Upcoming Sales
Please see poster above for Whitchurch Hospital League of Friends Booksale and Christmas Fayre
Fundraising Events 2014, at St Mary’s Church Hall, Church Road, Whitchurch village
Booksale
Friday and Saturday 31st of October and 1st of November, 10am – 4pm
Christmas Fayre
Saturday 29th of November 1:30pm
I was having a look through my Twitter feed one day and came across a tweet about a tablecloth from a Cardiff Hospital during WW1 – This got me curious to find out more as Whitchurch was used as a Hospital during WW1 – The Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital. The initial tweet came from Elen Phillips, Principal Curator at St Fagans for Contemporary and Community History back in January. Following a few exchanges of tweets and then emails we realised that the tablecloth was indeed from Whitchurch and had the year 1917 embroidered on it together with names of staff – Matron Raynes and soldiers.
The tablecloth has a very interesting story as told by Ray Holman in his blog:
http://www.costume-designer.co.uk/therapy-cloth/
Elen kindly offered the Historical Society members an opportunity to visit St Fagans and see the tablecloth which some of us took up. It is a beautiful cloth and has many staff names on it including Col Goodall and Matron Raynes.
Some photos of the tablecloth after St Fagans restored it:
Restored WW1 Tablecloth
These are some of the names that can be seen on the tablecloth:
J. Drummond
W Jones 4th Worcesters
Dr H Thorps RFA
E. W. Ilford
D Kozroski 4th (?)G M. Rifles
Corp J. Cork 2nd Grenadier Guards
Pte F. Astin (?)5th Staffs
Pte S. Bradshaw 1st Lancs JVS
O. Standish 4th KOYL
S. Walker RFA
Pte Howard 24th HF
H. Bentley 11th Cheshire
Pte E. Sheffield 7th Kings Own
Pte J [can’t decipher surname) 2nd Royal Sussex
L/cpl. F. Richardson 8th Lincolns
G. E. Head 2nd Middlesex
(?)Selfield 1st Coldstream Guards
Pte J. F. Davies RAMC
(?)W. Cooper 14th Northumberland Fusiliers
Can you see any other names? If you have further information please get in touch.
Thank you to all involved in this story especially Elen Phillips. Photos courtesy of St Fagans.
This is a series of two episodes on ITV looking at some celebrities going on a personal journey to find out how 19th century lunatic asylums shaped the lives of their families.
Here is some further information:
http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week34/secrets-asylum
If you want to watch the programmes, here is a link to the itv player:
https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/secrets-from-the-asylum/series-1
The two programmes are definitely worth watching, let us know what you think.
Thanks to Tim Goosey for this post
Do you know anyone who used to work in:
Hensol
Ely Hospital in Cardiff
Llanfrechfa Grange
St David’s in Carmarthen
Bryn-Y-Neuadd
Denbigh Hospital
A new project aimed at collecting the stories of 80 individuals who lived in these long stay hospitals will begin shortly. The majority of these stories will be from people with a learning disability but we also want to interview former staff and family members of patients.
These stories will be archived in St Fagan’s Museum and six regional exhibitions will be held based on interpretations of the stories over the next two and bit years.
Also if anyone wants to volunteer for us as a researcher, photographer, exhibition assistant or anything else please contact us.
These histories will be interpreted into six, temporary regional exhibitions held at Cardiff Story Museum, Swansea Museum, Carmarthen Museum, Newport Museum, Gwynedd Museum and Wrexham Museum.
Please get in touch directly with Hidden Now Heard.
At the end of the project all the stories will be deposited in the archive at St Fagan’s, the Museum of Welsh Life.
The photo is part of the St Fagans National History Museum WW1 collection which is currently being digitised. It was given to St Fagans in the 1990ies but its location is unknown. It may not be a Cardiff hospital but if you recognise it please get in touch. Could it be Whitchurch?
Where is this photo taken?
Thanks to Elen Phillips, Principal Curator: Contemporary & Community History at St Fagans, for the photo and information.
