Lady Teviot gave us a fascinating and in-depth talk, without illustrations, about hospitals in general and what you might find from their records; entitled Hospitals and their records and how to find them.
During the Middle Ages, hospitals were almshouses and hostels for the poor, needy and pilgrims. With the Reformation and Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Church abruptly ceased to fund most hospitals. Some hospitals in London were endowed by the Crown after direct petition from local citizens e.g. St. Thomas’ while others were founded by wealthy benefactors. The last category includes Westminster Hospital (founded in 1719), Guys (1721) and the London Hospital (1748). In 1815 the Apothecaries Act meant that students had to spend six months training in hospital; this was the beginning of the regulation of the medical profession in the UK. In 1840 Elizabeth Fry introduced a training school for nurses which inspired Florence Nightingale. Florence herself opened the Nightingale Training School in 1860, to educate nurses in hygiene, nursing and nutrition; this started to remove the fear of dying in hospital and aid patients’ possible recovery. Voluntary hospitals’ admittance was limited by subscription and the poorest, without much hope of cure or improvement, were sent to workhouses as these had their own infirmaries.
There was also the growth in specialist hospitals including those concentrating on mental illness, children, lying-in (childbirth), contagion, sanatoriums for consumption (TB) and cottage hospitals. The accounts of these hospitals are closed for 100 years but you can apply for the records of someone you are related to. The majority of these records are held in County Record Offices and you can discover admission and discharge dates; there may also be a good physical description of the patient and their treatment. The Hospital Records Database is a joint project set up by the Wellcome Library and The National Archives, which Lady Teviot said was searchable, allowing you to know which records survive and where they can be found.
Other hospitals described by Lady Teviot included the Middlesex County Asylum, where 51 patients died in a fire in 1903, and Broadmoor Hospital Asylum for the Criminally Insane where some of their 300 year-old records have been made available at Berkshire Record Office. Another fascinating hospital described was the Foundling Hospital, established in London in 1741, where abandoned, illegitimate, children could be admitted. When accepted, the child was baptised with a new name, they were identified by an admission number and mothers often left a token to identify her baby by if she was later in a position to reclaim the child. Children were sent out to wet or dry nurses and returned, aged 3-5, for schooling then an apprenticeship or employment. Records, closed for 110 years, include baptisms and mothers’ written petitions for their children to be admitted. These petitions give valuable information on the backgrounds and circumstances of the mothers. When the hospital closed in 1954, at least 27,000 children had passed through its doors!
Other sources of information include committee minute books of hospitals which contain daily visitor tours, noted problems and bills paid out to tradesmen and suppliers, including wages, clothing and beer allowances. If your ancestor was a doctor, nurse or apothecary/pharmacist, various websites are available to search and if a patient, you may be lucky with individual hospital records. Lady Teviot was also happy to answer any questions, individually, after her presentation.
Report by Lesley J Smith Deal & District Branch Secretary