ockendon Hospital, South Road, South Ockendon, RM15 6SB 1979: 724 beds (Mental Handicap) Closed 1994 Hospital Database says: See (i) Randal Bingley, 'South Ockendon: Echoes from an Essex Hospital' (typeset, 1993); a copy is available at the Essex Record Office, Chelmsford. (ii) Richard Harris, ' Preserving and using archives', in Dorothy Atkinson, Mark Jackson and Jan Walmsley (eds) Forgotten Lives: Exploring the history of learning disability (BILD Publications 1997 Leytonstone House or Leyton House 2003 use: "Shops, supermarket"

Brentwood St Faith's Hospital, Brentwood London Road Brentwood CM14 4QP (Telephone was 01277 219262) Previously: An Industrial School for Shoreditch and Hackney (possibly opened by Shoreditch in 1854) - Hackney Branch Institution Brentwood Epileptic Colony (1916-1936?). For women. Established by the Metropolitan Asylums Board Taken over by London County Council in 1935. Probably renamed St Faith's Hospital at this point. See Ewell Epileptic Colony 1962 (Hospital Plan): 332 beds in 1960, 303 of them for epilepsy, plus 15 acute and 14 geriatric. "At present takes only female patients" but "will be developed into the regional epileptic centre, thus allowing St David's Hospital, Edmonton to be closed". Development to be completed by 1971. 1979: 293 beds. "Chronic Sick (Geriatric and Epileptics)" Demolished towards the end of the 20th century and replaced by "BT Workstyle 2000" building. Edmonton St David's Hospital Silver Street London N18 Previously: "From 1849 to 1915, this site was the Strand Union's workhouse school. It was then bought and converted by the Metropolitan Asylums Board and operated as St David's Hospital for "sane epileptics" until 1971. (email from Peter Higginbotham - external link to his site) Edmonton Epileptic Colony (1916-1936). For men. Metropolitan Asylums Board Taken over by London County Council in 1935. Probably renamed St David's Hospital at this point. See Ewell Epileptic Colony Hospital Database says it closed in 1947 - But it was part of a survey in 1962 St David's, along with the Edmonton Union Institution and North Middlesex Hospital, shown on a map printed about 1950 1962 (Hospital Plan): 271 beds in 1960, all for epilepsy. St David's was a regional centre for epilepsy. It was planned to close by 1971 (see St Faith's above) and the site was to be used for a new, 400 bed, hospital for mentally handicapped patients. Building the new hospital was expected to start sometime between 1966-1967 and 1970-1971. [But, by then, public policy had changed]

Mental Handicap Hospitals North West of London 1971 Leavesden Harperbury Cell Barnes Broomham and Fairfield Unit Normansfield Idiot Asylum Kingston Road Teddington [TW11 9JH] Founded 1868 1881 Census: John L.H. Down physician head of Normansfield Idiot Asylum, Kingston Road, Middlesex. Owned by the Langdown Down family until purchased by the National Health Service in 1951. Its archives are the only ones for a private asylum held in the London Metropolitan Archives. (email from Bridget Howlett, Senior Archivist) A voluntary institution until 1948, then part of the National Health Service. 1948? Normansfield Hospital 1997 Closed History website Miriam Bruinsma's photographic gallery of Normansfield 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Church Hill House Click for Mental Handicap Hospitals North East of London 1971 Mental Handicap Hospitals South of London 1971 Darenth Park Opened by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1878 as Darenth Asylum and Schools, 1913: Darenth Industrial Colony, 1920: Darenth Training Colony. In 1930, passed to the London County Council. 1937: Darenth Park Hospital, Dartford, DA2 6LZ. 1980 Hackney patients November 1982 The only large mental handicap hospital planned to close "The closure of Darenth was driven by the determination of learning disability managers locally to run an entirely different service and the South East Thames Regional Manager responsible plus the Chief Nurse called Audrey Emerton (now Baroness Emerton). It was very visionary at the time. Clinicians were marginal in that case." (Elaine Murphy email 17.5.2012) Closed 1988 Leybourne Grange Eastry Princess Christian's St Lawrence's, Caterham Botley's Park Hospital Guildford Rd Chertsey Surrey KT16 0QA 1765 Mansion external link archive of a history Records include at Surrey History Centre include: minutes of visitors 1914 - 1960 1929 Mansion bought by Surrey County Council Management Committee Reports 1949 - 1950 Botleys Plc and Murray House 1932 - 1933 Deeds re Porook House Hostel 1913 - 1949 Plans and contracts re construction 1930 - 1962 Chertsey Workhouse Records Closed late 1997? 2003 use: "Business" Murray House was the Chertsey Workhouse. See Peter Higginbotham's site In 1930, the workhouse was taken over by Surrey County Council and later became Murray House Certified Institution for the Mentally Defective Royal Earlswood 1847: Park House, Highgate 1849 See Royal Eastern Counties 1855?: Earlswood Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles Brighton Road, Redhill, RH1 6JL 1858: John Langdown Down (external link - archive) medical superintendent. 1868 See Normansfield By 1929: Royal Earlswood Institution (to 1959) 1995: Closed 2001: Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum 1847- 1901 by David Wright. External link to review 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Rossbret entry - archive Pictures on the Old Redhill and Reigate website - archive - pictures not preserved, but may be recoverable from Francis Frith Collection Farmfield Originally an inebriates reformatory "At an early date after the passing of the Inebriates Act of 1898, the London County Council established a reformatory at Farmfield, near Horley, for the reception of 100 female inebriates. It soon became evident that more accommodation would be necessary, and the Council accordingly contracted with the National Institution for Inebriates for the reception of all female cases they were unable to receive at Farmfield" (Hansard 17.2.1908) November 1915: "London County Council closed its reformatory at Farmfield and transferred the 45 female inmates to Brentry before it converted Farmfield to being a mental deficiency colony". (source) 1926 London County Council institution for high grade defectives with delinquent tendencies 1948 Part of the National Health Service. Organised by the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board to form part of the Royal Earlswood Group. November 1953 just over 250 patients Peter Whitehead transferred from Rampton 1958 120 patients The Manor, Epsom St Ebbas, Epsom Queen Mary's Mental Handicap Hospital South of London after 1971 Grove Park Hospital Greenwich external link 2003 use: "Housing"

South East England

Hook Norton, Oxfordshire
Licensed House
The asylum at Hook Norton and the one at Witney are the subjects of a special study by William Parry-Jones (1972 chapter six). Page numbers below are to this.
About 1725: opened. The village of Hook Norton is near the edge of Oxfordshire, near to Warwickshire
1815 list: Hook Norton: Harris
1.1.1844 ??
Closed 1854

Warneford Asylum, Oxford (Headington) Warneford Hospital history in health authority archives not receiving paupers in 1844 Architect: Richard Ingleman Opened 1826 Before it opened (from 1821 to 1826) its was referred to as Oxford Lunatic Asylum 1826: Radcliffe Asylum (1826 - 1843 1843 Warneford Asylum 1844: Superintendent: F.T. Wintle, MD 1.1.1844: 42 private patients, 1881 Census:. Warneford Asylum, Headington, Oxford. Medical Superintendent: John Ward, married, born Leeds about 1844. Warneford Hospital Warneford Lane, Oxford, OX3 7JX 1909 Leaflet in book multi-map Associated with: Park Hospital for Nervous Diseases 1939 to 1958 Park Hospital for Children 1958 to Present

