Nature of Source
Introduction
Records created by mental health institutions, commonly known as lunatic asylums, shed light on ancestors who struggled with mental health problems or age-related decline. These records, which survive from the 18th through the early 20th centuries, often contain rich detail about the lives of individuals who were admitted to asylum institutions. This guide will introduce the background of asylum care, outline the types of records that survive and explain where and how to find them.
Historic Background
For centuries, most people suffering from mental illness, then classified as ‘lunatics’, were not treated in purpose built asylums. Instead, they were housed in general hospitals workhouses and prisons. The wealthier used the services of private asylums or licensed ‘madhouses’ which offered greater discretion and levels of care.
The earliest specialist institution for the mentally ill, Bethlem Hospital (commonly known as ‘Bedlam’), was founded as a priory in 1247 and began admitting psychiatric patients from the 14th century. It was not until the 19th century, however, that the widespread building of county asylums began. The County Asylums Act of 1808 permitted counties to establish asylums, although only a handful were built under this Act. National coverage was achieved with the passing of the County Asylum Act and Lunacy Act in 1845 which oversaw the compulsory construction of at least one asylum for every county. Asylums often included farms, workshops and chapels. Despite these reforms, many sufferers with mental health problems continued to be housed in workhouses well into the 19th century, particularly the poor.
Types of Records
Admission and Discharge Registers
These are the most useful and widely available asylum records but vary in detail and completeness. They show short-term admissions and note when patients were discharged, sometimes within weeks or months. May include: name, age, occupation, residence, date of admission/discharge and occasionally remarks on condition or treatment. Asylum records are closed to the general public for 100 years due to privacy restrictions but access may be granted to family members. Please note in a few cases only a first name is given in the institution registers.
Case Books and Medical Notes
Where they survive, case books can be particularly rich in detail about a patient’s behaviour, treatments, condition and progress over time. Access is subject to the same privacy restrictions.
Administrative Records
These records, held at The National Archives and county record offices, include minutes, correspondence, financial accounts and staffing records. They provide an insight into how an asylum was managed and sometimes contain county asylum patient lists.
Court Records
Under English law, the Crown could assume control of the lands, estates and financial affairs of individuals who were legally declared ‘lunatic’ and therefore incapable of managing their own affairs. Following this formal legal investigation, the management of the estate was placed under the authority of the Court of Chancery, later replaced by the Court of Protection. Records may include the inquisition into lunacy, reports on personal and financial circumstances and petitions by relatives.
Poor Law records
Asylum patients were often transferred from workhouses which operated under the Poor Law system, Workhouse records and poor law union correspondence may contain references to individuals later transferred to asylums.
Newspapers
Local and national newspapers sometimes printed reports of asylum admissions, court cases, or reports of criminal lunacy proceedings.
Archaic Language in Asylum Records
The terminology used by doctors can be unfamiliar or misleading today. Understanding these terms in their historical context is essential. Common examples include:
- Melancholia: Usually refers to what we would now recognise as depression, sometimes with delusions or suicidal thoughts.
- Mania: Describes periods of agitation, over-excitement or psychotic behaviour.
- Relieved: Indicates the patient improved, though not necessarily permanently or completely.
- Confinement: In female patients, usually refers to childbirth or detention in general terms.
- Hysteria: Particularly applied to women, covering symptoms such as anxiety, fainting, seizures or emotional instability. Epilepsy was sometimes misclassified as hysteria.
Census Returns
For the 1851 and 1861 censuses, patients in asylums are sometimes recorded only by initials rather than full names. From 1861, the census returns included a separate column with a provision for enumerating those with mental health problems by describing patients as either:
- Idiot referred to those with learning disabilities usually from birth or early childhood.
- Imbecile/Feebleminded often applied to those with age-related decline such as dementia or senility or those with a less severe learning disability or limited mental capacity.
- Lunatic was used for those judged to have lost reason due to mental illness or episodes of insanity.
The distinctions between these terms were somewhat vague and often overlapped and applied inconsistently.
Additional Resources
The following GenGuide sources could assist in researching asylum records:
Where Found
- Series MH 50, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Minutes and Seals, 1845-1960.
- Series MH 51, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Correspondence and Papers, 1798-1971.
