The Central Hospital Hatton

[Lisajj]

Also, I do believe that the TB hospital was next door.
I think you will struggle getting records for 1981, but again, contact Warwick Records office, they will be able to help you.

[Rosaleen M]

Thank you. Records pretty much said he was a cronic scitzophrenic and died from heart failure but it's the little personal bits I miss.  Whether anyone who worked there remembers him in the garden or hospital.  He is so tantalisingly close in terms of history and incredibly spent 60 whole years there.  His mum died in a house fire while he was at the front and was lost to the world when he entered the asylum outliving father and sisters by decades.  I wonder if the Records Office would have photos of life at the Hospital.  Poor boy...also no military records because they were lost in the bombings of WW2.

[Lisajj]

Why don't you contact the Coventry Evening Telegraph and see if they will run an article for you asking if anyone remembers him?

[painterlady]

I was interested in your query about Hatton as my Uncle was admitted there about 1936, he had always had 'fits' and as I was a small child it was felt to be risky for him to remain in the house, although fond of his little niece he was big and strong and when he had a fit he was difficult to handle. From the replies and looking up the links given I feel glad that he would have been well treated there. I have a vague memory of going to visit him once, in a big hall with all these men sitting around the side, obviously visiting day,and I found it frightening. Now I know how to go further and find out more about him and his life there so thank you.

[gig]

hi
the records for hatton are closed for 100 years, i got my great great grandmothers records from warwick records office a couple of years ago, the records are very detailed my great , great grandmother was sent there in 1899 3 weeks after the birth of her second son as a person of unsound mind and perpetual meloncoly the first time she was relased was for the cristmas of 1912, she was released into the care of her sister ( a letter dated 1912 was attached to her records so i saw a few years after 100 years) after that i dont know what happened to her
gigg

[selkie3]

The Central Hospital was also known as Hatton on the Hill and was referred by locals as "Going up the hill" when anyone was sent there. Your relative did not have to have a mental illness to be sent there, when I wroked there as a nurse in the late 70's there were polish POW there, because they did not want to go back to Poland when the war was over, so were sent to Hatton. I also know of one gent in his 60's who was sent there because he stole a penny from the mantlepiece at home. They patients were also lumped in with those with learning difficulties, so it was not a nice place to be and the treatment of any kind of mental disability was still in it's infancy even in the late 70's, they had not long stopped frontal lobectomies when I started nursing!

Also women who were deemed too strong willed or prone to bouts of mild depression or "The hysterics" could also be sent up the hill.

Hi, I was a postgraduate student at Hatton in 1974/5. I had done my Subnormality training in Bristol and came to Hatton to do my Psychiatric Training.  I am actually trying to find the names of the female wards as the were named after significant women. I think one was Edith Sitwell? I have an interest in women who changed the lives for the better of working women. The most recent one I heard about being Mary Barbour and the Scottish Rent Strike. Memories of Hatton were good and the patients got better care mostly than they ones in the Subnormality Hospital I trained in did. I do remember Shirley who roamed the grounds and stopped cars asking for a fag! I went to work at Weston under Weatherly until I had my son and her brother was there. He turned out to have been in the army and had medalsd and was actually moved to live in a home for the military. The grounds were beautiful and the famous huge tree in the Drive to the front door that seemed to have a rubber trunk. If you could help with the female ward names I would be grateful. thanks.

Jacqui

[Jme79]

Hi Jacqui - two of the wards I can remember were Louisa Raynes and Fanny Burney. I was only a child but my parents and grandparents worked at the hospital, and lived just outside the grounds so I spent a lot of time there.   

I've just dug out an old book and there was also Lady Dudley Ward mentioned in it.

[selkie3]

Thank you everybody for the names.