Oxfordshire and Berkshire County Asylum opened on 1.8.1846 at Littlemore, Oxford. This became the Oxford County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. May 1918 Ashurst War Hospital, Littlemore. - 580 beds (source) "for the care and treatment of soldiers and pensioners suffering from neurasthenia or loss of mental balance" (Hansard 12.4.1920) August 1920 Reverted to county asylum By 1922 it was the Oxford County and City Mental Hospital. It became Littlemore Hospital, Sandford Road, Littlemore, Oxford, OX4 4XN 1990 Oxford Survivors and Libellus Dementum 2003 use: "Gated housing development, business" A separate asylum for Berkshire County, and boroughs of Reading and Newbury was planned in 1867/1868: Moulsford Asylum opened in 1870. (external link to asylum history). (archive copy). Architect: Charles Henry Howell - Corridor form 1881 Census: "Berks County Moulsford Asylum, Cholsey, Berkshire". Medical Superintendent (Physician) Robert Bryce Gilland, unmarried, aged 42, born Scotland. Under a contract with Surrey, 30 patients, including Edward Sackett were admitted from Brookwood on 12.9.1882, and sent back to Surrey on 31.3.1884. 1885-1902 imbecile patients from Westminster Fair Mile Hospital, Reading Road, Cholsey, Wallingford, OX10 9HH, had 613 beds on 31.12.1977. Autumn 2002: Reported open, or closed but empty (map) English Heritage: Fairmile, Oxfordshire, built 1868-1870 as the pauper asylum for Berkshire Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum was opened at Crowthorne, Berkshire, in 1863. BBC Profile - Wikipedia "designed by Major General Joshua Jebb, a military engineer who is said to have based the building off two other hospitals - Wakefield in Britain and Turkey's Scutari Hospital" (BBC Profile) - Joshua Jebb (8.5.1793 - 26.6.1863) was Surveyor-General of Prisons. He made the design for Pentonville Prison, which acted as the model for many others. (Neil Sturrock - email 7.12.2006) 1863 to 1948 Run directly by the Home Office Dr John Meyer (died 1870) was the first Medical Superintendent. His deputy was William Orange (born 1833, died 1916). Both came from the Surrey Asylum 1865: Report (HMSO) Superintendent: John Meyer, Chaplain: J.T. Burt 1866 While kneeling at Communion Service, one Sunday, Dr Orange was hit on the head by a patient with a stone hidden in a handkerchief. July 1868 W.G. Maddox MRCS appointed Assistant Medical Officer in place of A J Newman, who had resigned January 1970 D M'K Cassidy, MD, late Assistant Medical Officer to the Northern District Asylum at Inverness appointed Assistant Medical Officer October 1870 W. Orange, MD Heidelberg, MRCP apponted Resident Medical Superintendent in place of J. Meyer MD. deceased. Meyer's obituary on page 311 of the Journal of Mental Science. William Orange had been Deputy Superintendent and W.Douglas MD, LRCS Edinburgh was appointed to that post in April 1871 1870: Report (HMSO 1871) Superintendent: W. Orange, Chaplain: J.T. Burt. October 1871 A.R. Gray, MD, MRCS Edinburgh appointed Assistant Medical Officer 1873-1874 Series of articles by David Nicolson on "The Morbid Psychology of Criminals" in the Journal of Mental Science 1873 David Nicolson expressed opinion that habitual criminals "possess an unmistakable physique with rough and irregular outline and a massiveness in the seats of animal expression" while the accidental criminal "differs little or nothing from the ordinary run of mortals" 1878 After dealing with the inmates of the asylum, David Nicolson no longer believed most criminals differed physically from non-criminals. (Flemming, R. 2000 citing Weiner, M.J. 1990 ) 1881 Census Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Sandhurst, Berkshire. Some senior officers (see below) live outside the asylum. Inside is John Baldwin Isaac, unmarried, aged 33, born in Ireland a "Doctor Of Medicine (Civil Service)". The names of patients are given in full. 1881 Census: Superintendent's House (William Orange) Thomas Ash (Chaplain) - David Nicolson - Robert Hazel 1887 Report of the Superintendent (W. Orange), plans of the asylum, 1886 (men's division, men's division - blocks 1 and 6, women's division and block plan of the complete asylum), report of the Chaplain (Thomas Ashe), statistical tables, report of the Commissioners in Lunacy and post-mortem records 1888 Report of the Superintendent - David Nicolson 1892 Superintendent still David Nicolson. Chaplain still Thomas Ashe 12.12.1894 Letter from Robert Hazel (non-medical superintendent at Broadmoor) to one of his daughters. He tells her about a theatrical entertainment at the Asylum that was to happen the next day (Friday 13.12.1894) Dr Lawless was the stage manager. He goes on to say "The elections come off next week in the School Room at Crowthorne, so it rather interferes with Mr Sharp's concert. Other concerts are also under way." [Information from Fiona Douglas. a descendent] 1896 "When there was a change of Directors at Broadmoor around 1896 things became very tough in the Institution, and I believe that is when Robert Hazle retired to Hanwell in Middlesex" 1901: Report (HMSO) Superintendent: R. Brayn, Chaplain: Hugh Wood. Visiting Lunacy Commissioners: F. Needham and C.S. Bagot 1903: article by George Griffith 1917 David Nicolson "William Orange, CB, MD, FRCP, formerly Medical Superintendent, Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum" Obituary, British Medical Journal 1917, volume 1 pp 67-69 4.11.1919: Beth Wood admitted. Dr Sullivan was Superintendent at this time. Beth was conditionally discharged to the care of her husband on 4.12.1921 1920 Rampton 10.9.1924 The Nation "W. C. Sullivan, Medical Superintendent of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in England, in his recent book, Crime and Insanity" 26.2.1926 Death of William Charles Sullivan (1869-1926) sometime superintendent at Broadmoor. 1939 Charles Kaye born September 1944 First issue of The Broadmoor Chronicle 1948 Criminal Justice Act section 62(3) moved Broadmoor from the Home Office to the Board of Control. The name was changed to Broadmoor Special Institution 1957: See Percy Report 1959 Mental Health Act sections 97-98: Broadmoor, Rampton and Moss Side became Special Hospitals under the Ministry of Health. Jimmy Savile called himself the "voluntary assistant entertainments officer" for Broadmoor. His involvement as a volunteer probably began in the late 1960s or early 1970s. At some time he was given an office in the grounds of the hospital, a bedroom, which he called his "cell", above it, and his own personal set of keys to the hospital wards. Esther Addley, Guardian 12.10.2012 In August 1988 shortly before the publication of a highly critical report into its operating procedures, the entire management board of Broadmoor secure psychiatric hospital was suspended by the Department of Health, which at the time had joint responsibility for its direct management. (Guardian) 1988 to 1997 Alan Franey chief executive of Broadmoor. 1989 Special Hospitals Service Authority took over management. Charles Kaye appointed the Chief Executive. 1992 The London Programme on LWT (London Weekend Television) broadcast a 60 minute documentary "Inside Broadmoor", which is still available as a video-recording from Figaro Films. "Patients, nurses and medical visitors give their opinions about life inside Broadmoor maximum security hospital. Modernised parts of the hospital are compared with those parts that are still so inadequate that it is astonishing that any sort of orderly regime can be preserved in surroundings so productive of stress. The General Manager, Alan Franey, states his commitment to recovery, rehabilitation and release rather than mere custodial care. There are some very interesting interviews with patients, showing their different states of awareness and responsibility, and a glimpse of a lively Broadmoor variety show". 1996 Purchaser-provider split was introduced into the Special Hospitals. The SHSA was disbanded; in its place appeared three Special Hospital Authorities and their purchaser, the High Security Psychiatric Services Commissioning Board (HSPSCB) 1998 Managing High Security Psychiatric Care Edited by Charles Kaye and Alan Franey. Number 9 in the Forensic Focus series published by Jessica Kingsley. 1999 See The Special Hospitals: a Short History in Ashworth Special Hospital Report September 2007 Men only. Women moved to Southall, Rampton and elsewhere 11.7.2012 Press release: The Department of Health is to invest in the Victorian site at Broadmoor Hospital, which dates back to 1860, replacing the old buildings with fit-for-purpose and secure facilities. English Heritage: Broadmoor, Berkshire, built 1860-63 as the state criminal lunatic asylum HSH Broadmoor Hospital The Terrace, Upper Broadmoor Road, Crowthorne, Berkshire RG45 7EG freedom campaign prison list Buckinghamshire house without paupers Buckinghamshire County Asylum opened 17.1.1853 Stone, Near Aylesbury (HP17 8PP) Simon Cornwall: Built: 1850-1853. Architect: TH Wyatt and David Brandon Corridor form - Close to Conolly's ideal "Dr John Millar, Superintendant of the County Asylum close to Stone Vicarage" was a photographic pioneer and friend of Joseph Bancroft Reade (1801-1870) (external link). Appears to have been superintendent in 1855. A John Milar was proprietor at Bethnal Green by 1859. A John Millar wrote a book about insanity in 1861 1853 to (about) 1930 registers of admissions and discharges in Buckinghamshire Records, County Hall. 1919 Buckinghamshire Mental Hospital 1948 St John's Hospital Associated Hospitals: Manor House Hospital - Joint Management Committee from 1954 550 beds in 1979 Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum - St. John's by John Lewis Crammer. Publisher: London: Gaskell, 1990 195 pages: illustrated and indexed ISBN/ISSN: 0902241346 closed Simon Cornwall: Demolished. Site developed for housing. Only Chapel and some staff houses remain.