- Series MH 51/735, The County Register: alphabetical record of proprietors of private madhouses, with a list of patients admitted, 1798-1812.
- Series MH 12, Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Poor Law Unions and Other Local Authorities, 1834-1900.
- Series MH 83, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Building of Asylums and Hospitals, Correspondence and Papers, 1845-1954.
- Series MH 85, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Representative Case Papers of Patients, 1849-1960.
- Series MH 86, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Selected Patients Precedent Files, 1880-1961.
- Series MH 94, Lunacy Commission and Board of Control: Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1960.
- Series MH 95, Board of Control: Entries Files, 1920-1962. This series contains a representative selection of files containing reports of statutory visits by commissioners to institutions for the mentally ill and the mentally defective.
- Series MH 100, Board of Control: Monthly Conference Notes, 1940-1955.
- Series MH 103, Department of Health and Social Security and predecessors: Special Hospitals, Patients’ Files, 1913-1981.
- Series MH 118, Board of Control and Ministry of Health: Special Hospitals, Registered Files, 1895-1967.
- Series C 211, Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Commissions and Inquisitions of Lunacy, 1627-1932.
Name indexes to some TNA series are available at the TNA Discovery catalogue. First click on ‘Advanced search’ and then type in the name being searched. Then under ‘Search within’ select ‘Enter a reference’ and type ‘MH’.
County Record Offices
Most patient files and admission records of county asylums are kept locally. Many have not survived or may have restricted access. The kind of records available usually include:
- Admission registers
- Discharge registers
- Patient case books and notes
- Annual reports
- Administrative records (including staff registers, accounts, and building plans)
- Correspondence and reception orders
- Registers of deaths and burials
Bethlem Museum of the Mind
The Museum cares for the archives of Bethlem Royal Hospital, the Maudsley Hospital and Warlingham Park Hospital (formerly Croydon Mental Hospital). These records include the minutes of governing bodies and committees, annual reports, hospital magazines, accounts, ledgers, salary books, staff records, patient admission and discharge registers, medical records, correspondence, maps and plans, title deeds and photographs. Many of the surviving patient and staff records have been digitised in partnership with Find My Past.
Wellcome Library
The Wellcome Library holds significant collections of lunatic asylum records such as admission registers, discharge/death registers, patient casebooks or files, asylum annual reports, books, articles, manuscripts and photos. Search the Wellcome Library catalogue for the institution’s name.
Berkshire Record Office
The archives holds significant collections of lunatic asylum records specifically including both Broadmoor Hospital and Fair Mile Hospital records. These holdings include admission and discharge books, individual case files, patient records, plans, maps, administration and staff records and photographs. Please note before 1870, Berkshire County did not have its own asylum and instead contracted with Oxfordshire to use Littlemore Asylum.
Period Covered
1403 – 1985
Genealogical Value
- Name of patient, occupation, diagnosis, date of admission, date of discharge or death and next of kin.
- Name of institution.
- Occasionally the inmate’s date of birth.
- Inmate’s address or name of parish.
