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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Durham => Topic started by: brightmount on Wednesday 23 March 11 19:51 GMT (UK)
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Myself and another distant cousin are trying to find out about someone on our family tree who doesn't seem to have left any kind of footprint. Her name is Elizabeth Owen, b. 1889 lived in Middlesbrough. We have all the names etc of her family, but are trying to find out more about her life, as it was said that she died in 1965 in Winterton Hospital, where she had been for many years. We believe she never married.
I am aware that according to Durham Archives list of the records they hold, there are many records for Winterton Hospital, however we have been informed that her case notes were not among the 2% retained after 1945, and her death in 1965 is during a period for which they do not have records.
Just a long shot - I wondered if anyone actually knew her ... either through having worked at Winterton Hospital, or through another association. She was apparently committed to a pauper's grave and forgotten, and we would like to honour her memory with the rightful respect she deserves.
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Hi brightmount
Have you puchased her Death Cert to see what details it has listed, especially cause of death and place of death.
Have you found her resting place? the hospital will have had local graves either on their own land or with the local authorities.
Have you tried the National Archives at Kew to see if they hold any records for the years you require. Is the following the one you are looking for??
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=316&hospital=winterton&town=&searchdatabase.x=0&searchdatabase.y=0
also..
http://www.winterton-hospital.co.uk/
‘Behind the wall: The life and times of Winterton Hospital’ ... If you wish to purchase the book, it is available at County Durham Books and should be available to buy at your local library. The cost of the book is £9.95 (usually £2 for P&P).
http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/winterton01.htm
By 1965 the Asylum / Hospital would have been under the unbrella of the NHS and so those records will be held by the NHS in storage somewhere and I don't know about accessing NHS records for those that are dead, but you could try contacting these...
http://www.ectanonymous.co.uk/ect-anonymous-uk/1-winterton-hospital
Winterton Hospital
Other names/synonyms: Sedgefield Asylum Date opened: 1859 Date closed: 1996
Location: Salters Lane, Sedgefield, County Durham.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterton_Hospital
∞
Records Located at:
Durham County Record Office
County Hall
Durham
DH1 5UL
Tel: 0191 383 3253
Fax: 0191 383 4500
Email: record.office AT durham.gov.uk
∞
Patient Records Information
Contact:
Department of Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS
Email: dhmail AT dh.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: 0207 210 4850
Textphone: (for deaf and hard of hearing): 0207 210 5025
∞
http://www.winterton-hospital.co.uk/
http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue06/mg0622.htm
http://www.patients-association.org.uk/FAQ-Category/8
Bendywendy
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Thanks for all those suggestions. I will work through and see if there's anything we have missed.
Since I posted this thread, I have got what we think is her death certificate, and it gives the place of death as Holywood Hall Hospital, Walsingham. I've looked this place up and it appears to be a mix of TB and dementia patients (her death was heart failure). Assuming this is the right person, I wonder if she was transferred, as a relative is convinced the family spoke of Winterton.
So next question: does anyone know anything about Holywood Hall Hospital?
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http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=322&page=28
Holywood Hall Hospital, Bishop Auckland Post 1948 NHS
Held at Durham County Record Office
Winterton or Walsingham, could possibly have become "confused" with either place being the other ???
Bendywendy
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Hollywood Hall hospital was a former sanitorium situated in Wolsingham in Weardale, Co. Durham.
Many former long stay patients from Winterton were transferred to Hollywood Hall, which closed it's doors in the 1980's. it is now an upmarket housing estate and the original main part of the building was converted into apartments.
In all likelihood the case record will have been transferred with the patient so should have survived. A great many records were destroyed in a flood at Winterton Hospital. I would assume that the County Records office will have the file, however it is likely to be closed for 100 years.
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Thank you. I would be very interested to speak to anyone who may have worked at Holywood Hall between 1963-1965, as they may have known Elizabeth Owen. Also anyone who may have known staff there as we are unable to account for the informant on her death certificate, assuming we have the right one.