Mental Handicap Hospitals Borocourt Certified Institution for Mental Defectives A converted Victorian Mansion at Rotherfield Peppard, near Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire. (multi-map) 5.5.1933: first residents Became Borocourt Hospital, Wyfold, Reading, RG4 9GD Renamed Wyfold Court, it is being converted into flats. Maureen's story 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Bradwell Grove Hospital Built as Transit camp for US troops in World War two. Later used for casualty reception. Briefly used as a Royal Marine School of Music. Converted to a mental deficiency hospital about 1948 External link includes history Closed 1986 2003 use: "Zoo" Oxfordshire Mental Health Care Trust www.EasyWords.co.uk: the web-site for the Oxfordshire Learning Disability Partnership Board Manor House Hospital Blerton Road, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. 216 beds in 1979

Chalfont Colony opened 1894 The National Society for the Employment of Epileptics, Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire Doctors from the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic , in London, were amongst the people who established the colony. It was run from London and visited regularly by doctors from the hospital. (an external link)

See David Mapley on Fort Clarence, Rochester (external link - archive) " Fort Clarence is sited across St Margarets Street in Rochester. Work commenced in 1808 and completed in 1812 and was sited to prevent access from Maidstone Road to the River Medway. After 1815 the fort served a variety of different purposes. One use was as a military prison and lunatic asylum. After nearby Fort Pitt became a military hospital the patients were moved from Fort Clarence to a new purpose built asylum, although the prison remained." June 1804 military and naval lunatics "pouring" into Bedlam June 1815 Sir James M'Grigor appointed director-general of the army medical department (based at Chatham). Lockhart Robertson (1856) says "the old regulations drawn up by him for the government of Fort Clarence breathe a spirit of scientific humanity, which it required twenty years of progress to infuse generally into the civil establishments for the insane. Throughout his long tenure of office he was ever anxious to adopt into the Military Asylum every modern improvement in the treatment of the insane... at his frequent personal inspections at Fort Clarence he evinced a warm personal sympathy with its afflicted inmates, which in after years I have often heard spoken of with grateful remembrance." Fort Clarence: Asylum opened 1819. "Fort Clarence, Chatham, was opened in 1819, as a military asylum. There were plans to build a new and larger asylum, but these were not fulfilled at the time" ( Parry-Jones, W.L. 1972 p.68) - The 1844 Report refers to "lunatic wards" at Fort Clarence (and Haslar) as well as to a "military hospital". Opened "for the reception of insane officers, soldiers, and women belonging to the army; and in that year four officers, sixty-two non-commissioned officers and privates, and two women were admitted into this hospital". (Lockhart Robertson 1856) Andrew Smith returned to England from South Africa in 1836 and was stationed at Fort Pitt. He became staff surgeon and principal medical officer in 1841. In 1844 its principal medical officer was Andrew Smith M.D., and it had 70 patients, 21 of whom were commissioned officers. "The Military Hospital at Fort Clarence, near Chatham, is well situated. The part of the fort which is appropriated to the residences of the officers is very gloomy, and ill suited for a receptacle for insane persons. Some of the sleeping-rooms for the private soldiers are sufficiently good, but others are dull and cheerless. The exercising grounds for the officers, and the yards for the soldiers, are cheerful, but are not sufficient in number or size. The buildings and grounds admit of great improvement; but we understand that the inmates of this hospital are about to be removed to a new asylum." (1844 Report p.31) "Most general military hospitals included wards for the mentally ill. In 1847, about 20 mentally ill soldiers were transferred from Fort Clarence in Rochester to a new house of detention or of observation at Fort Pitt. Morrison, K. 7.1996 The "new asylum" mentioned in the 1844 Report, "was to have been erected between Maidstone and Chatham, with a sum £60,000. A site was purchased but ultimately abandoned, and the Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, selected to replace permanently for the benefit of the insane patients of the army, that establishment which the Commons had decreed should be built". (Lockhart Robertson 1856) Shorncliffe Barracks, Folkestone used as a temporary asylum. All patients moved in one day of October 1846 to Yarmouth Inmates were transferred to the new Army lunatic asylum at Netley in 1870, an attractive brick building now used as a police training centre" Morrison, K. 7.1996 Yarmouth Royal Military Lunatic Asylum 1844 to 1854 Fort Pitt Built between 1805 and 1819 on the high ground of the boundary between Chatham and Rochester. Became a hospital for invalided soldiers in 1828, with an asylum added in 1849. 9.3.1855 Hansard £2,000 allocated to buildings for military lunatics at Fort Pitt. "It seemed contrary to common sense that a lunatic asylum for the whole army should be placed in the middle of Fort Pitt, where unfortunate invalids were now experiencing comfort after their return from the Crimea". 20.7.1855 House of Commons: Question about £60,000 allocated "a few years since" for a military lunatic asylum. None had been spent (?). "when military lunatics arrived at Chatham they were detained there, pending an inquiry as to whether they were fit to be sent to their respective homes, or to the military asylum". The accomodation being "very imperfect... it had been determined to erect a separate house for the temporary reception of the soldiers". 3.3.1856 Hansard: Masters Smith complained that "the lunatics, the moment they were relieved from the discipline attached to the wards, were permitted to have free communication in the area of the fort with the invalided soldiers who had returned from foreign service... those lunatics were subjected to no active surveillance". He was told that "a hospital had been procured near Southampton" were it was hoped "a building would be erected there which would include a hospital, invalid barracks, and a lunatic asylum". Florence Nightingale started the first Army Medical School there in 1860, but by the 1920s the hospital was closed, and the site converted into a school. (John Bray November 2003 Fortress UK) = (archive source) - (1867 List shows the Military Lunatic Hospital at Fort Pitt). See Yarmouth - Bow - and Netley

1905 Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham, opened First World War "Admissions for psychological disorders at the Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham, rose steadily throughout the First World War". (Jones and Greenberg 5.2006)

Kent County Asylum
Barming Heath, near Maidstone
The term "barmy" (crazy) dates back to the 16th century, and was not derived from this asylum.
Need for a county asylum first raised by the County Justices in 1825 (Administrative History)
7.7.1825 "a return made by order of the county magistrates showed that there were 160 pauper lunatics and 50 dangerous idiots in Kent" (Nick Hervey)
18.11.1828 Order made for its establishment. Committee of Visitors established to oversee: "after difficulty had arisen over the placement of a criminal lunatic from St. Augustine's prison". 37 acres site bought from the parish of Maidstone, "situated at 200-300 feet above the Medway on Barming Heath. The site overlooked a valley covered in hop plantations and was faced by timbered and park-like hills". (Nick Hervey)
Simon Cornwall: Built: 1830-1833. Architect: John Whichcord Senior.
Corridor form "The first building consisted of a central house of four stories, with two wings, or tiers of wards of three floors, on each side. This front faced south, and at each end there was a wing extending backwards at a right angle. There was an artificial warming and ventilation system heated by a steam engine. The latter also raised the asylum's water from a well". (Nick Hervey)
Opened 1.1.1833 according to the 1844 Report and other sources. Built for 168 patients
First superintendant George Poynder MRCS LSA, previously at Gloucestershire County Asylum
1836 Part added to asylum
1836 Richard Adams criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Kent". (HO 20/13)
August? 1836 Publication by Charles Dickens of the fictional A Madman's Manuscript
1837 Part added to asylum
1838 William Deane, criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Barming Heath, Kent". (HO 20/13)
[Many other criminal lunatics listed for West Malling and the Lunatic Asylum, Maidstone]
1842 Part added to asylum
1.1.1844: 249 patients. All pauper. 1844? 11.6% of patients epileptic
1845 Part added to asylum: Now room for 443 patients.
1846 George Poynder retired and was succeeded by James Edmund Huxley MD MRCS LSA. (aged 25), also previously at Gloucestershire County Asylum. (Nick Hervey)
1847 Part added to asylum
1850 Additional buildings added the Chronic/Additional Building)
Annual medical report of the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, for the year ending July 4th, 1853. Presented to the Committee of Visitors, 10.9.1853 and to the Court of General Sessions, 18.10.1853. 24 pages and folded leaf of plates. Consists of statistical tables, remarks on the tables and report of the superintendent, James E. Huxley (Wellcome Library catalogue)
1857: Wet beds and the threat to the British Constitution
Sixteenth annual medical report : for the year 1861-1862 ("Thirtieth year") Consists of statistical tables, the 15th and 16th annual reports of the superintendent (James E. Huxley), including the report of the Commissioners in Lunacy (W.G. Campbell, S. Gaskell). Last with James Huxley as superintendent.
About 1862-1869 William P. Kirkman Superintendent
1867-1872 (Third Asylum/New Building).
Accomodation problems eased by the opening of Chartham Asylum
1881 Census: Kent County Lunatic Asylum Barming Heath, Maidstone. Francis Pritchard Davies (married, aged 38) Superintendent.
1885-1902 imbecile patients from Westminster
Asylum no longer there. Part of site occupied by new Maidstone Hospital.
Oakwood Hospital, Maidstone (formerly Kent County Lunatic Asylum, Barming Heath), East Barming, Kent and Maidstone, Kent. 1829-1986 records in Centre for Kentish Studies, County Hall, Maidstone.
Simon Cornwall: Closed. To be converted to housing.