I came across this website which gives some further information about hospitals used during WW1:
http://www.1914-1918.net/hospitals_uk.htm
The military hospitals at home
The flow of casualties from the various theatres of war soon overwhelmed the existing medical facilities in the United Kingdom, just as it did the recently established bases in France and Flanders. Many civilian hospitals and large buildings were turned over to military use. This listing is by no means complete.
Wales
3rd Western General. A TF General Hospital in Cardiff. 38 officers and 2626 other ranks. The Cardiff Infirmary became headquarters to the 3rd Western General Military Hospital, overseeing all the other military hospitals in the region.
Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital. Formerly the Cardiff City Asylum at Whitchurch. 61 officers and 839 other ranks.
– partly used for mental patients (14 officers and 416 ORs) from September 1917 to December 1919.
Kinmel Park Camp (Rhyl). A hospital established at an army base. 890 beds.
– a specialist venereal disease unit opened here after the Armistice
Prince of Wales Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers, Cardiff. 66 beds for men from Wales, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.
Officers’ neurological hospital, Nannau, Dolgelly. Established by June 1918.
Third Annual Report
1910
Third Annual Report
LIST OF OFFICERS.
MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT:
EDWIN GOODALL, M.D.Lond., B.S., F.R.C.P., M.R.C.S.
SENIOR ASSISTANT MEDICAL OFFICER:
EDWARD BARTON WHITE, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.
RESEARCH CHEMIST:
ROBERT VINER STANFORD, Ph.D.Kiel., M.Sc.Birm., B.Sc.Lond.
PATHOLOGIST:
HAROLD ALFRED SCHÖLBERG, M.B., Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.S., D.P.H.
CLERK AND STEWARD:
T.D. MORGAN.
CLERK TO THE VISITORS:
J.L. WHEATLEY (Town Clerk).
TREASURER TO THE VISITORS:
JOHN ALLCOCK, F.S.A.A., (City Treasurer and Controller).
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
Committee of Visitors
For the Year ending 31st December, 1910;
Settled at a Meeting of the Committee held at the Mental
Hospital on the 25th day of May, 1911, in pursuance
of section 190 of the Lunacy Act, 1890.
State and Condition of the Institution.
The maintenance of the Institution continues to be entirely satisfactory. The equipment and fabric have both been kept in thorough order and repair.
The laying out of the ornamental grounds, including the approach-drive has been completed. The exercising gardens of the patients and the other ornamental grounds are well provided with trees and shrubs, so that it will in future only be necessary to maintain them at their existing standard.
The kitchen-garden is able to maintain a satisfactory supply of vegetables to the patients and staff: the articles supplied, as also the produce from the farm, are detailed in the report of the Medical Superintendent. The farm and garden account shows a credit balance.
Amongst the more important work carried out by the staff of the Institution are the making of a road for heavy traffic from the entrance to the Steward’s Yard, whereby the Avenue of the Entrance is spared; the equipment of the Chemical Research Laboratory, with the necessary fixtures, benches, tables, cupboards, fume-and-combustion chambers, steam, water and gas services, extraction fan and motors; installation of telephone services from the main building to the farm; erection of a potato house; fixing baths for warm bath treatment in the general spray-bath rooms; installation of high-frequency electric plant for treatment; repairs to Velindre Lodge, which is now habitable and rented to one of the Attendants; installation of brush-making plant in one of the shops; fixing additional hydro extractor in the laundry; erection of a second weaving loom in the upholsterer’s shop to enable cloth-making to be carried out on a larger scale.
The various workshops are found capable of dealing efficiently with the work of the Institution.
The main farm road from the entrance lodge remains to be completed, and a road to the farm from the main building has still to be made.
The underground cables for telephonic communication and for fire-alarm purposes to the houses of the resident officials have been found to work unsatisfactorily, and have been partially replaced by overhead wires, a work which is in process of completion.
Accommodation Provided and Available.
Third Annual Report
On April 1st, 1911, 39 female patients were received from the Salop and Montgomery Asylum on contract with the Montgomery County Council at charge of 13/5 per head per week.
The average number daily resident during the year was 682 as against 673 in 1909, or an increase of only 9 (3 males and 6 females), which is satisfactory.
