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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Warwickshire => Topic started by: Carol Ann A on Tuesday 27 January 09 11:22 GMT (UK)
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Hello,
I am looking for information about the Hatton Lunatic Asylum, imparticular the treatment of Criminal Lunatics in 1900.
I live in Australia, so most of my research has to be through the net, however I do have a couple of books, "The Victorian Asylum" and "Central Hospital Remembered". These only give a general view, with little or no mention of Criminal Lunatics, and seem to concentrate on how well the patients were treated. Information I have found on the net, again seems to "skim" over certain issues.
If anyone could tell me if there are any sites worth looking at, or a book I could buy, or even better, if they had knowledge themselves about the Asylum, I would be extremely grateful if you could share it with me.
Any information would be great, but topics I am particularly interested in are........living conditions of the criminal, were they allowed to mingle with the other patients or kept apart?
Were they kept in solitude for long periods of time?
Were mechanical and drug restraints used?
Were they allowed visitors, and correspondence?
Does anyone know if they wore a uniform, and if so, what did it look like?
With many thanks,
Carol Ann
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Hi Carol Ann,
This is the best I can find for you, at the moment. Hatton is listed in the right hand column.
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/4_13_Ta.htm#WarwickshireCounty
I've had a quick browse through he records available ( archives 1-4), but couldn't see any reference to 'criminal' patients. There are photographs mentioned, though, so you should be able to find ones of uniforms, etc.
However, I see you are in Australia, so it's not going to be easy - any relatives over here?
I'll see if I can find anything else, and be back to you if I succeed.
Hope this helps a little.
Paulene :)
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Hi again,
Just did a search on googlebooks and found a book entitled 'Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britian' by Victor Bailey.
Searching for 'Hatton' the index told me:
"for the purposes of studying the problem of criminal lunatics in local institutions, our 'sample' is a complete one. Warwick County Asylum, at Hatton, was an asylum of average size (453 patients in 1869, 653 in 1879 and 650 in 1889) in a county which included the urban centre of Coventry, several smaller market towns, with hinterlands of rural and mixed economies."
Chapter 9, written by Janet Saunders, is called 'Magistrates and Madmen: Segregating the criminally insane in late nineteenth century Warwickshire'.
Not all of the chapter is available on googlebooks, but it certainly looks as if she has looked at the Hatton records, and written about the system there. A few pages of the book are on view.
Might be worth tracking this book down, Carol Ann.
Paulene :)
ADDED: It sounds as if it might be worth contacting Janet Saunders (* details in book).
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J. Saunders:
'Institutionalised offenders: a study of the Victorian Institution and its inmates with special reference to late-nineteenth-century Warwickshire'.
University of Warwick, Ph.D., 1983.
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And finally:
Snippet view of book called 'Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England' by Lucia Zedner on googlebooks, which mentions work of Janet Saunders.
Interesting subject - let us know how you get on. (My daughter did her thesis on mental health treatments, and attitudes, in 1930s).
Good luck.
Paulene :)
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Have you been in touch with Warwickshire Records Office? They hold patient records for Hatton.
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Hello Paulene,
Firstly my apologies for only just getting-back to you, I received some new information with a death-certificate, and I have been absorbed in that.
Many thanks for all the information you have given me, I will certainly look into all of it. I have requested medical-records from the Warwick Records Office, which should be here soon.
What started as a record of family memories to leave to nieces and nephews, is turning into a massive project, with each answered question sparking a new one!!
Once again, many thanks for your help Paulene.
Sending you best wishes and some Aussie sunshine,
Carol Ann
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Hello Carol
I worked at Hatton for many years as a mental health nurse in the '80s and '90s. I may be able to answer some questions you have, some from memory and some from memories of what patients said. Many of the patients who were there when I began training in 1980 had been there since the 1920's. Many staff has also been working since the 1930's - I can certainly tell you their tales...... and I am in contact with several people who worked at Hatton at that time.
My grandmother was the daughter of a lunatic asylum worker elsewhere and grew up in the asylum - she was born in 1900... so I may be also able to give you an overview of that period.
I was really made up to find your post - I am thinking of writing something for the nursing press about mental health history and was just taking a preliminary look around the net to see what was out there, and what interest was out there.
:) please get back to me with questions - Debbie
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This is a message to Singingsnail......ive just read that you used to work at hatton asylum and would have known the patients, well im on a family history course and have just found out that my great great nan was a patient who was admitted about 1935, not sure how long she was there, i think it might have been the rest of her life, id really like the opportunity to speak with you as you may have known her.