West Malling Place, Kent
Licensed House
Established about 1770 by William Perfect (1737-1809)
Lent 1830 Sarah Blunt criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, West Malling, Kent". "felony" (HO 20/13)
1.1.1844: 47 patients. 13 pauper and 34 private.
SEVERELY CENSURED IN 1844 REPORT
"Lunatic Asylum" shown near the remains of St Leonard's Chapel at St Leonard's Street, on 1870 map.
From 1875 to 1948 there was a Malling Place Private Mental Nursing Home, St Leonards Street, West Malling. Archives in Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone.
1881 Census: St Leonard St Lunatic Asylum, West Malling, Kent. Thomas H. Lowry, aged 63, born Maidstone, Kent, Physician. Elizabeth I. Lowry, his wife, aged 50, born Chatham, Kent, and Mimie Lowry, there unmarried daughter, aged 19, born West Malling
10.11.1912 William Smart Harnett, a farmer, admitted under certificate to Malling Place, West Malling, Kent, a licensed house owned and managed by Dr George Henry Adam.
Hunter and McAlpine (1963) say that was "still in use"
Postcode ME19 6PD (map to postcode)
The site of the asylum on old maps is close to the present Manor Homes Elderly Residential Care at 96 St Leonards Street

Kent County Asylum at Chartham East Kent Lunatic Asylum Opened 1875. Architect: Giles And Gough - Corridor-pavilion 1885-1902 imbecile patients from Westminster Kent County Mental Hospital, Chartham from 1920 to 1948. Combined with St Martin's Hospital Canterbury and Canterbury City Mental Hospital in 1948. Then St Augustine's Hospital, Chartham Downs, Canterbury. April 1974 St Augustine's Hospital, Chartham Down, near Canterbury, Kent - A Critique Regarding Policy by Brian Ankers and Olleste Etsello "Drugs were given almost automatically to new admissions...ECT (Electroconvulsive therapy) was sometimes used as a punitive measure - although it was not openly admitted. I have heard the term 'punitive ECT' used in the hospital in reference to "that is what a patient needs". Some psychiatrists had a certain faith in ECT and at times patients were threatened with it" (page 14) 31.3.1976 Report of the Committee of Inquiry at St Augustine's Hospital, Chartham, Canterbury "The consultants at St Augustine's readily admitted that they gave priority to the patients who were acutely ill. These tend to be younger than the chronic patients... the patients in the back wards often have intractable illness.." (Dr Tony Smith The Times 1.4.1976) This aerial view was sent me by Brian Bradley. It is included on Chartham Paper Mill's intranet as part of its heritage. Brian says that Canterbury City Council have refused Wilcon Homes permission to knock down the old hospital water tower (centre right in photo) as they consider it a significant landmark that could be turned into some sort of viewing tower. The photograph looks as if it may have been a postcard. Closed 1993. Econ construction, specialist in asbestos removal and demolition, charged a quarter of a million pounds to destroy the complete hospital complex of sixty acres, reclaiming of bricks, timber and slates and recycling and crushing 6,000 cubic metres of concrete, employing thirty demolition workers at the peak and completing on time in 1997 - on behalf of Wilcon Homes. Simon Cornwall: Closed in 1992, demolished in 1997. Peter Cracknell: Admin block, villa, lodge, chapel and tower survive. Rest of complex cleared by 1997. From 1902, Canterbury Borough had its own Mental Hospital (later St. Martin's Hospital). Prior to this, Canterbury Borough patients were reported as being in various location including Fisherton House, Wiltshire and in 1896 at Derby County Asylum. St Martin's Hospital Canterbury 1994: 120 patients website Sevenoaks Workhouse Built in 1843 "The workhouse later became Sundridge Institution catering for mental patients. Under the National Health Service, it became Sundridge Hospital but this closed in the late 1990s. The site is awaiting redevelopment". Peter Higginbotham July 1998 Closed

The 1844 Report estimated the pauper lunatics of Sussex to be 251 in 1842, and reported the number chargeable to Unions in Sussex by August 1843 to be 278 (105 idiots and 173 lunatics. But there was no public or private asylum in the county that received paupers. Several were in asylums outside the county. Eight were in county asylum/s. [There is no column for "hospitals" so this may have included St Luke's Hospital]. Eighty Five were in licensed houses. Only 69 of those who remained in the county were in a workhouse, the other 116 were "with their friends or elsewhere".

History of Haywards Heath - Haywards Heath and its Hospitals - - Brief history of Haywards Heath (archive). Joe Hughes of the Friends of St Francis has helped considerably with the history below and on the Charlotte Mew page (where the pictures are). He provided me with a full copy of A History of St Francis Hospital 1859 - 1995 by Jim Mable Sussex Asylum, Haywards Heath was being erected in 1858 Known as Sussex County Lunatic Asylum from 1854 (when first planned) to 1892 Architect: H. E. Kendall Junior. See Charlotte Mew Chronology Corridor form - Too large for Conolly's ideal? 1870: 800 patients, dining halls, a nurses home, farm and sports ground Sarah Rutherford: Built 1856-1859 National Grid Reference TQ 336 228 "The polychrome building is sited at the top of steep terraces incorporated into the airing courts, with long views to the South Downs" Archive at East Sussex Record Office (Hospital database says "founded 1854") Opened 25.7.1859 (St James Day). Superintendent: Dr Charles Lockhart Robertson (selected from 83 applicants). Annual salary £450 "It included accommodation for 420 inmates plus offices, superintendent's apartments, chapel, lodge, stable, gas house, engine and boiler room, boundary walls, gas works, baths, showers, brewhouse and washrooms." An artesian well 217 feet deep supplied water - and continued to do so until the hospital closed... The first patients came from other (private?) asylums and included 82 from Bethnal Green Asylum. (On Call p.2) 1881 Census: Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, Haywards Heath, Wivelsfield, Sussex. Medical Superintendent: Samuel Blutes D. Williams (unmarried, age 41) Physician. Assistant Officer: Thomas Blair Worthington (unmarried, age 32) 1891: Kelly's Directory: "The Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, about one mile south-east from Haywards Heath railway station, but locally situated in the in the parish of Wivelsfield, stands on an eminence in grounds covering nearly 300 acres: it was opened 25 July, 1859, and is a structure of brick, in the Lombardo-Venetian style, erected under the superintendence of Mr H. Kendall, jun. architect; additions were made in 1873 and continued till 1885, bringing the entire cost ups to about £120,000; there is a chapel for the officials and inmates: the number of patients at the present time (1890) is 848, and there is a staff of about 100 employees: the asylum is managed by a committee appointed by the County Councils of East and West Sussex and the County Borough of Brighton, who meet on the last Saturday of each month: William Henry Campion esq. is chairman." County Lunatic Asylum, Charles Edward Saunders MD, CM, resident medical superintendent; Edward Brooking Cornish Walker MB, CM, junior assistant medical officer; Richard John Fox MB, CM, junior assistant medical officer; Rev Francis Frederick John Greenfield BA chaplain; Reginald Blaker Lewes, clerk to the committee of visitors; Samuel Allen Mortlock, clerk to the asylum; Mrs E. Woodhouse, housekeeper; William Thomas Buckle, head male attendant; T. Lenton, storekeeper. East Sussex County Lunatic Asylum 1894 to 1903 Brighton County Borough Asylum 1903 - when the new asylum at Hellingly became East Sussex County Asylum Brighton County Borough Mental Hospital 1919 to 1948 1925 picture 1.1.1927: 834 patients of whom all but 78 were Rate Aided. 310 were men, 524 women (an unusually high proportion). In 1926 the proportion of recoveries to admissions was 48.9%. The proportion of deaths to the asylum population was 7.6% St Francis Hospital 1948 1979: St Francis Hospital had 612 beds Princess Royal Hospital (from?), Lewes Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 4EZ November 1995 "The life and work of St Francis Hospital 1895-1995": Special edition of On Call, the hospital magazine. "This magnificent yellow brick building has recently been transformed into a luxury home development known as Southdown Park. The views from the building are outstanding" First floor, single bedroom flat £157,500 Records from 1854 to 1983 of Princess Royal Hospital (formerly Sussex County Lunatic Asylum and St Francis Hospital), Haywards Heath, East Sussex in East Sussex Record Office. There is a book: Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Tune: A History of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum [West Sussex County Asylum?] 4.1.1896 Contract for reception of 5 males and 5 females in the Isle of Wight County Asylum made by Visiting Committee of County of West Sussex An asylum opened at Chichester in 1897 It became Graylingwell Hospital, College Lane, Chichester, PO19 4PQ Graylingwell Hospital had 841 beds in 1979 Autumn 2002: Reported closed but empty (map) English Heritage: Graylingwell, Chichester, West Sussex, built 1895-1897 as the pauper asylum for West Sussex [The new] East Sussex County Asylum opened in 1903 (see above) Simon Cornwall: Built: 1901-1903 Architect: George Thomas Hine Compact Arrow Became East Sussex County Mental Hospital and then Hellingly Hospital, Hellingly, Hailsham, BN27 2ER. 6.6.1977 Andrew Voyce's view inside Autumn 2002: reported closed and in a dangerous state of disrepair. Simon Cornwall: Closed in 1994. Standing derelict. Targetted by arsonists? June 2002 - External links mechanised org tours derelict building and says "Further Reading: Hellingly is one of the most documented of asylums- and the sites below offer the most interesting interpretations. Sub-Urban has a fascinating "Then and Now" section comparing the hospital as it stands with images from the 1900s - Exploration Station has reminiscences of former staff, patients and local residents; also contains countless photos - Urbex is the most accessible tour of the hospital; an extended journey through all of the main points of interest - Abandoned Britain is a black and white tour that perhaps comes closest to capturing Hellingly's calm and stillness" (Mechanised Spring 2006) Roffey Park Rehabilitation Centre (?) opened 1943 It became Roffey Park Hospital, Horsham, Sussex and had 109 beds in 1979 Closed 1981 East Sussex web