The keeping down of the numbers is mainly due to the high recovery rate (46.7% – 40% for males, 56% for females), associated with the fact that the period of detention has been short in a large proportion of cases, as shown in the report of the Medical Superintendent. Less than 8% returned and remained of discharges in 1908-1910 inclusive. The period is in the nature of things, still a short one. As many patients as possible have also been sent out relieved to the care of their friends. There can be no doubt that this, the chief aim and object of the Mental Hospital, is promoted by the provision of a liberal scientific equipment and facilities in laboratories and clinical apparatus, and encouragement of workers competent to use such. Bu such means high medical, and, reflexly, nursing ideals are fostered and stimulated, and it is upon the maintenance of these that the promotion of recovery is mainly based.
The above is an extract from the annual report written by Morgan Thomas, Chairman of the Visiting Committee
With paint peeling from the walls and doors left to rot, these eerie photographs provide a fascinating insight inside an abandoned mental hospital.
St John’s Asylum in Lincolnshire was known for its electric shock treatment – and rife with stories about inmates committing suicide in their padded cells.
These pictures were captured by student Jonathon Tattersall, 22, after he visited the now-derelict hospital to get a closer look of what remained inside.
This is not Laura’s last post but should be read before Mental Health and Museums which is the final post, sorry for the incorrect order.
As in my previous post, the unsympathetic development of asylum architecture can very often relegate the history of an institution to a few folders in a county archive, with complete denial of the building’s former use a common marketing trope, as at Princess Park Manor. As an aside, I am currently living in London, and regularly see properties at the Manor – Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, as was – advertised in the Evening Standard. I have never once seen any mention of the building’s original use. However, in the face of the alternative – demolition or collapse – perhaps development is the only possible route to survival for many of our listed hospitals.
One development in the south of England has proved to be much more sympathetic. Moorhaven Village, formerly Plymouth County Asylum, was developed as a set of homes within the footprint of the hospital, as far as possible (there were a few minor alterations to facilitate access). Moorhaven’s developers were able to use the hospital’s architectural features, for example, its south-facing design (a requirement of all asylums, as mandated by the County Asylum Act 1845) and it’s arrowhead formation, to split the site into individual family homes, without altering the footprint of the building. The developers established protective covenants ensuring the uniformity of the building’s exterior in the future, and have created a management company, funded by the sale of the properties and a small service charge, which protects the building as a whole.
Moorhaven is situated in a National Park. This is significant; it provided additional protection to the hospital that others have not had. Location is a key factor in preserving these sites – Princess Park Manor is unlikely to have survived even in its current form, were it not within greater London, where sympathetic conversion (often more expensive than demolition and rebuilding) will return a greater yield.
One example of a hospital that has had no such protection, Talgarth Asylum, has been extensively damaged by vandalism and neglect. The developers of Moorhaven had been asked to look at developing the site along the same lines, but the found it to be damaged beyond repair. In an interview for my dissertation, one developer stated “In its current state, I would value it at zero”.
In this regard, I think Whitchurch Hospital does have a certain measure of protection. It is not nearly so isolated as Talgarth, and sits within a relatively affluent borough of Cardiff. It’s also bounded by the Melingriffith and Church Road conservation areas, and is of course, a listed building (although many of the Asylums left to dereliction have also been listed). Hopefully, this means that in the event of the hospital’s closure, over-development or negligent dereliction can be avoided.
October 2013
In my next and final post on the topic, I will talk a bit more about preserving the history of the hospital as well as the building. Whitchurch has not only played a significant role in the development of mental health care in Wales, but it has also been important to the whole of Britain, hosting many international research conferences and pioneering new techniques in the early-twentieth century. It has also, perhaps most importantly, played a significant role in the lives of its staff, its patients, and the local community for over 100 years.
To find out more about Moorhaven Village, visit www.moorhaven.org.uk
Thanks again to Laura for her guest posts
Fundraising Events 2013, at St Mary’s Church Hall, Church Road, Whitchurch village
Booksale
Friday and Saturday 1st and 2nd of November, 10am – 4pm
Christmas Fayre
Saturday 30th of November 1:30pm
Fundraising events 2013
Whitchurch Hospital in the autumn sun
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