Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums

By Michelle Higgs

How can you trace forebears who were patients in British lunatic asylums and find out about their lives? What sources can you use to discover their personal history and gain an insight into their experience? This concise, accessible handbook provides the answers to these questions. It offers a fascinating introduction to the subject and gives readers the means to explore the records for themselves.

Covering the period from the eighteenth century through to 1948 when the NHS was founded, the book looks particularly at the Victorian era which is the most popular period for research. Using original records, contemporary accounts, photographs and illustrations, the story of the asylums and their patients is brought to life; there are also eighteen vivid case studies of real people who were treated in asylums.

Types of mental illness and asylums are described, as are the admission procedures and daily routine of the patients. Chapters look at the different kinds of mental illness treated, for instance, patients with melancholia, criminal lunatics, mothers with puerperal mania, epileptics, and soldiers suffering from shell-shock. There are sections on the systems in Scotland and Ireland, as well as England and Wales. Information is provided on all the relevant sources, from wills and the census to admission and discharge registers.