Maldon Lane, Witham, Essex
Licensed House
1.1.1844 ? patients. pauper and 17 private.

Suffolk County Asylum
Melton, near Woodbridge
Previous history (1765-1827) House of Industry for Looes and Wilford Incorporated Hundreds. Peter Higginbotham says many incorporated Hundreds were set up in rural Suffolk in the 25 years after 1756
Asylum opened 1.1.1829
Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum to 1906
1.1.1844: 213 patients. 206 pauper and 7 private.
1881 Census
Suffolk District Asylum from about 1906 to about 1930
Also known, from about 1917, as St Audry's Hospital for Mental Diseases
Became St Audry's Hospital, Melton, Woodbridge, IP12 1QT
1979: 530 beds
Now closed
External link to a nearby walk
Felixstowe Museum has a room devoted to it   [other museums]
Archives in Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich Branch)

Belle Vue House, Ipswich, Suffolk
Licensed House
Opened 1835
1.1.1844 32 patients. 20 pauper and 12 private.
Licensed to James Shaw (surgeon)
"Belle Vue Asylum, Ipswich Pleasantly situated on the Woodbridge Rd, is a private establishment, for the reception of persons afflicted with insanity. It was commenced in 1835, by its present proprietor, Mr James Shaw, surgeon, & has accommodations for 40 patients". White Directory 1844 - p 84 Submitted by Betty Longbottom to Rossbret
1870 Belle Vue House, Ipswich, Suffolk licensed to Miss S A F Walter

Eye workhouse
Charles Mott, 1837: "the man at Eye ate potato peelings...because he was an idiot"
Also see Peter Higginbotham on Eye workhouse

Ipswich Borough Asylum Built: 1869-1870 Opened 1870. Architect: WR Ribbans It became Ipswich Mental Hospital about 1908, then St Clement's Hospital, Foxhall Road. Ipswich, IP3 8LS, about 1947. Autumn 2002: reported closed and empty, but in good condition. Still open, no plans to close. (Simon Cornwall)

In 1700 Norwich was the second largest city in England. Its population approached 30,000. Its closest rival, Bristol, had a population of more than 20,000

Bethel Hospital, Norwich
[Following history based mainly on Winston, M. 1994 "The Bethel at Norwich: an eighteenth-century hospital for lunatics"
Established 1713.
The original house, known from its image on the seal of the Bethel and from a written descnption, seems to have been a two-storey building with two wings, set back from the road, then known as Committee Street.
8.1.1724 Death of Mary Chapman, founder of the Bethel.
1727: Six new wards

For the trustees: City & County of Norwich January 1730 We whose names are herein Subscrib'd being appointed Trustees for the Endowment of Bethel do require you on Sight hereof to take and Receive into the aforesaid House take due care of and provide for A B belonging to the parish of C aged about years He being Certify'd under the hand of our Physician to be under Lunacy and there being Security given for his maintenance by D_ _ E.. while he shall continue there to our Satisfaction. To F G Robert Waller Keeper of Bethel

The Bethel at Norwich For the applicants: Norwch Janry 1730 Having this Day receiv'd an order from the Trustees for the Endowment of Bethel directed to the Keeper to Receive & take into the aforesaid House, take care of & provide for A.. B of the parish of C aged about years. In consideration thereof we do hereby promise to pay to H J Treasurer of the aforesaid Endowment or to his order the Summ of Four Shillings per Week and to pay the Same Monthly for so long time as he shall remain in the aforesaid House and also to allow for all Damages and Wasts that shall be committed by the said A B and to Supply him with necessary Cloathing during his abode there, and if he shall dye there, do promise to remove the Corps or else to be at the charge of Burying him from the aforesaid House in witness whereof we now Set our Hand the Day and Year above written.

1747: Ordered that "Thomas Benning, Carpenter, do make a partition in each story in order that the Mens apartments may be wholly on one side of the Hospital and the Womens on the other. And also that he make a new Window on the South side of that Cellar where some of the Lunatics are lodged"
1749 Existing bathroom to converted to a cell, and strawroom to a "Cellar for the worst of the Lunatics to be put in", and a new strawhouse, bathroom and wash-house were to be built.
The number of residents remained stable between twenty and thirty until 1750. There was then a steady increase which continued throughout the decade. By 1760 numbers had risen to almost fifty.
1765 Trust incorporated and trustees became governors.
1762 Bequest of £1,000 by Bartholomew Balderston in order that two persons from the Congregation of Independents in Norwich could be kept "on the foundation" from time to time. (archive) - Relates to Congregational Church, Old Meeting, Norwich (archive)
Patient numbers dropped from between forty and fifty resident before 1780 to little more than thirty in the early 1790s.
1792 - 1867 Members of the Gurney and Birkbeck families, Quaker bankers, amongst the Governors.
27.7.1807: Frederick Reeve Spalding criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum". He had been tried for a felony at Norwich and was held on the order of Warner & Richard Car Spalding. (HO 20/13)
1814 On the opening of the County Asylum notice was given to parishes that certain pauper patients would be discharged. The parishes arranged their admission to the county asylum. For the next three decades, until the Lunatics Act of 1845, the number of patients at the Bethel remained between seventy and eighty, while those in the new asylum increased
1818 Letter from Samuel King, Bethel Hospital, Norwich, to Thomas Stimson, Emneth, stating that patient John Marshall of Emneth would be returned as the parish had ceased to pay for him - 'It will fall to my Lot...to take him home in a Post Chaise' (archive)
September 1828 Joseph John Gurney (a visiting governor) visited with his sister, Elizabeth Fry. Two days later a Middlesex magistrate visited and pronounced himself "much pleased"
June 1830 William J. Tuke accompanied Gurney to the house and suggested that the galleries might be opened up to provide a variety of exercise for the patients.
1831: Uriah Baldwin criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norwich". He had been tried at Norwich.
July 1832: Thomas Iveson criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norwich". He had been tried for murder at Kings Lynn. He also spent time in Bethlem (HO 20/13)
Superintendent 1844: -- King.
1.1.1844 66 patients. "It is believed that some of these are maintained partly at the charge of parishes" (1844 Report p.210)
1870 Superintendent C. M. Gibson (surgeon)
1881 Census: "Hospital For Lunatics Bethel" Bethel Street, Norwich St Peter Mancroft
1956 Sale of the five Bethel Hospital farms. (archive) [I think these were the source of investment income since the 18th century - But see national policy]
1962 (Hospital Plan) Grouped with Hellesdon. Bethel had 122 patients in 1960 and was expected to close by 1975