Further References
- Allderidge, Patricia. Bethlem Hospital 1247-1997: A Pictorial Record: Phillimore, 1997
- Andrews, Jonathan. The History of Bethlem Hospital: Routledge, 1997
- Arnold, Catharine. Bedlam: London and Its Mad: Pocket Books, 2009
- Bartlett, Peter. The Poor Law of Lunacy: The Administration of Pauper Lunatics in Mid-nineteenth Century England: Leicester University Press, 1999
- Berguer, David. The Friern Hospital Story: The History of a Victorian Lunatic Asylum: Chaville Press, 2012
- Bevan, Amanda. Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: The National Archives, 2006
- Brandon, Ed. A History of London County Lunatic Asylums & Mental Hospitals. Pen & Sword History, 2022
- Chambers, Paul. Bedlam: London’s Hospital for the Mad: Ian Allan Publishing, 2009
- Chater, Kathy. My Ancestor Was A Lunatic: Society of Genealogists, 2015
- Cherry, Steven. Mental Health Care in Modern England: The Norfolk Lunatic Asylum/St Andrew’s Hospital, 1810-1998: Boydell, 2003
- Cohen, Deborah, Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day: Viking, 2013
- Davis, Mark & Kidd, Marina. Voices from the Asylum: West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum: Amberley Publishing, 2013
- Davis, Mark. West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum Through Time: Amberley Publishing, 2013
- Davis, Mark. Asylum: Inside the Pauper Lunatic Asylums: Amberley Publishing, 2014
- Draper, Christopher. Paupers, Bastards and Lunatics: The Story of Conwy Workhouse: Llygad Gwalch Cyf, 2005
- Early, Donal, F. ‘The Lunatic Pauper Palace’: Glenside Hospital Bristol 1861-1994: Its Birth, Development and Demise: Friends of Glenside Hospital Museum, 2003
- Faithfull, Pamela. Basic Facts About Lunatics in England and Wales. FFHS, 2002
- Gardner, James. Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Tune: A History of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum (St.Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath): James Gardner, 1999
- Gardner, James. A History of the Brighton Workhouses: James Gardner, 2012
- Higgs, Michelle. Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums: A Guide for Family Historians: Pen & Sword, 2019
- Jakeway, Julie. Manifestations of Madness: Women’s Voices from the Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum, Poppyland Publishing, 2021
- Lappin, James. Central Government and the Supervision of the Treatment of Lunatics 1800-1913: A Guide to Sources in the Public Record Office, 1996 (available in TNA library)
- Parry-Jones, William Llywelyn. The Trade in Lunacy: A Study of Private Madhouses in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Routledge, 1971
- Perceval, John. A Narrative of the Treatment Experienced by a Gentleman During a State of Mental Derangement: Wilson, 1840 (Available to read online or download at the Internet Archive or Google Books)
- Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History: Oxford University Press, 2002
- Porter, Roy. Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors & Lunatics: Tempus, 2006
- Rorie, James. History of Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum: Hanlins Press, 2012
- Rutherford, Sarah. The Victorian Asylum: Shire Publications, 2008
- Smith, Leonard D. Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody: Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-century England: Leicester University Press, 1999
- Smith, Leonard. Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750-1830: Routledge, 2014
- Stevens, Mark. Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum: Pen and Sword Books, 2013
- Stevens. Mark. Life in the Victorian Asylum: The World of Nineteenth Century Mental Health Care: Pen & Sword Books, 2020
- Stubley, Peter. A Pauper’s History of England: 1,000 Years of Peasants, Beggars and Guttersnipes: Pen & Sword Books, 2015
- Thomas, Kim. Broadmoor Women: Tales from Britain’s First Criminal Lunatic Asylum: Pen and Sword Books, 2022
- Wise, Sarah. Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England: Bodley Head, 2012
Websites
The National Archives Research Guide
How to look for records of Asylums, psychiatric hospitals and mental health. This is a guide to records of lunatic asylums, their inmates and other records relating to mental health, primarily from the 19th century, held at The National Archives.
Who Do You Think You Are Magazine?
How to find hospital and asylum records. Jonathan Scott tracks down websites for finding records from medical institutions including hospitals and asylums.
Who Do You Think You Are Magazine?
What is a lunatic asylum? We look at the history of lunatic asylums, and how to trace records of your ancestors who were held in them.
County Asylums
The website is dedicated to the history, architecture and evolution of the mental institutions, especially county asylums, across England, Wales and other parts of the UK. Resources include a searchable database listing 119 county asylums and specialist hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland. Each entry links to a detailed page with photos, architectural notes, locations and historical summaries. Also included are extensive illustrated articles on specific asylums, where to find surviving patient records and articles about the legal and social background of asylums, including the 1845 Lunacy Acts.
Andrew Roberts Home Page
The website specialises in social science and mental health history. Index of English and Welsh Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals based on a comprehensive survey in 1844. All County Asylums open in 1844 are listed and all Hospitals receiving paupers. Workhouses mentioned in the 1844 report are listed. Resources include a list of mental health words and amental health history timeline.
Devon County Mental Hospital
This website takes you on a fascinating journey through the history of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum at Exminster. Based on archival case notes and supplemented by Medical Superintendents’ and Commissioners of Lunacy’s reports as well as interviews with former staff.
VL McBeath
Victorian Era Lunatic Asylums.
HistoryHit
What Was Life Like in a Victorian Mental Asylum?