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Perhaps your best bet would be to start topic titled Hollywood Hall / Wolsingham, Co Durham.
I would hazard an educated guess that most staff ( at that time) would live in and around the Wolsingham area, so you would be looking at places like Frosterly, Tow law, Eastgate, Westgate, Stanhope, Crook, and of course Wolsingham itself.
I would think many of them will now be of a good age.
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Thank you, I have posted a new topic, and your suggestion that former staff may still live locally has given me some more research ideas!
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I have only just registered with this site so hope I am not too late with this subject. I recently discovered my g'mother died in Winterton hospital in 1976, having always thought she had died many years previously. Her death cert gives the name of a member of staff who notified her death. Durham R O have no further records . Do you know if the graveyard is still there?
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Hi robcat. Thanks to a relative co-researcher, I have some photos of the cemeteries where Winterton patients were buried, which I am attaching to this post. There were 2 cemeteries, but mostly the deceased from Winterton were buried 5 to a plot/grave in the large cemetery at Sedgefield, and all were paupers (pic 1). There is a plaque to commemorate them (pic 2), and Sedgefield Town Council have records of who is buried there.
(I can only post 2 pics at a time so will attach pic 3 to the next post.)
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There is also a small cemetery opposite where the hospital used to be, but only a few stones remain and the chapel has also been removed (pic 3).
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Hi brightmount. Thank you for the pics and the info . I will try and pay a visit the next time I am in the north east.
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With reference to your request for information about a Winterton Hospital patient who died at Holywood Hall Wolsingham.
Wolsingham is in Weardale and Holywood Hall hospital was the regional sanatorium for the treatment of TB but by early 1960's there were so few cases that it was virtually redundant although the open verandah rooms were still in use.
In 1962 the decision was made to transfer elderly patients from Winterton Hospital Sedgefield ( County Mental Hospital ) to this beautiful setting. The patients who were moved from Sedgefield to Wolsingham were mainly elderly, long-term residents of impaired mental faculty, who had no living relatives to care for them and were 'institutionalised' and would have been unable to cope with independent living.
50 years ago mental health welfare was managed very differently.
Some of the patients committed to asylums would today have been described as 'autistic', 'schizophrenic', 'manic depressive', or even been foolish enough to have an illegitimate child and be committed as morally degenerate and subsequently abandoned by family. Some mental failure was caused by drinking water from lead pipes which were still in situ in many parts of West Durham until the 1950's.
If there was no living next of kin on the hospital record, on death the patient was given a state funded 'pauper's funeral' marked only by a numbered stone and recorded in cemetery records. In the case of Wolsingham, probably the parish church, or its associated cemetery ( not as has been suggested the Winterton Hospital cemetery.)
My Aunt, Mabel Robson and her husband Bob Robson were the two senior Winterton Staff who managed the transfer of these lovely elderly people to retirement in the beautiful setting, and lived at the hospital. The transfers began in October 1962. Patients were mainly able bodied and had access to the small town and were encouraged to get out and about with an accompanying adult but had the secure care of good living quarters, were well fed and all their needs catered for until death.
Some other staff moved from Sedgefield but I cannot recall their names. Others were sanitorium staff.
As I remember it, most would be in their late 40's to mid 50's then, and my Aunt and Uncle are both long dead.
Incidentally, that first winter was once of the worst ever experienced in County Durham and Holywood Hall being 'up the hill from the village' became very difficult to reach!
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Thank you so much Alex for a very helpful reply that seems to confirm what we believe happened to Elizabeth Owen.
She was admitted to Winterton Hospital on 23 June 1936, aged 47, and she was discharged on 15 May 1963, aged 74. The death certificate that must be hers, gives her date of death as 10 January 1965 at Holywood Hall, though the age is incorrectly stated as 73. She would have been 75.