"the oldest surviving hospital in the country specifically founded for the care of the mentally ill and currently the oldest building in the UK to have been in continuous psychiatric use (though it has been threatened with closure for some time) Since 1974 when the in-patient facilities were closed, it has continued as the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry." Medical Heritage

Norfolk County Asylum
at Thorpe, near Norwich
one and a quarter miles east of Thorpe village church
third oldest county asylum.
[A Sarah Rutherford case study]
11.10.1808 Resolved at Norwich Quarter Sessions that the next General Sessions "take into consideration the expediency and propriety of providing a Lunatic Asylum..." under the provisons of the 1808 County Asylums Act
July 1809 committee appointed "for the purpose of making inquiry into the number of idiots and lunatic paupers...". It reported that there were 153 lunatics in the county.
October 1810: A committee of nine appointed to look into the best means. It reported that the asylum should be near Norwich and that the County Surveyor had prepared a plan for an asylum capable of receiving 180 lunatics which could be enlarged to hold 300. The estimated cost was £20,000.
April 1811: Committee reported purchase of five acres of land at Thorpe at for £600
The earliest part of the building is by Francis Stone and was constructed between 1811 and 1814.
Opened 18.5.1814
It was built for 102 patients, but by 1820 had averaged only 80.
1814 First patient escaped over the walls
4.8.1815 Cemetery consecrated
1816 F.H. Stone, Ground floor plan of Norfolk Asylum [whereabouts unknown, copy in RCMHE file 100458, NMR, Swindon].
Summer 1821: Elizabeth Baldry criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". She had been tried for a felony at Norwich. (HO 20/13)
1825 a lengthy description
1828 Andrew Halliday's description
April 1828: John Kenney criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". He had been tried for murder at "Norfolk". (HO 20/13)
April 1829: Richard Scott criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". He had been tried for murder at "Norfolk". (HO 20/13)
March 1832: John Rudd Turner criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". He had been tried at "Norfolk" for murder (HO 20/13)
April 1832: Mary Ann Pycroft criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". She (was to be?) tried at Wymondham, and was held for "want of Bail" (HO 20/13)
1839: William Gathercole criminal lunatic, recorded "Lunatic Asylum, Norfolk". He had been tried at "Norfolk". (HO 20/13)
Visiting commissioners stimulate changes
1.1.1844: 164 patients. All pauper.
1854 extra land
1857 Additions by John Brown, the County Surveyor. (Peter Cracknell) - Sarah Rutherford
1858: 420 patients
1867/1868 Superintendent of Norfolk Thorpe near Norwich; Dr W.C Hills
April 1873 James Shaw (MD Queens) appointed Assistant Medical Officer in the place of William Paynton, resigned
About 1878/1880: an annex was designed by Makilwaine Phipson: Corridor-Pavilion?. (Peter Cracknell)
1881 Census: "Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum, Thorpe Next Norwich, Norfolk". Superintendent William Charles Hills
Thorpe Lunatic Asylum 1891 census names
Served as a war hospital from 1915 to 1919. Some of the patients went to Brentwood, in Essex.
1920 Patients returned from Brentwood
Was Norfolk Mental Hospital from 1919 to 1923 and then St Andrews Hospital, Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR7 OSS.
"In 1939 340 beds were put aside for use by the Emergency Hospital Scheme. On 30.6.1945 111 beds were handed back for normal use but the EHS retained beds in St Andrew's Hospital until 1947" Hospital database:
1953-1957 Cicely McCall Psychiatric Social Worker
1957 An Act of Parliament made the Yarmouth Naval Hospital (re-named St Nicholas) a part of St Andrew's.
1966 Norfolk and Norwich Association for Mental Health founded
31.12.1971: "St Andrew's and St Nicholas" 958 resident patients, but 1,109 beds.
31.12.1975 "St Andrew's" 551 resident patients, but 646 beds.
31.12.1977 St Andrew's 647 beds. St Nicholas 211
It closed in 1998. The patients from the last ward to closed moved to Hellesdon
Looks intact. Grounds being redeveloped (Simon Cornwall)
Tuesday 20.6.2006 Radio 4 programme The Asylum Band by violinist David Juritz. Traced the history of the asylum orchestra and music in the asylum, back from the recovery of sheet music when the hospital closed.
External link to archives
External link to online catalogue includes a history

Norvic Clinic, Yarmouth Road, Norwich
First purpose built Regional Secure Unit
Opened early 1980s?
"The Norvic Clinic (plus the associated rehabilitation units of Meadowlands and Highlands) are the Trust Forensic service, providing a local and Regional facility. They are situated on the east of Norwich, close to the A47 southern by-pass, on the site of the former St. Andrews Hospital, now the Broadland Business Park". (source)

Norwich Infirmary Bethel
A Workhouse Asylum
"Wards exclusively appropriated to lunatics" (1844 Report p.10)
Norwich Incorporation of the Poor was established in 1712, shortly before the Bethel Hospital
"A separate infirmary, near St Augustine's Gate in the parish of St Clement, accommodated up to 130 aged and infirm men and women aged 65 or over. Adjoining it was a building erected in 1828, and enlarged in 1838, as an Asylum for Pauper Lunatics, with a ward for sick patients. Peter Higginbotham
1859 national comparisons

In 1859/1860 a new workhouse was built north of Bowhill Road, which eventually gained an infirmary. The establishment of Norwich Borough Asylum appears to have followed the disappearance of the Infirmary Bethel.

Norwich Borough Asylum Competition for the design of reported in The Builder 1868 Volume 26, 7.11.1868 (Alan Longbottom on the Rossbret site) 1870 Norwich St Augustine's Gate: Superintendent Dr H,G, Stewart Kellys Norwich 1883: "The corporation of Norwich have built a Lunatic asylum for the city, at Hellesdon, distant about two miles, to supersede the one formerly used in Infirmary Road: the new building was erected to hold 350 patients and the administrative portion is large enough to work an asylum for 500 or 600 inmates: the plan is on what is known as the "block system" -- detached buildings connected together by communicating corridors and surrounded by airing courts -- and there is one peculiar feature in the arrangements which has never been carried out in any other lunatic asylum: i.e. the upper floors are entirely empty during the day, and the ground floor during the night, thus giving perfect ventilation to each story every twelve hours: the cost of the works has exceeded £60,000, including the purchase of the site and furniture: the architect is Mr Makilwaine Phipson F.S.A.: there are about 50 acres of land attached to the asylum, the cultivation of which is entrusted to the patients, under direction, with very satisfactory results: the building is lighted by gas supplied from the Norwich gas works: the water is pumped up by steam from a well 100 feet deep on the premises: there are about 100 single room, and the other 250 inmates are associated together in dormitories containing from 4 to 16 patients each: in 1851 a mortuary and stables were built near the entrance lodge, also two semi-detached cottages for the artizans: the asylum was opened and organised by the first and present superintendent, Dr. William Harris FRCS." 1881 Census: "Norwich City Lunatic Asylum, Sprowston, Norfolk" Hellesdon Lunatic Asylum 1891 census names During the first world war, Norfolk County Asylum was used as a War Hospital. Patients who should have been admitted to that Asylum were temporarily admitted by the Norwich City Asylum. Became Hellesdon Hospital, Hellesdon, Norwich, Norfolk, NR7 OSS During the second world war, Bethel Hospital was closed and the Hellesdon Hospital admitted patients on behalf of that hospital. Still seems very much alive. See Jeremy Jones web, especially inside Hellesdon Hospital 2005: Hellesdon Hospital, Drayton High Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR6 5BE (NHS Direct)

