EXPERT’S CHOICE
Michelle Higgs has written books about using records from medical institutions
If any of your ancestors spent time in a lunatic asylum, the institution’s patients’ records can not only shed light on the reason for admission and their treatment – they may also go into valuable detail about family relationships, and how the patient’s behaviour changed when he or she became ill. More and more lunatic asylum records are now being digitised and made available online, either on the various genealogy subscription sites or on independent websites. One of my favourite examples is the Patients of Powick Hospital 1852–1916 database on the Worcester Medical Museums website, located at medicalmuseum. org.uk/powick-patients.
Powick Hospital was the Worcester City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1852. Although it was built for patients from Worcestershire, its intake included those from the surrounding counties, Wales and further afield. Since the institution was for paupers, it was used extensively by a wide range of Poor Law unions.
The database, which is free to access, was created by Dr Frank Crompton who transcribed case notes from more than 9,000 patients. You can search by name, occupation, abode or mental disorder. If your ancestor was treated at Powick, the database gives the date of their admission and the date of their discharge, their occupation, their abode, their disorder and from where they were sent. A massive bonus of this resource is that many of the case notes have been scanned and are available as images, so that you can read full details of a patient’s condition, treatment and progress on the way to their eventual recovery (in the bestcase scenario). This can shed valuable light on any of your relations who suffered from the same condition, even if they were treated elsewhere.