I’m coming towards the end of my placement with George Marshall Medical Museum, so I’m now starting to compile the work that I’ve done! It’s been almost two months since I started my placement, and I’ve spent the majority of my time researching patients at Powick Asylum, to try and find out about their family history, and their lives outside of the Asylum.
As I described in my last blog, I’m definitely learning as I go along, and over the past few weeks I feel that I’ve become more confident with using source material such as censuses, marriage records, and birth and death records. I talked before about the difficulties of using these sources, and I’ve definitely run into more obstacles since! This has meant that for some of the patients, I’ve been able to find extensive family histories, but for others, I’ve been unable to find them outside of Powick at all!
One of the more peculiar things that I’ve come across is the 1901 census for Powick. I’ll use Joseph Lowe as an example to demonstrate this. Below is a snippet from the 1891 Halesowen Census, which lists that Joseph Lowe is a fifty-year-old rivet maker from Halesowen, and that he lives with his housekeeper and domestic servant Jane Jones. Typically, this is what most censuses look like, although they do vary between years and places!
1891 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Islington, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Shropshire & Worcestershire, England
However, the 1901 Powick Census looks a little bit different.
1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Powick, Upton on Severn, Worcestershire, England
Instead of names, the patients have been listed by their initials alone, and there is no indication at all of where they were from. This is the only census I have come across in my research so far that looks like this, and as you can probably guess, it hasn’t been very helpful!
For Joseph Lowe, I knew he was a patient at Powick in 1901, so I searched for his initials in the census, and found two results. His case notes had told me his age that he was a nail and rivet maker, which helped me to determine which J.L. was him.
1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Powick, Upton on Severn, Worcestershire, England
In this case I was able to find the patient I was looking for, but patients with more common initials, or a more common occupation, are much more difficult to find, and this means that there are some gaps in the research that I’ve done.
I’ve been able to find quite an extensive family history for some of the patients I’ve been researching, and every person’s is different! Joseph Lowe’s life was quite interesting. He lived at the same address for his entire life, even after both of his parents died, and he didn’t marry until he was 50, when he married Jane Jones, who had been his housekeeper for over 20 years!
I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all of the patients I’ve been researching, and being able to create a picture of their lives. Mental health is something that’s very important, both to me and to Louise Price, the curator of the museum. Louise has tasked me with creating summaries of these patients and their lives, for visitors of the museum to be able to read, and to get to know them as people, not just as patients! I’m very excited for people to be able to learn about these patients when the museum re-opens. This research is very time-consuming, and it’s definitely hard work, but it’s also one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever done!