Yarmouth - Norfolk - (South Denes) Royal Naval Hospital Yarmouth - 1811 Royal Barracks South Denes (before 1818) Yarmouth Royal Military Lunatic Asylum - 1844 Crimea and after - 1854 Yarmouth Naval Lunatic Hospital - 1863 Yarmouth Naval Hospital - 1931 (Act) St Nicholas Hospital - 1956 "Many military buildings have been built in Great Yarmouth over the years. One of the most striking is the Naval Hospital, which was originally for sailors wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. It then became a barracks, but was converted back to a hospital 40 years later and was used to accommodate sailors who were mentally ill. Hence the navy slang to describe those sailors who are showing signs of mental wear and tear is going to Yarmouth." (online leaflet - archive Royal Naval Hospital, Yarmouth "The naval hospital at Great Yarmouth had been constructed between 1809 and 1811 to treat the sick and wounded of the North Sea Fleet." (Jones and Greenberg 5.2006) - "It was completed in 1811 at a total cost of £120,000 and was built to receive 198 wounded in the Navy during the war with France, but no naval wounded ever arrived." (Hansard 3.3.1931) From Crisp's History of Yarmouth (1877?) - archive copy - offline text The Royal Hospital or Asylum built by Government at a cost of £120,000 Foundation stone laid by Admiral Rilly Douglas in 1809 The building was erected by Mr Peto (father of Sir Samuel Morton Peto) from designs by H. Pakington, Esq., for a Naval Hospital. "The rooms in front are 150 feet long, and the whole area within the Asylum is about fifteen acres, and the interior arrangements are admirable, to say nothing of the spacious court-yard to the north". Opened 1811? 13.3.1812 The South Gate taken down and sold for £26 to Mr. Jonathan Poppy. It presented, two massive round towers, flanking a square curtain, beneath which was the arch. 1815 600 wounded men from Waterloo lodged in the Naval Hospital See 1818 and 1819 on the timeline Royal Barracks South Denes "It was next turned into a barracks but was rarely used as such". (Hansard 3.3.1931) St Nicholas Gatt, the seaway approach between sandbanks, became shallower and unsafe for men at war. The Admiralty converted the hospital to a foot barracks. (History, gazetteer, and directory of Norfolk, 1845) April 1818 (passage written) Excursions in the County of Norfolk "The most splendid public ediface in Yarmouth is the royal barracks (originally intended for a naval hospital) on the South Denes." - "Nelson monument now building on the South Denes between the royal barracks and the haven's mouth" (page 117) "In 1844 it became a military lunatic asylum and was used for this purpose for ten years." (Hansard 3.3.1931) Royal Military Lunatic Asylum 1844 The Naval Hospital converted into a Lunatic Asylum. "Taken over by the army in 1844, it housed a 'Military Lunatic Asylum' until the outbreak of the Crimean War when the Admiralty re-acquired the building." (Jones and Greenberg 5.2006) "The hospital was inspected by Commissioners during the period it was used as a military lunatic asylum-that is, in 1844 and 1845" (Hansard 3.3.1931) Dr Sillery was the staff surgeon initially in charge. October 1846 Patients moved from Shorncliffe to Yarmouth February 1847 Charles Alexander Lockhart Robertson (1825-1897) was Asistant Staff-Surgeon for five years. Previously at Dunston Lodge. Appointed after a short service as Assistant Surgeon in the Army. (1896 retirement notice) 18.5.1848 to 24.6.1852 Lunacy Commission Reports on the Royal Military Lunatic Asylum, Yarmouth numbers 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 in the National Archives at MH51/42 See also Royal Military Lunatic Asylum at Fort Pitt June? 1848 Volume seven of The half-yearly abstract of the medical sciences (January to June 1848) , edited by William Harcourt Ranking (of Norwich), included, for the first time, a "A Report on the Recent Progress of Psychological Medicine". This was written by Charles Lockhart Robertson. (offline) ["Assisted Dr Ranking, of Norwich, in preparing his 'half-yearly abstract', in which his thorough knowledge of French and German was of great service." (1896 retirement notice) 5.5.1849 Unsuccesful application by Charles Lockhart Robertson for the post of Resident Physician and Superintendent in the Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum 7.2.1851, Andrew Smith promoted to inspector-general when Sir James McGrigor retired as director-general. He had been deputy inspector-general since 1845. Lockhart Robertson (1856) says Andrew Smith "believes that the insane patients of the army are best cared for by a frequent change of medical officers, inexperienced as regards the treatment of mental disease." September 1851 Charles Lockhart Robertson resigned as he was refused permission to continue working at the Yarmouth Asylum. He wrote to the Secretary at War: " It cannot, I think, be "questioned by any competent member of the medical profession, that the practice of frequently handing over the insane patients of the army to the care of officers quite unconversant with the practice of this special department of medicine, is alike injurious to their interests, and to the scientific status of the Military Lunatic Asylum." - "His tenure of office at Yarmouth having expired, he resigned the Army service, entered at Cambridge, graduated as M.B. in 1853, and practised as an alienist physician for four years in London. In 1858 he was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Sussex County Asylum, then in course of erection. This post he held until 1870, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor's Visitor." (offline) Towards the close of 1852 George Russell Dartnell (1799-1878), Army surgeon in charge of the Military Lunatic Hospital, Great Yarmouth. He had returned to Britain in 1843. By 1854 he was Deputy Inspector-General, Army Medical Department. After retiring from the army in 1857, he operated Arden House Private Lunatic Asylum at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire which he also owned from 1858 to 1876. 25.2.1853 Andrew Smith became Director-General of Army Medical Services. Crimea and after The Naval Hospital Muster Books for Haslar finish in 1854 May 1854 "The Yarmouth Hospital ceased.. to be "occupied as a hospital for military lunatics, possession of it having been resumed by the Board of Admiralty for the purposes of a general hospital foi the sailors of the Baltic fleet... The lunatic patients at Yarmouth consisted of 19 officers, 69 soldiers, and 5 women... The Secretary at War having requested our opinion as to the best mode of providing for those inmates, we named Grove Hall, Bow, as a well-conducted asylum, and capable of affording proper accommodation for the soldiers and women; and ... Coton Hill Lunatic Asylum Hospital, (an institution under good management, near Stafford,) for the officers... But we trust the arrangements thus made are "merely of a temporary character". (May 1850 report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, quoted (Lockhart Robertson 1856) See Fort Pitt, Chatham "On the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 the Admiralty claimed the building. The military patients were removed and the place fitted to receive wounded from the Baltic, but none ever came". (Hansard 3.3.1931) 20.7.1855 Question in House of Commons subsequent to a leading article in the Asylum Journal (No. 11) about the breaking up of the Military Lunatic Hospital at Yarmouth, and (No. 12) Charles Lockhart Robertson writing "actuated by a natural sympathy with the present sad state of my former patients." 3.3.1856 Hansard: Colonel Henry Boldero "had minutely visited the lunatic asylum at Chatham some years ago, and was disgusted and horrified with what he saw. After some considerable difficulty he had found a building, an unused barrack at Yarmouth exactly fitted for the purpose; he had reported this to the Government, who had sent down a medical officer, whose report was unfavourable. He was not discouraged; he obtained leave from the Government of the day to take down other officers, and at last he prevailed upon the Government to have the lunatics transferred to that place. He was astonished to find that they had been retransferred again to Chatham." Told "that the reason was simply this. The buildings in question belonged to the Admiralty, and as there was an expectation of a large number of invalid seamen during the war, the Admiralty had reclaimed the property, and the War Department had no choice but to give it up." "When peace was declared the War Office again took over the hospital and it was used by them as a convalescent hospital for soldiers." (Hansard 3.3.1931) July 1858 Fifty-seven invalids, mostly Indian sufferers, arrived at the Military Hospital on the South Denes from Chatham - (Crisp) 11.7.1859 Eighty invalids, mostly Indian sufferers,. arrived at the Military Hospital on the South Denes from Chatham. - (Crisp) Yarmouth Naval Lunatic Hospital The building was re-modelled in 1863, and 37 new wards added, by Mr. G. Tyrrell. Eighty inmates were received the same year (September) from Haslar, making a total of 169. [See Netley] "In 1863 the Admiralty again claimed the building, this time for the use of naval lunatics. Various alterations were then made. The boundaries were enlarged by taking in ground on the north and west sides and by the purchase in 1865 of about ten acres from the Corporation of Yarmouth at a cost of £10,982." (Hansard 3.3.1931) The eleven acres of ground on the east cost the Government £11,000 in 1875. The Twenty Second Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy (1867/1868) includes a "Report on Yarmouth Naval Lunatic Hospital" (See Rossbret site) First World War 1914-1918 "During the War arrangements were made for the admission of a number of ex-naval patients chargeable to the Ministry of Pensions". (Hansard 3.3.1931) Yarmouth Naval Hospital 3.3.1931 Hansard Yarmouth Naval Hospital Bill - House of Lords - Contains detailed history - "The hospital has been continuously used by the Admiralty as a mental hospital since 1863 and is still so used." - "The Ministry of Pensions are also anxious to increase the number of patients they have under treatment at Yarmouth by removing them from other institutions, and thus providing further accommodation for civil patients". Currently 119 patients. About ten new naval patients a year anticipated. Ministry of Pensions want to transfer between 100 1nd 130 patients. "There is normal peace accommodation for 213 patients, but this number could be increased to 260". Report of the Royal Commission on the Law Relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency. 1954-1957, paragraph 880: "The Yarmouth Naval Hospital Act, 1931 Under this Act special procedures are laid down for the admission, detention and discharge of patients in the Yarmouth Naval Hospital. Persons who may be admitted as patients include officers of the Royal Navy or Royal Marines whether they are on the active list or not, and certain other categories of persons who are serving of have previously served in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Fleet Reserve, Royal Naval reserve or Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and also other war pensioners already detained elsewhere under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts (except voluntary and temporary patients). The procedures for the compulsory admission, detention, visitation and discharge of patients in this hospital (other than voluntary patients) differ in many ways from those which apply to certified and temporary patients under the Lunacy and Mental Treatments Acts. We understand that the future of this hospital is at present under consideration, and that changes are contemplated which, if approved, would involve the abolition of these special procedures. It seems to us desirable that the procedures and safeguards which we have recommended for patients in other hospitals should also apply to patients in this hospital. Second World War St Nicholas Hospital Queens Road, Great Yarmouth. Simon Cornwall:: Originally: Naval Hospital/Barracks Built: 1800-1811. Architect: Henry Pilkington. Converted to housing. Clive Baulch: This building opened 1876. Closed as a naval hospital in 1956. Became NHS. St. Nicholas' Hospital in Great Yarmouth, the former Royal Naval Hospital, was attached to the St Andrew's Hospital under the Yarmouth Hospital Transfer Act 1957 1960 Hospital Plan 245 beds. Planned to close by 1975 31.12.1977 211 beds. Mental Illness Paul P. Davies History of Medicine in Great Yarmouth, Hospitals and Doctors (ISBN:0954450906), published by the author, Great Yarmouth, 2003. I am told that this has about 100 pages devoted to the Royal Navy Hospital. This description is taken from an online bookseller: 718 pages of A4 size... history of all the Gt Yarmouth hospitals up to the opening of the James Paget Hospital in 1981. It includes the General, Escourt (Isolation), St Nicholas' (Naval), Gorleston Cottage, Gorleston and Northgate (Workhouse) Hospitals. The various smallpox, cholera and military hospitals, which at one time were in the town are also included. Details of many of the past doctors of the town are given, dating back to the 18th century and the well-established practices are traced back to their origins. The book is well illustrated with photographs, advertisement and health notices. Medicine is interlinked witrh local and social history and, were appropriate, this is included.