Many thanks
Mrs.Johnson
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This is a message to Singingsnail......ive just read that you used to work at hatton asylum and would have known the patients, well im on a family history course and have just found out that my great great nan was a patient who was admitted about 1935, not sure how long she was there, i think it might have been the rest of her life, id really like the opportunity to speak with you as you may have known her.
Many thanks
Mrs.Johnson
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Hello Mrs Johnson
Ask away - if I didn't know your gg - nan I'll see if others did. It would help if you have a ward name or number but not to worry if not. It would also help me to describe what her life would have been like if you know what her diagnosis was. I hope I'll be able to tell you what you'd like to know.
Well done on finding her - she sounds as though her life story needs telling.
Debbie
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thanks for getting back to me debbie, is there any way from this site to email you privately i dont really want to put all my details on a public forum lol i have an email address but how would i give it to you without it going to everyone.
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Hi,
Just to let you both know when you have made 3 posts each you can send personal messages via Rootschat, just click on users name , scroll down and click on send this person a personal message.
I lived near Hatton Central Hospital for about 30 years. There were always stories of people sent there for petty crimes who should nt have been there especially in earlier days ( stealing sixpence off a mantlepiece) but did have a large variety of residents with differing problems. My grandmother passed away there in the late fifties after she developed dementia.
Cathy
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Cathy - Thanks so much - I'm new to this site....... obviously!
Yes, I was wondering what we were going to do about that, since I wouldn't discuss individuals here, obviously.
The stories you heard were true, but acceptable in the times when they happened. I knew people who spent most of their lives there after stealing a bottle of milk or the old, old chestnut, being sexually expoloited when young and then being labelled 'degenerate' for having been so. Sad stuff, but my own persepective is that the place had its value and gave a sense of belonging and self-worth to many who lived there. People carried on their trades or professions for rewards - (not financial, since it was a cashless economy - but people always have substitutes in cashless economies) and were valued both for that and just for themselves, despite their personal oddities - which in those days of no treatments being invented were certainly quite florid a lot of the time.
To be honest, the dividing line between staff and patients in this respect was sometimes a bit blurred too...... and I would say that Mental Health nursing still attracts slightly unusual people and is much the richer for it.
MRS J - I'll leave you to contact me as carol suggests here and hope I can be of help. Cheers - Debbie
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Hi Carol Ann A.
Greetings to my Colonial Cousin.
I read your Posting on the way back from work today and, now I am Home, I thought I would contact you.
I live in Warwick...1 Mile away from where Hatton "Hospital" used to be...I say "used to be" because they Re-developed the Site of the hospital and it is now a Residential Site...All that remains is the Gatehouse..
Even the Agricultural Land that the Hospital used for growing their own Produce is due to be built on.
But to get back to your Question....If you wish me to get any Information from the Warwick Records Office for you then it will be no Problem.
If you wish to keep Information Private, then Email me....I think cath told you how to do it.
I`ll have a look in the Library on Saturday and see if they have anything more that you might be interested in.
Take Care...
Regards
Brian
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I was a Pupil Nurse there in 1980. On my first ward, the tour consisted of the segregation rooms or the padded cells as they are more commonly known and I was informed that straight jackets were commonly used up till the mid 70's. Also a lot of patients had scars on there foreheads which meant that they had had frontal lobectomies, thankfully a practice that has no ceased. It means destrying a part of the frontal lobe as a means of controlling behaviour.
Even in the early 80's sedation of what was perceived to be troublesome patients was routine and electroconvulsive therapy was also routine. ECT is still used today but not as widely. There was also something called abreaction which was a combination of drugs given to make the patient more willing to talk, something along the lines of a truth drug. This was used on patients with deep seated trauma who found it difficult to deal with this memories.
As Cathy says there were a lot of people there that should not have been. I can recall one gentleman that had been there since he was 12 years old for stealing 6pence off the mantlepiece, wonder if we are thinking of the same chap Cathy?! There were also polish prisoners of war who did not want to go home when the war ended and as clearly we did not know what to do with them they were put into Hatton on the Hill to give it its full title.
There were long stay patients that had also been put in there for being disobedient as a child and eldery patients with dementia. The wards were the old open plan wards with no privacy for inpatients at all.
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HELLO DABS
I started as a student nurse in 1980 too..... a load of what you said was very familiar..... wonder if we remember each other? I was Debbie Richards. My first ward was George Elliot ward. I was horrified! I'd just never imagined the like.....As soon as I could after I qualified i went and worked in Orchard House, the therapeutic community; it was human and humane and a forerunner for the client centred approach that's thankfully common today. I'm still in touch with several people from there - we were all very close and I loved the place - felt we did real good there. What did you do later?
