Can you tell me more about William and his family?
QI am searching for information about William Bowater and his family. He was born in Birmingham in 1855, and married a Louisa Perks. Two of his children, John and Ada, were sent to the Middlemore Homes in Birmingham then on to Canada in 1892 and 1893. I believe William was sent to Winson Green Asylum in Birmingham, but I cannot find out when he died or where he is buried. Can you help?
Marilyn Davis
AThe Middlemore Homes in Birmingham, originally known as the Children’s Emigration Homes, were set up in 1872 by John Throgmorton Middlemore to prepare children for a life in Canada. Many records of British Home Children who were migrated under these schemes are on the Library and Archives Canada website at bit.ly/can-home. Early migrations by Middlemore were to Ontario, but these ended in 1892, and from 1893 children were sent to Nova Scotia.
Sadly the dates of John and Ada’s migrations indicate they were sent to separate parts of Canada. A search of the online records finds the applications, dates of arrival, and abstracts of ‘Settlement and Reports of Children Sent to Canada’ for John and Ada Bowater. The applications appear on the same page of the application book from 1891. A note reveals: “Mother dead, father just out of asylum, 6 children, 3 earning, 3 in Erdington workhouse, father fractured skull & has dizziness.” Full copies of these records can be ordered through the website. Other records for the Middlemore Homes are held at the Library of Birmingham ( bit.ly/bhmmiddle). I suggest examining copies of as many of these records as possible for additional family information.
You mention that William was in Winson Green Asylum. If he was only there once, the records for John and Ada suggest he came out in 1891. Winson Green Asylum was later known as All Saints’ Hospital, and is catalogued as such by the Library of Birmingham ( bit.ly/winson-saints). The records are not in terribly good condition, but there are admissions registers and discharge/death registers for the 1890s and early 1900s. Contact the library for more information.
An alternative source of information is the Lunacy Patients Admission Registers: records kept by the Lunacy Commission of all those admitted to private and public asylums. The originals are in series MH94 at The National Archives in Kew, but the registers for 1846–1912 have been digitised and are available on ancestry. co.uk at bit.ly/anc-lun-reg.
A search for William Bowater found only one entry (no. 10611). It seems that he entered the asylum on 23 June 1891, and left on 15 August 1891. The reason for his discharge is given as “recovered”. There are no further entries for William, but it is possible that he returned to Winson Green after 1912, when the online records end.
In terms of William’s death record, remember that people often died some distance from home. The death of a William H Bowater, 76, in Stratfordupon-Avon could be worth considering. There may have been an error in the details given on his death record if he died in an institution, or perhaps his full details were not known on re-admission. For example, my own great aunt, Frances Magdalen Smith, died in Winson Green Asylum in the 1970s, but her death was registered as Frances Mary Smith. An excellent website for Birmingham cemeteries is birminghamburialrecords.co.uk. Karen Cummings