Bedfordshire County Asylum

Bedfordshire County Asylum became Bedford and Hertfordshire County Asylum in 1847.
Demolished in 1860

A Bedford, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire County Asylum at Arlsey (Arlesey) was being erected in 1858. It may have opened in 1860 and was known as the Three Counties Asylum (until 1928) and then Arlesey Three Counties Hospital.
Corridor form - Too large for Conolly's ideal?
From 1964: Fairfield Hospital, Stotfold, Hitchin, SG5 4AA. It closed in 1999. The Rossbret Asylums Website has history and photographs under "Three Counties Asylum". GenUK on Bedford has 1831 information about Bedford, including the asylum. The site has now been developed.

Asylums in Hertfordshire Cecil Parkinson, MP for South Hertfordshire 1974-1983, then Hertsmere to 1992 See The Imbeciles Asylum, Leavesden on Peter Higginbotham's website Leavesden Asylum was one of two asylums for chronic patients opened by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in October 1870. Architects: Giles and Biven - Dual Pavilion May 1871: 1,600 patients 1915: Medical Superintendent: Frank Ashby Elkins 1920: Leavesden Mental Hospital 1937: Leavesden Hospital As a student in the 1960s Liz Lane worked there in the summers and winters with patents who were known as "high grades": "Leavesden was a grim place that looked like a Victorian workhouse, on both sides of the main road with a tunnel going under so that people didn't get run over.. I was on the easier side, away from the more secure part. Probably 60% of the patients I dealt with (about 60-80 altogether I think) would have been considered mentally handicapped by today's standards, but not enough to be institutionalised, better dealt with in a special needs educational class. There was one woman who was referred to as a "burnt out" psychopath who had been transferred from Rampton, and did have violent tendencies. There were a few who had been caught for various kinds of sexual misconduct when they were kids. and then there were a few who seemed perfectly normal intelligence-wise, but just a bit "off" or easily agitated. I think there was probably some truancy or what would now be considered attention deficit and/or hyperactivity disorder. It was really hard to tell, given that these people had been locked up for 40 years or more. By the way, "high grade" was a term used by the patients themselves. I seem to remember some of the "high grades" reading the paper, and they were certainly capable of carrying on a conversation, although often repeptitive. Probably bored half to death! I remember the staff doing the best they could mostly. Our patients didn't get, or seem to need, much in the way of psychiatric help other than some antipsychotics here and there, so the day was spent keeping an eye on them, providing some sort of entertainment, three meals a day plus snacks, and the bathing routine which involved three or four patients at a time, all in very large bathtubs in a huge bathroom, and a lot of clothes-darning and repair done by the staff. It seems really archaic looking back..." 1971 listed a Mental Handicap Hospital with 2,164 beds, 111 in locked wards. Address: Leavesden Hospital, College Road, Abbotts Langley, Hertfordshire, WD5 0NU (map to postcode -- multi-map) Closed 1995 A pamphlet on its history of Leavesden Hospital should be in both Hertfordshire Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives (Placed there by Christine Lawes). Hertfordshire County Mental Hospital Opened 1899 Simon Cornwall: Hill End, St. Alban's, Hertfordshire. Built: 1896-1900. Architect: George Thomas Hine Sometimes known as Hill End Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases and Hill End Hospital and Clinic for the Prevention and Treatment of Mental and Nervous Disorders. Then as Hill End Hospital, Hill End Road, St Albans, AL4 0RB 1994: 153 patients Closed 1997 Autumn 2002: Reported still empty Simon Cornwall: Closed in 1997, now looks totally demolished for housing. 2003 use: "Housing" Middlesex in Hertfordshire In 1939, Middlesex had three mental hospitals and two institutions for mental defectives, all but the smallest of these (Bramley House, Enfield) were outside the county. The oldest was in Surrey. The others were in Hertfordshire: Napsbury, Shenley Mental Hospital and Shenley Colony. Between them they had "approximately 7000 patients, and the care of these unfortunate people requires the services of a very large staff." Napsbury Asylum, Hertfordshire opened in 1905. It was a Middlesex County Council Asylum from 1905 to 1948 County of Middlesex War Hospital, Napsbury from September 1915 to 1.8.1919, with 1600 beds, 350 of which were for mental patients (no officers) (external link) - Some of the patients went to Brentwood, in Essex. 1920 Patients returned from Brentwood It was known as Napsbury Mental Hospital from about 1918 to about 1943. 1927 Dr Thomas Percy Rees moved to Croydon From about 1943 Napsbury Hospital, Napsbury, St Albans (AL2 1AA). Autumn 1990 Home to Survivors Speak Out editor English Heritage: Napsbury, Herts, built 1902-1904 as the pauper asylum for the county of Middlesex "In 1994 proposals were made in the Mental Health Strategy for Barnet that Napsbury Psychiatric Hospital, a Victorian 'asylum' in London Colney be closed and patients be cared for in the Borough of Barnet. A cornerstone of the agreement was that services be provided on both the East and West sides of the Borough. Napsbury Hospital finally closed in 1999 and in-patients have since been cared for at Edgware Community Hospital, where an old hospital building was refurbished to create the Dennis Scott Unit." (Barnet CHC) 2003 use: "Luxury housing" Napsbury, Shenley and Middlesex Colony on a map Shenley Mental Hospital Opened 1934. It was one of the two last mental illness asylums to open, the other being Runwell. See Harperbury Became Shenley Hospital, Shenley, Radlett, Hertfordshire, (WD7 9HB). 1973 "The last time I had a visitor was 1963" 2003 use: "Luxury housing"

Middlesex Colony Opened 1934 and known as that until 1949. Later known as Harperbury Hospital, Harper Lane, Shenley, Radlett, WD7 9HQ. See Shenley "awaiting immediate development" in Autumn 2002 "Harperbury, previously Harperbury Hospital, is still in existence, but with only about 60-90 residents on the site. They live in purpose built bungalows on two locations called Bowlers Green (beside the still-used bowling green) and Forest Lane. Other services on the site include wheelchair assessment and continence services, but the site is now largely used for training purposes such as IT training, inductions, and postgraduate medical education. Owned by Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust and previously by Horizon NHS Trust. There is a booklet on the history of Harperbury in the possession of both Hertfordshire Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives." (Christine Lawes)

Cambridgeshire