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Your comments and stories are really interesting. If you find out anything pre-1900 then I'd be interested in hearing about it. My 4 x great grandfather died in Hatton in 1880. I viewed his records at Warwick Records Office. I also went to the two cemeteries on the site - which have been grassed over! When the builders were developing the new build, aparently they tore up the grave markers and used them as land fill, then just grassed over the land. It wasn't until someone realised that local children were playing football on the cemeteries that something was done. There are now memorial stones at each of the cemeteries. All I know from reading is that my 4 x GGF was just an old man, these days he would have been in a care home for the elderly. But it reads as if he was looked after well. From the information I found I would say that Hatton was very forward thinking for its time.
Lisa
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Yes, Lisa
don't get me wrong - in it's day it was an amazingly forward-thinking place and was built with all the kindness and forethought you could imagine - was one of the very first 'asylums' in the world.
My own G-grandfather was the mecdical superintendant of another asylum and my grandmother grew up in one. I know from her stories how 'family' everyone was and how the sulf-sufficiency of asylums at that time gave everyone a respected role, nurse, attendant or patient.
As well as some of the rather awful things we who worked there in latter years have described, there was even at that late date great love, kindness and community amongst both people who had to live there and those who worked there, with many of both caring greatly about the other. In many ways, at its best, it was a huge family.
What the other person who worked there and I also experienced were the negative results of pioneering brain surgery and medication - and that experimentation was truly well meant at a time when science within mental health was unheard of and the idea that one could improve 'lunatic's' lives a revolutionary idea. There were, I believe, many people living in Warwicks generally who had benefitted greatly from such treatments. Because of lack of knowledge and facilities, these operations and medication schemes sometimes produced the most awful results and that is what we are describing, hopefully not too clearly.
I believe that when many people were admitted, it usually was as an alternative to the workhouse or the jail - and I've heard many long-stay patients describe the wonderful feeling of being released from those places to Hatton, which was humane and gentle by comparison.
Your GF would have been sent to Hatton as an alternative to the workhouse, no doubt, and many elders were cared for mostly by younger, fitter patients who lived beside them in all ways. The care I saw many of them receive, even at my late date, was generally good and loving, so be reassured. Probably, I could say this to anyone who reads what we've written and thinks that their relative was subjected to intentional cruelty. In my experience, that was rarely the case. What we saw, they were rarely aware of themselves - and most of us started in that work at very tender ages - I was considered quite elderly, being 19 when I started - so maybe we were short on life experience! I still work in mental health - it's been a lifetime commitment for me - it's just that looking back it seems so sad that more wasn't known and more could not have been done. Also, in our time, the government, in its wisdom, had legislated against patients working, which meant that many of them were disposessed of lifetime roles and no doubt changed the staff-patient relationships somewhat.
A word about patients working, to anyone interested - it was seen later as a form of slave labour by those who didn't understand the asylum system in general - I experienced the very late days of patients working what were apparantly long hours for pittances of money. The point is that the community began and continued for almost a century as a self-sufficient community. If you liked the job you had done outside, you could continue to do it - and if you had no trade, you could be taught one. The only things bought in were raw materials that couldn't be found on (or in) the land.
Even people who remained lifelong were highly respected and valued for their contribution to the community. It was until latter days a cashless society - people were piad in beer and other forms of rewards - better diet for manual labourers, for instance. When some well-meaning government in the 1970's legislated and insisted patients should be paid in cash, this didn't translate well - and people were left in the same position as today - there was a benefit trap, even then, so wages were very poor - but work pace was never forced - many people only attended sometimes, did nothing whilst there and were still paid. Some patients refused to stop doing what they'd always done and were continuing when I arrived in 1980 - we had a bootmaker, a watchmaker, glazier, plumber, barber, several gardeners and a newspaper delivery service all done by patients. Ask anyone who worked there at that time, I bet we all still remember their names and what sort of people they were - they were known and repsected amongst us all. I still have a pair of walking boots the bootmaker made me and I wouldn't swap them for the world..... on the other hand, the watchmaker pinched the inside of my watch and put it in to the watch of another nurse he preferred - I didn't find out until I took it into town, asked if they could fix it, since Harry couldn't. When they opened the back, there was nothing at all inside!!!
A quick PS about the graveyards - it wasn't the builders who destoryed grave markers - there were none at all there by 1980, though we knew where the burial grounds (2, I think) were. Glad they're marked today.
