Mary Carpenter House, Home for Girls

[tisme]

My great aunt, Bertha Fanny Louise Parrett lived in the Mary Carpenter House Home for Girls in Fishponds, Bristol for about 20 years but I have no idea why although she was registered as 'feeble minded' but that could mean anything!

Does anyone have any information about Mary Carpenter House? Why young girls were sent there?

[Waitabit]

Googling brings up several sites on this establishment. All diffferent & interesting reading.

http://www.about-bristol.co.uk/fam-05.asp


http://bristolculture.wordpress.com/...lodge-bristol/

http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/M...s/dresser.html

[Peter Goodey]

No dates given

she was registered as 'feeble minded'

Where was this registered?

'feeble minded' but that could mean anything!

I wouldn't say that at all. If you got this from the 1901 census, we can say that, in the 1901 census, the term 'feeble-minded' officially replaced the term 'idiot' used in earlier censuses. So it certainly meant something*!

In the absence of any other information, about all you can say is that she would certainly have had an IQ significantly below 100 such that she probably wouldn't be capable of normal employment. Moderate to severe learning disability might be another way to put it.

*Although it presumably meant something to the designers of the census, they failed to communicate any useful definition to householders, hence the unreliability of the census data in this respect.

[Coromandel]

Hello tisme and welcome to the forum

Here are a few examples of the things that came up in a Google search for "Mary Carpenter Home" and "feeble-minded":

A list of 'Homes in Bristol' says

'Mary Carpenter Home for feeble-minded girls, The Causeway, Fishponds. Founded 1887 in Bishop Street, St Paul's as a home for factory girls.'

http://
archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Bristol_and_Somerset/2005-12/1133565031

The Mary Carpenter Home is on a list, published 1914, of homes affiliated to the National Association for the Feeble Minded (based in Westminster; they had a Case Committee who could 'give advice as to how feeble-minded cases should be dealt with'). The details given in this list are as follows:

'Mary Carpenter Home, Causeway, Fishponds, Bristol. (Secretary: Mrs. Gilmore Barnett, 11 Victoria Square, Clifton, Bristol.) For girls, ages 14 to 24. Payment, 8s.6d. a week.'

This is from a collection of essays called 'Human Derelicts' (edited by T.N. Kelynack, published 1914), online here:

http://www.
scribd.com/doc/13003820/Human-Derelicts

The home also appears on another list, published in 1916, of 'Approved Homes (Training Schools for Uncertified Improvable Cases)':

MARY CARPENTER HOME, 598 AND 600, FISHPONDS ROAD,
BRISTOL, and BRANCH HOME AT WESTRA, YATE (Bristol
County Borough and Gloucester County Council). Hon.
- Sec., Mrs. Gilmore Barnett; Supt, t Miss Edwards; 18 female
defectives at Fishponds Home and 7 at Branch. Home,
Westra, Yate. (25)

from G.E. Shuttleworth & W.A. Potts, 'Mentally Deficient Children: their treatment and training' (4th edition, 1916) which is online here:

http://www.
archive.org/stream/mentallydeficien017041mbp/mentallydeficien017041mbp_djvu.txt

It may be worth contacting Bristol Record Office to see if they hold any archives.