Beyond The Point
A History of Mental Asylums
Bedfordshire Archives
150 years of Fairfield Hospital. The website marks the150th anniversary of Fairfield Hospital (originally the Three Counties Asylum). Surviving hospital archives are kept by Bedfordshire Archives and are accessible to the general public.
The City of Others
Photographs from the City of London Asylum Archive. This photographic essay by Caroline Bressey presents images from the City of London Asylum archive as an example of how the visual can be used to expand our investigations of social histories of Victorian London.
Gloucestershire Archives
Online Exhibitions: Life Inside Gloucester’s Asylums. Explore the fascinating and very detailed records held at the archives covering the Gloucester’s three former asylums, the First County Asylum in Horton Road, Barnwood House Asylum and the Second County Asylum at Coney Hill.
High Royds Hospital
Digital archive dedicated to the former Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Menston, Yorkshire.
Stanley Royd Hospital
Digital archive dedicated to the former Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield.
Historic England
The Growth of the Asylum: A Parallel World. The page describes the rapid development of the asylum movement in the 19th century and the strange parallel world that the asylum offered its inmates and attendants.
Joanna Moncrieff
What can we learn from the asylum? Historical study of the Essex County Asylum reflects the perennial functions of the mental health system.
Science Museum
A Victorian Mental Asylum. What was life really like in Victorian mental asylums? The story of Hanwell Mental Asylum reveals that they were kinder places than we might think.
Science Museum
Mental Health. What is mental illness and how do people with mental illnesses fit into society?
Historic Hospitals
Asylums in the United Kingdom in 1898. The following is a list of establishments in the UK in 1898 that admitted patients suffering from mental illnesses or with learning difficulties. It is taken from Henry Burdett’s Hospitals and Charities Yearbook 1899 and gives the names under which the hospitals were known at that time.
Urban Decay
UK asylums. The site provides a list of abandoned UK asylums by county, including names and locations.
The Time Chamber
The Victorian Asylum. The site provides a history of Victorian asylums across the British Isles built mainly between 1811 and 1914. It offers information on asylum history, architecture and a comprehensive list of asylum sites including notable ones like Cardiff City Asylum, Hellingly Hospital, Whittingham and many others across England and Wales. The site also includes details on the condition of these sites today.
London Lives
Researching Illness. The webpage offers an introduction and guide to researching medical history, treatment of the mentally ill and illness using the London Lives archival sources.
SHA
England’s First State ‘Imbecile Asylums’, by Gwendoline M Ayers 1971, published by the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine.
Scottish Indexes
Learning Zone: Mental Health Records in Scotland. The site is a guide offering information and resources about historic mental health records in Scotland. It provides an introduction to mental health institutions in Scotland, including their history and surviving records. The site has dedicated pages for over 100 Scottish asylums with historical data, location on old maps and links to archives holding local records.
Online Databases
- UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1921. This series contains registers kept by the Lunacy Commission, 1846 to 1921, of asylum patients in public and private asylums. The original records are held in Series MH 94 at The National Archives, Kew.
- London, England, Poor Law and Board of Guardian Records, 1738-1926. This collection includes a huge variety of different records created as a result of the Poor Laws in London including Registers of lunatics. Provided in association with The London Archives.
- Glamorganshire, Wales, Glamorgan County Asylum Records, 1845-1920. This collection contains asylum registers for Cardiff, Wales from 1845 to 1920. Included within this database are admission and discharge registers, burial records, and indexes to case notes.
- Glamorgan, Wales, Workhouse Registers, 1850-1920. This collection contains workhouse registers for Glamorgan, Wales and includes registers of births and deaths, maternity registers, registers of lunatics, registers of children who were hired out as servants and creed registers.
- Birmingham, England, All Saints Hospital Records, 1845-1931. During this time, the hospital was dedicated to the treatment of people with mental illnesses and operated under a variety of names including All Saints Mental Asylum, Winson Green Asylum, Birmingham City Asylum, Birmingham City Mental Hospital and Birmingham Mental Hospital. The records of the Rubery Hill Asylum are also included.
- Bodmin, Cornwall, England, Inmates at St. Lawrence’s Asylum, 1840-1900. Original data provided by Patricia T. Fawcett and Sally J. Pocock.
