Workhouse - general links

I was sad to find out one of my ancestors had ended up in a Workhouse.......
In the 1891 census he was registered as a pauper living in the Union Workhouse in Tisbury and was still there in the 1901 census. Worse, he was also registered as an imbecile! Was he born an imbecile? Was his birth a hard one seeing as he had a twin who died at only a few days old? Was there a problem later and he had what would now be called senile dementia even at the age of 54? I wish i knew, but that information prompted me to find out more about workhouses and why people ended up in them.

Full of useful information -

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

http://www.judandk.force9.co.uk/workhouse.html

 

I have a couple people on my tree who were marked as 'imbecile' fairly late in life. One of them had been a 'surveyor' 20 years earlier, which raises an interesting line of thought.

 

The Victorians like to classify everything, and a scale something like this below was used.
Cretin = IQ 71 - 85
Moron = IQ 50 - 70
Imbecile = IQ 35 - 49
Idiot = IQ under 35

These were terms used to describe IQ, what we now call Learning Difficulties, they were NOT derogatory terms but used simply as a medical classification, later these terms would gain the bad press and be changed. However there seem to be various ideas of how high or low an IQ was in order to qualify for a specific diagnosis depending on which medical text book they used and or course IQ itself is based on the average person in a population having an IQ of 100, and this changes each year as our race apparently becomes more intelligent.
In an institution, an inmate will have been tested by the Doctors to as accurately as possible provide the correct diagnosis. I used to work in the health service in the 1980-1990s and these terms were still to be found in the older notes of long-stay patients and in old medical text books. Putting it simply your person labelled as an imbecile would most likely either have downs syndrome or have suffered from a lack of oxygen during birth.

 

Yes, Tim, I just listed the two most likely to give a flavour of what might have happened. However neither a stroke a brain injury or dementia present as low intelligence but rather as normal intelligence but with part of the brain not functioning correctly, and would not have tended to be given one of these low IQ classifications.
In Carla's case this person could be there because no one was left in the family to look after him or they can not afford to feed him, or his behaviour is too extreme for the family to cope with. If still alive after 1901 he may have been transferred from the workhouse to an one of that counties Asylums worth a look Carla if you have not found his death certificate.
Remember the purpose of the workhouse was to provide food, accommodation and basic care and the purpose of the then new asylums were to provide the same together with a place of safety, help and treatment. They were both intended as positive places, with the alternative being living on the streets, homeless and begging until the cold weather killed you.
Our Victorian forbears spend a massive amount of money building workhouses and asylums to care for the people.

 

I think i will get the death certificate for my ancestor as it will be interesting to see where he died and the cause of death. He was 62 when he died and the death was registered in Tisbury in 1902. I have checked up about the Union workhouse and it was very interesting........sad too.

 

I have long been intrigued about the Victoria definitions of the terms Lunatic, Idiot & Imbecile. I read Ian's contribution relating to (Victorian) scale markings of :

Cretin = IQ 71 - 85 :Moron = IQ 50 - 70: Imbecile = IQ 35 - 49 :Idiot = IQ under 35

I note the absence of 'Lunatic' but perhaps this generic term covered them all. It struck home to me because I have only very recently discovered a female ancestor -who mysteriously disappeared in 1909 after giving birth to a son who later was adopted -as an inmate of a County Lunatic Asylum. She had the annotation '29' written alongside 'Lunatic' on the original transcript. (Incidentally she was institutionalised for 23 years, dying aged 55 in the same Mental Hospital in 1933).

A glance at the categories for other inmates of the Institution show them as Lunatic, Imbecile & Idiot (some of the latter with 'Congenital' added). All had numerical classification alongside, but these do not appear to follow those submitted by Ian. So perhaps individual Asylums had their own grading scales.

The word Lunatic derives from lunaticus "of the moon" or "moonstruck" and goes back into antiquity. However the Victorians in particular used the term for anyone regarded as mentally unstable (or in their eyes 'mad'). The degree of madness brought forth the terms Lunatic, Imbecile, Idiot and a few others along the way.

Research reveals the term Lunatic, Imbecile & Idiot were recognised medical (and legal) terms for persons suffering from any form of mental illness or insanity. The (England & Wales) Lunacy Acts of 1890 through 1922 -as the name denotes - used 'Lunacy' as a generic term. It was not until the Mental Treatment Act of 1930 that terminology changed to 'Persons of Unsound Mind'; and Asylums became Mental Hospitals. Finally the Mental Health Act 1959 described all forms of mental illness simply as "Mental Illness". (Surprisingly the US had the term "lunatic" within its federal laws right up to the end of 2012).

I intend to explore further the subject of Asylums and the various forms of 'Lunacy' and would welcome any input or link that might help further my research.

 

A lunatic describes a person who was considered mad, as in bizarre behaviour, whilst idiot or cretin etc. are terms relating to a low iQ. You can be one or the other or in theory both. IQ having only a small relationship to madness.

The asylums looked after both the low iQ and the mad, frequently in the same asylum although later separate asylums were built for those with low iQ (or as we now say those with learning difficulties).

As for a mother being admitted to an asylum post birth, most women suffer from some form of depression just after given birth, this is to do with the physical loss of the baby inside mum (even though she is now the proud mother of the same outside) is a short of grieving, often this is just a few minutes or hours of tearfulness, but in rare cases can become a severe depression with psychotic symptoms (classic madness, hearing voices etc.). Mums in this state have been known to even kill their wanted and much loved child because a voice in their head told them to. So after giving birth, Bob's ancestor might have become depressed or even mad and psychiatry at that time had little treatment to offer for either condition other than the asylum. '29' might be the number of the ward she went to in that hospital, perhaps the main female admission ward or a special ward for mothers and babies. Where I used to work ward 4 was the male admission ward and 20 the female admission ward, with ward 53 the the highest number until the system was changed and new wards were built for the shell-shocked of WW1. I have seen examples of ward numbers written in a different hand on these sorts of information as a way of trackinga patient's whereabouts.