My co-researcher visited Wolsingham churchyard where she is recorded as having been buried, and was informed that the graves were in chronological order, although the vicar did not have the graveyard plan as it had gone off to be digitised. So my friend found the plot for the right date, and it had no headstone, but there was a flower pot with the inscription "In Loving Memory" (no name). However, there had been some flowers placed in it not so long ago which is certainly a mystery, though without the grave plan we can't confirm it's definitely Elizabeth Owen's grave.
It's lovely to know that she would have enjoyed two years of the kind of care you described, and I hope that the previous 25 years were not distressing for her, as her confinement was a sad result of the time she lived in.
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Although Winterton was a massive institution there were several 'open' wards housing people who would nowadays live in the community. Patients from these wards were allowed to shop independently in the village.
However there were also 'locked wards housing volatile patients. These were known as 'refractory' wards.They were quite grim
Sedgefield had also a general hospital, a maternity hospital, and Ivy House which was the old 'workhouse which became an old people's home. Many, many people who lived in Sedgefield worked at one or other of the hospitals, mainly in the Nursing profession.
Winterton had its own farm which was worked by patients and the produce largely kept the hospital in vegetables, including potatoes. There was a laundry, and sewing rooms run largely by patients who were capable of completing tasks under supervision. Other household tasks were also completed by patients to give a sense of purpose to life in an institution.
As previous posts state there was a chapel, and cemetery.
Sadly, there was great stigma attached to being any kind of patient there, so the move to Wolsingham was welcomed by many. It was a kind of 'retirement home' I am glad to say, with a very easy-going atmosphere.
I am so glad that I could help you with first hand information.
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I have re-checked my grandmother's death certificate. It states she died at Winterton Hospital on 27th February 1976 of Broncho pneumonia and gives the year of her birth as 1900. She was born Winifred Henderson in Jarrow and married a Hubert Huntley Fielding in 1917. It states she was his widow although as yet I have been unable to trace his death. One obvious mistake was in stating her maiden name was Coulson ,her mother,my ggmother married twice and Coulson was the name of her 2nd husband. This imformation was presumably by a member of staff who gave her address as Cornforth Lane Coxhoe. Is it permissable to name this person?
Thanks for all the info.
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My great Grandfather died in Winterton in 1924, can anyone give me a reference to Winterton in the 1911 census, as I can't seem to find it.
Paul
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My great Grandfather died in Winterton in 1924, can anyone give me a reference to Winterton in the 1911 census, as I can't seem to find it.
Paul
Try here Paul
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=2352&path=Durham.Sedgefield.Sedgefield.14.2
However census returns for the hospital tended to give initials only so your seacrh may be frustrtaing.
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Hi my grandad George Cowell was a patient in winterton hostpital and died there in 1964 I would love to find out where he was buried any information would be great many thanks . Vin
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HI Vin
If you scroll back a page you will find details of where the patients of Winterton Hospital are buried and that there are no headstones.
Is this your grandfathers death registration: Also have you obtained his Death Cert ??
George Cowell aged 79 years Durham SE 1A 706 Mar 1964
Sedgefield Town Council have records of who is buried there.
Sedgefield Town Council,
13 Front Street,
Sedgefield,
TS21 3AT
Telephone:
01740 621273
Email:
town.clerk@sedgefieldtowncouncil.gov.uk
Public Opening Hours
Mon - Tues - 9am-12pm
Wed - 9am-1pm
Thurs-Fri - 9am-12pm
http://www.durhamrecordoffice.org.uk/article/10618/Hospitals
https://durhamrecordsonline.com/updates/2010/03/sedgefield-burials-1855-1926/
bendywendy
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Hello Vinne57, and welcome to Rootschat.
The responsibility for burials of patients rests with their family and next of kin (where known).
I would suggest looking at local newspapers (The Northern Echo) for death notices a day or two after his death, which will include burial details.
Colin
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Thank you all for your prompt replies most helpful regards vin.