- Bethlem Hospital Patient Admission Registers and Casebooks 1683-1932. These records cover Bethlem (Bedlam) Hospital and Warlingham Park near Croydon. The series totals 329 volumes, including staff registers, minutes from the governors’ meetings and patient casebooks. Records can be searched individually or browsed by volume.
- South Yorkshire Asylum Admission Records, 1872-1910. The asylum, later known as the Middlewood Hospital, was established in Sheffield at Wadsley Park in 1872.
- Prestwich Asylum Admissions, 1851-1901. Produced in association with the Manchester & Lancashire Family History Society.
- Kent, Bexley Asylum Minute Books 1901-1939. Find staff, patients and contractors who worked and lived in the asylum between 1901 and 1939.
- Hampshire, Portsmouth Hospital Records, 1878-1918. Search discharge and transfer registers, indexes to admissions, patient notes, or medical journals from the Portsmouth Lunatic Asylum later known as St James Hospital.
- Wiltshire Asylum Registers, 1789-1921. Search 27,761 records from eight asylums across Wiltshire. The original records are deposited at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre and have been indexed by the Wiltshire Family History Society.
Hospital Records Database
The Hospital Records (HOSPREC) Database was the result of a collaborative project between the Wellcome Library and The National Archives to bring together information about the existence and location of the records of UK hospitals and asylums.
This information includes:
- the administrative details of the hospitals, and their status or type
- the location and covering dates of administrative and clinical records
- the existence of lists, catalogues or other finding aids
- links to some online hospital catalogues in The National Archives’ Discovery database.
The database is no longer being updated and was last updated in 2012.
Bethlem Museum of the Mind
Digital images of records include:
- The minutes of the Court of Governors of Bridewell and Bethlem Hospital from 1559 to 1800 (with some gaps).
- Bethlem Hospital’s patient admission registers from 1683 to 1902.
- Bethlem’s annual reports for 1825 and 1842 only.
- Photographs of several dozen mid-Victorian patients at Bethlem Hospital.
Wellcome Collection
Mental Healthcare. Access digitised mental healthcare archives including records from Ticehurst House Hospital, East Sussex; The Retreat, York; Gartnavel Royal Hospital, Glasgow; St Luke’s Hospital, City of London; Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries.
East Riding Archives
Broadgate Hospital Mental Hospital Archives, 1871-1906. The catalogue offers online access to the male and female case books from the Broadgate Hospital (formerly East Riding Mental Hospital).
Cornwall OPC Database
Institution Inmates. Search lunatic asylum records.
Worcester Medical Museums
George Marshall Medical Museum. Patients of Powick Hospital 1852-1916. Search over 9000 transcribed and indexed patient case notes from the Powick Lunatic Asylum covering 1852-1916.
Sheffield Archives and Local Studies
Search indexed names of patients admitted to South Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum (Middlewood Hospital), 1872 to 1910.
Surrey Heritage
Indexes to Surrey mental hospital records.
Scotland
Scottish Indexes
Mental Health Records, 1858-1915. This is an index which covers those committed to a Scottish ‘lunatic asylum’ between 1 January 1858 and 10 June 1921. The index also includes people already committed to an asylum on 1 January 1858. This is an index of the MC2 and MC7 series of records held at the National Records of Scotland.
Old Scottish
General Register of Lunatics in Asylum. Search an index of the first 16 volumes of the General Register. At present these are the only volumes in the series that are open and cover the years 1858 to 1921. The index covers 206,476 admissions to involving 131,500 individual patients.
Findmypast
Scotland, Mental Health Institutions Registers & Admissions. Search admission and register records for Scottish mental health institutions including asylums and poorhouses. The records were transcribed by Graham and Emma Maxwell from the original records held at the National Records of Scotland. The records for Inverness District Asylum have been provided by Stuart Farrell.
Findmypast
Scotland, Linlithgowshire (West Lothian), Poorhouse Records 1859-1912. Search a variety of different record types including admissions, deaths, discharges and sick rolls including admissions to the lunatic section of the poorhouse.
CD Roms
Devon Family History Society
Rich man, poor man beggar-man, thief: A collection of over 63,000 entries from records held at Devon Record Office.
