How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Hi there
Can anyone help please with this conundrum.
When my 2 x great grandfather Tom Hinchliffe died in December 1928 in the mental hospital at Wadsley from the fatty degeneration of his heart and his home address was also given on his death certificate I automatically thought he had entered there to pass away. However on recently finding his wife and children on the 1921 census there is a note on the entry that states "husband in asylum" I am now wondering was he a long time patient before his death?
Where would I find admissions information or information on his time on the asylum please or can anyone help further? Many Thanks
Re: How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Hi Karen
My 2 x great grandfather, Edward Fordie, also died in Wadsley Asylum in 1903. The records are held by Sheffield Archives and from the notes it seems that he was suffering from something like dementia.
Re: How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Hi
The records are deposited with Sheffield Archives NHS3/5/1 Registers of general admissions, 1872 - 1987
Depending on the date of admission there are also case files which contain photographs of the patients: NHS3/5/16 Case files (males) 1915 - c. 1991
NHS3/5/8 Medical registers (males), 1907 - 1948
Information in staff and patient records may be subject to access restrictions under the Data Protection Act, or may be subject to exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act. For further information please refer to a member of staff.
Re: How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Thanks for the info everyone. I called the archives and it looks like I might have a problem with the freedom of information act and the dates I am looking at but I'm going to go down and see what I can find. Thanks again
Re: How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Hi there
Whist down at the Sheffield Archives ordering the case file of your relative, be sure to ask for all of it, from admission to release or death, in case it comes in two halves (or more) filed separately, as I fell foul of the rules at the time (some years ago) that £10 bought you about 30 mins retrieval time for them to look for the record. (With no mention to me that it was not complete when I picked it up and went home to West Yorkshire) So they only gave me the second half of the whole record for my £10, obviously filed away from the first half. Either my 30 mins retrieval time ran out while they were looking, or sloppy retrieval by the assistants. Hard to tell, as at that time you had to order it in advance, not while you waited.
I don't know what the procedure is these days down there. Luckily there is a reference to the case file pages on each page which, along with the dates of doctors' entries, told me there were other pages before that, from the date of admission, not included in that file.
This filing portions of whole case files separately I assumed happened where there is a break in the individual patient's Wadsley records, when they go to another hospital or institution for a temporary stay, as when Wadsley was used for invalided soldiers during WWI. As in the case of my relative. A mention of the incompleteness of the file on pick up would have been useful when I was in Sheffield, so I may only assume they didn't check its contents before handing it over i.e.sloppy work. Now I learn that I may have got a photograph too with the first half of the file, had I ever gone back again to ask for it. I shall look forward to that visit.
Re: How do I access the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital records
Hi Again
On the Freedom of Information Act access, I didn't have any trouble at all, I said it was my great grandmother, that's was it, I was not asked to prove it. It was well within 100 years of her death and the Freedom of Information Act was in force. I was warned I might have to make all sorts of FOI requests but that was not the case for me.