Aberdeen Royal Asylum

[liesl]

Hi all,

It looks like I have found an ancestor on the 1881 census as being in the Insane Asylum in Aberdeen. She is on the census as Mary MORTON or COUTTS (Morton is her maiden name, Coutts her married name).

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to obtain records about the asylum from this time? I would like to know what she was 'in' for and how long she was there.

She turns up on the 1891 census as May COUTTS living with her niece and family.

Thanks!

[Colin Moretti]

Here's the information you need (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=1483&hospital=&town=aberdeen&searchdatabase.x=0&searchdatabase.y=0), from the TNA Hospital Records Database (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/default.asp)

Colin

[liesl]

Thanks Colin! that's the place!

Sorry but I am a bit dumb |blush|(hopefully because I am only new to this!!) I am not sure what this gives me? Is it an address to write to for the actual records??

Thanks again for the info

Liesl

[Colin Moretti]

Hello Liesl

If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see what records survive and where they're held, in the case in the Northern Health Services Archives (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=1105).

Patient clinical records are normally closed for 100 years so if your ancestor died after 1910 you are unlikely to be able to get copies although admission and discharge records are normally accessible. I can't say whether or not the Archives will search for and copy any records they may have on your ancestor - you may have to employ a researcher to look for you unless you're planning a trip to the UK. Write to the archivist and ask her the questions.

Colin

[Peter Goodey]

Patient clinical records are normally closed for 100 years so if your ancestor died after 1910 you are unlikely to be able to get copies although admission and discharge records are normally accessible.

That is not the position in English law. I admit to knowing nothing about Scottish law. Is it different?

[Colin Moretti]

I visited Berkshire RO just a few weeks ago to look at Broadmoor records; they have recently finished cataloguing them and are now making them available but patient clinical records are not being released until 100 years have passed, the catalogue made that quite clear. Those that I wanted to look at were older so I didn't follow up the matter.

I don't know if the situation is different in Scotland and so should have put in a caveat, my apologies.

Colin

[Colin Moretti]

Berkshire RO has this protocol (http://www.berkshirerecordoffice.org.uk/documents/BRO_BH_protocol.pdf) on their website, here's an extract:

What information will be made available
Clinical and non-clinical records of Broadmoor Hospital (formerly Broadmoor
Criminal Lunatic Asylum) are to be preserved for research by the BRO, in
accordance with the Public Records Act 1958. All inactive patient records will
be held by Broadmoor Hospital for a period of 30 years.
Access will be provided on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA). This will have the following effects:
• Access will be provided to all information within records that would have
been open under the old ‘100 year rule’. This means that any record with
an end date more than 100 years from the current date will be available for
research. Record is defined as the physical entity, such as book, paper or
file.
• Access will be provided to information from all other records less than 100
years old providing that one of the exemptions in the FOIA does not apply.
Sometimes it may not be possible to provide access to the physical record in
which case information from the record may be made available in another
format.
Records that are exempt from access will be indicated as such with a closure
note in the Berkshire Record Office catalogue of Broadmoor Hospital
records.
The catalogue entries for clinical notes less than 100 years old had such a closure note

Colin

[Peter Goodey]

The following London Metropolitan Archives statement is much more in accord with with the law as I understand it:


Hospital records are subject to a period of restricted access in order to protect the confidentiality of living individuals. It may therefore not be possible for you to consult all the records yourself. We are able to undertake research on behalf of an individual to provide information from hospital records but we do have to ensure that the information is only being released to either the individual concerned or in the case of a third party request that the patient concerned is deceased. We do charge for undertaking such searches within our records.

In other words, you are not allowed to browse through 'closed' files yourself. But that doesn't mean that you can't see granny's records. It's just that you have to pay the repository staff to do the work for you.

[Peter Goodey]

PS The second bullet point from Berks RO says much the same thing.

[liesl]

Thank you all!

I will send an email and see what response I get.

Liesl

[liesl]

Just thought I would update you all on this post. I received an email back from the archives today and May Morton entered the asylum in 1876 and was discharged in 1881. You are never going to believe what she was in for!

Menopause! Yep that's right Menopause!!!

On the info I was sent it said "Melancholia" (sp) "Change of Life".

The people at the archives office are going to send me copies of her actual file, which is very nice of them!

[Colin Moretti]

Not uncommon, I fear; I believe that many young women were similarly confined for having illegitimate children! Or is that a myth - does anyone have an example?

It's good to hear that you've had such a helpful response, it always pays to ask.

Colin

[joette]

It's the melancholia part which probably confined her that's an archaic term for what we would call depression probably brought on by the menopause.
Poor soul today she would get HRT & Antidepressants.

[liesl]

Just an update - I received the paperwork from the Asylum last week. Apparently Mrs Coutts was abusing stimulants and was terrified that she would be refused a christian burial. It has been a very sad story to read.

Thank you all again for pointing me in the right direction.