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I think I could sit and read all your memories of Hatton all day Singingsnail! I am so interested!
As for the graveyard - this is what I was told by the gentleman from Warwick District Council when I rang to ask where they were so that I could visit my 4XGG grave. The gentleman insisted on meeting me and took me personally to each of the graveyards and appologised profusely! I said not to worry as he can't undo what had been done. As I'd not heard any different, I thought his story was correct and accepted his apology. When my 4xGG died, he was buried the day after he died, and his family were in Nuneaton and probably didn't even know he'd died until after he was buried! So, I think I was the first person in the family to visit his grave, about 130 years after he died!
Please write a book on you memories!
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:) Oh thank you Lisa! perhaps one day I'll write an account of a kind - but it's much easier to be asked questions! There are 2 publications that may interest you - 'Central Hospital remembered', which I think someone has scanned on to the net somewhere and a book which deals in a small part with the hospital, which deals with the time I was there and is by a colleague with whom I'm still in touch 'About Time Darling' by Thomas Bunn (Amazon has it). Neither really captures life, to be quite honest - but Tom wasn't really trying to and the other publication is factual. (continuing next post)
I see this is awfully long again but am so glad that someone is interested to read my ramblings!
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:) continued (on and on!)
As for life pre-1900 - I will tell what I know.... The lives of 'lunatics' were goverened partly by the penal system and poor law, depending on how they'd arrived, and partly by the Lunacy Acts - there was one passed in 1894(?) - in my life it was a huge leather bound tome that I loved - well out of date after the 1959 ACt. It regulated the minutiae of the lives of lunatics - down to who visited and whether they were of 'fit character' to be allowed, to what was suitable for lunch and what a petticoat was to be made of. There was a previous Lunacy Act but I'm unsure of the date - early 1880's I think. I don't know how well you remember the layout of the extremely select housing that now makes up what was Central Hospital - but it certainly is the best possible resoration and recycling project! All possible materials have been recycled - the brick scheme of the buildings is new but exactly the same scheme and made largely of the old bricks. The layout - given that so many individual houses have been built - is pretty similar, eith only later additions built over. Your GGF would have recognised it, to be sure.
I don't know where in the world you're based but I do occasionally get to Warwickshire, where I have close family, and I usually manage to call in and take a walk around (I live in the Outer Hebrides, though). I'd be very happy to meet you and anyone else who's interested when I'm down next (unknown) and show you where everything was that your GGF would have known. There are still some very beautiful areas and most of the farms are still intact. As a senior, he would only have done light, probably indoor work, perhaps some work in the market garden, if he was well enough at all. Men lived in one part of the hospital, women another. there were seperate wards for people, graded on how violent or disturbed they were. 'Idiots and Imbeciles' were the very first to arrive in the late 1850's, and they had to build the first buildings themselves. They built a seperate block off to the far left as you face the building, named Highfield. In my day, it was rather showing that the builders had been inept - a 2 floored building, part of a ward on the 2nd floor collapsed one day and landed on the inhabitants below.... but I don't think many were injured as it was at night and it was the 'dayroom' end of the wards. The only one occasion that the 2 sexes were allowed to mix freely was at the once yearly dance, a huge, wooden floored room on the 3rd floor which covered the whole floor. It had room for all patients (1200 at fullest) and about 500 staff. Everyone danced together, whoever they were. In my time, wards were still single sex - but this was good due to the lack of privacy in the layout. Most people were allowed to go out, meet with whom they would and wander far and near if they wished. Several patients were known to be 'carrying on' with several others. I think a blind eye was generally turned - we'd all been through the 1960's and 70's by then!
If you have a map, your GGF was probably living somewhere in the left half of the main hospital building, as it faces you.
treatments - were generally reserved for young 'non-senile' p\tients - what'd we'd today describe as bi-polar disorders or possibly schizophrenias. They were very wierd but based on some sort of logic, in a way. the first treatments involved locking the patient in a sort of upright barrel-type bath and alternating warm and tepid water into it. I think this probably relates to Galen's ideas about humours being out of order and about cold curing hot humours etc. Next (later than your GGF's time) there was an idea that people's minds were in a spin, so if you could 'unspin' them, that would do the trick. I remember the remains of a couple of large wooden summer-houses - lots of windows, on a huge sort of clockwork mechanism that I'm told had to be wound up by a horse. The summer-houses would then revolve slowly, with their cargo of patients inside to see if it would 'unwind them'.... sounds quite nice on a summer's day to me! The place also had its own TB wards (a possibility for your GGF, perhaps you can predict that by looking at his previous living conditions) though the admission criteria was still that you had to be 'insane, idiot, imbecile, moron or senile'. The TB ward all had sort of walled verandahs whos' roofs were made of a thick parchment, to let in cold and keep out weather. Patients would spend most of their TB lives out on the varandahs. It did work. I was unfortunate enough to work on one of these wards over a winter (TB patients had long ago been cared for elsewhere) and to have to do a daily Occupational Therapy session with my patients there. Believe me, we mostly danced for warmth, with icicles and snow deep on the ground outside and us no warmer than we would have been out in it! I think we also knitted blankets, so that we could get underneath them at the same time!