PS 1 in 7 men and 1 in 5 women suffer from some form of mental illness (not learning difficulty) at some stage during their lives, but treatment and care has always attracted peanuts in funding.

PPS Monday in french is Lundi aka 'moon day'. Without checking I think moon comes from norse Germanic and the lunar from Latin.

 

Incidentally, I worked briefly at Powick in Worcestershire and for 16 years in Hanwell, west London. Happy to help if anyone has ancestors from either.

 

Thanks for that information Ian and appreciated. Post natal depression was put forward as a likely reason by the family member who first asked if I could find out what had happened to her Great Grandmother after giving birth to her Grandfather. (The ancestor being my paternal cousin's, maternal cousin's, grandmother - "put that in your pipe and smoke it" as my mother would say when she found something difficult to grasp).

Just after writing about my experience in researching for an inmate of an Asylum I must tell of a remarkable coincidence. I was browsing through the current SOG Magazine and came across an article headed: "In an Asylum for the Census; Barnwood House Hospital". It told of the problems searching for inmates in that (Mental) Hospital in the 1891 Census. The coincidence being that was the very Hospital of my research; albeit in the 1911 Census, It was formally known as Gloucester County Asylum and later Gloucester Mental Hospital and locally as Barnwood House.

From the article -and after further research -I discovered there was more than one Asylum (in Gloucester) and that Barnwood House Hospital for the Insane catered for 'private' patients. This opened up a whole new ball game; what exactly did 'Private' mean? Was it as today's definition of "Private" or something quite different. I am still looking into Barnwood, but in generic terms discovered there were Asylums for Paupers (some of the larger Workhouses also catered for those suffering from 'lunacy' as mentioned elsewhere) and Asylums who accepted fees towards the upkeep of inmates. The 'fee' was calculated by classification of Inmate so the fee could be anything from a liberal contribution to a modest upkeep fee - but I am still researching on this point.

Apparently Barnwood was cited as a "model lunatic hospital" and from 1874 under the superintendence of Frederick Needham MD (later Sir Frederick and involved as a Commissioner for Lunacy). I quote three of his rules for Barnwood Hospital of 1880: (a) The delusions of Patients are to be treated with most considerate kindness, and in no way made the subject of merriment or amusement. (b) No attendant shall indulge in or express angry or vindictive feelings towards the Patients. (c) Nothing in the way of punishment is ever to be used to the Insane. Hopefully they were maintained during and after his tenure.

I came across this advert in the 1948 edition of the Journal of Medical Science: (Barnwood is) "A REGISTERED HOSPITAL (outside the National Health Service) for the CARE and TREATMENT of LADIES and GENTLEMEN, suffering from NERVOUS and MENTAL DISORDERS". As a postscript it closed in 1968.

I am now directing my research into the myriad of Acts of Parliament from the Madhouses Act of 1774 through 1832 and onwards to the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 and the Mental Health Act of 1959. In between there were dozens of intermediate acts for England and Wales and subsidiary ones for Scotland and Ireland. I also want to find out about the various control bodies...from the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy through to the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency. I think you will agree a mad project in a mad world!

 

Attention of a Moderator; For some reason it insisted on printing a large part of my item in BOLD other than where I directed it to at the beginning. It took 3 Edits before it accepted removal of bold type. It happened after my use of italics and [] brackets. After changing them to () is finally accepted my Edit. Are there reasons?

 

I think I figured it out, try this for size. The second clause of my italicised section began 'b' (which was in square brackets) which I now repeat here>> <<which should make this text bold as well. Well that's my theory anyway.

When I edited, the 'b' in square brackets was missing and everything after it was bold. So in the end by making all the brackets ( ) it went away. Lets see if I am right. (Thanks anyway)

 

Strangely Bob, I now live in Ross-on-Wye, some 25 minutes drive from the area of Gloucester called Barnwood, but know nothing of the history of mental health in the area.

 

So do I. If square brackets-b -close brackets causes a change to BOLD; what returns it to normal type?

I recall Ross-on-Wye well as it was a favourite 'ride out' from Birmingham with Dad & Mom & sisters in my younger days. An absolutely beautiful part of the country. I now live in Kent which of course has its own charm and beauty as a garden county, not to mention its coast line and I live quite close to the sea.

You can read here about Barnwood House Asylum and quite a bit of the area. Wikipedia also has quite a good article on Barnwood House Hospital. Barnwood House closed as a Hospital in 1968 and after being put to many uses -including a Girls Boarding School - was finally sold to a Developer and demolished in 2000. Many houses were built in its place and part of the grounds turned into an Arboretum which is owned by Gloucester City Council..

Barnwood House Trust still exists and does a lot to support research into mental health and awards grants to people with physical or mental disabilities in Gloucestershire.

 

Thanks for that Alexander, very useful, and I think this knowledge will also help in my Tribalpages where I write family related stories and such. Unlike the Forum where you can add Bold, Italics, Underline etc without knowing of codes/tags (as these get auto added by the software) Tribalpages only allows for normal unenhanced text.

I tried to get round this by composing in WORD, and then copy and pasting across, but everything reverts back to normal type. I shall experiment by adding opening and closing tags and see if that works.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained but at least I now have a small insight to all your codes and tags.