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This is very interesting reading!
I live just over the Warwickshire border in Leicestershire, but I come from Bedworth, so I'm not a million miles away from Hatton.
I already have the first of those books you mentioned, I bought it a few months ago when I was last at Warwick Records Office.
I would love to meet you when you are next here!!
I read my 4XGGF's records, which basically state he was in the workhouse (voluntarily) in Nuneaton when he became ill. An operation was performed, but, the wound didn't' heal. This caused him to have "problems with his nerves". Somewhere along the line, he'd been told that urine would help the sensations he was having in his hands and feet. So basically he pee'd on rags and wrapped them around his hands and feet. This made him rather a smelly old man! The nurse and the vicar both signed to say he was a danger to himself and to others - although there was no evidence of this from his records. Once in Hatton he had a varying about of treatments, which looked like they were helpful. However, the wound from his operation didn't heal and his cause of death was celulosis (?). I think the vicar and the nurse knew he would get better treatment in Hatton. These days, he would have been in a care home. I still haven't found out why he was in the workhouse as he was a butcher and both of his sons had what appears to have been a rather successful shop in Nuneaton. I suppose there must have been some disagreement along the line!
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An interesting read. My mother was consigned to Hatton in the late 50's. As far as we can tell she was suffering post natal depression, but no one knew about that back then.
She was only there a short period and then one night she broke out whilst the nurses were on their tea break! Climbed over a 6 ft fence and legged it, seemingly trying to get home to us. Unfortunately between her and us was Hatton Locks and she fell in the canal and drowned after having tried to raise people in the cottages nearby and been ignored.
I have tried to get records of what happened and I did get some but they are heavily blanked out because some involved were still living. The verdict was recorded as suicide, but I suspect (having been to Hatton Locks at night), that she simply fell into the canal in the pitch black darkness.
I do know that she was on a mixed ward, so all the men and women were together. Ive been into the medical section some years ago where electro therapy was carried out as I was doing work for one of the families who live there now (its been converted to houses). I did wonder at the time if they knew what had happened there in the past.
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I often read posts regarding the asylum as I live in a town not too far distant.
My recollection of it when it was in use, often when childen "played up" at home the females of the family would say "you'll have me in Hatton (or Powick) if you carry on like that". I do remember often hearing of one one poor lady who must have suffered from depression, fairly regularly and was referred to as having been taken in again.
I do have a personal slight connection with the place in as much that my mother in the 1950s, used to date someone who was always known then as a farmer to me (I can remember he bought me a fabulous toy tractor as a present when I was 7 or 8 years old). This must have been around 1954 too long ago for anyone to remember him I expect but when I questioned many years later what happened to him I was told he had been Farm Manager at Hatton but got involved with the "wrong crowd" and was imprisoned for sheep rustling.
It would be interesting to me if anyone could throw any light on the subject. His name was George Gr.......... I can't put the full name in as there is a vague possibility of him being alive of course but could privately email anyone who may have a clue.
Regards
Daveb
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Hi to everyone. I worked there from 1985 as a student nurse. It was a little daunting at the tender age of 19! But I became accustomed and fond of the place, but more the people who lived and worked there. I was also lucky enough to have a placement at Orchard House as a student nurse. I was impressed with the work that was done there. So much so, that it influenced my early days as a qualified nurse and prompted me to introduce some group therapy work on my first ward. I am impressed with your memories of the place, Debbie. I think I remember you.
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Would anyone who worked there have heard stories about my great grandad and great Nan? They lived and died there in the late 60s and early 70s. George Dunn and Eugenie (Maggie) Dunn. Their daughter, Bessie Davis, quite possibly worked there. I'm unable to access many records because I live in Canada. George had alzheimers and Maggie might have too.
Also, does anyone know where they would have been buried? Was it customary for patients to be buried somewhere on the grounds?