An effort was made to identify how many male patients had entered the Powick Asylum* between 1 and 8 times between 1852 to 1920. Dr. Henry Felix Fenton had worked at the asylum from 1908 and became its Medical Superintendent in 1920. According to Ronald Sandison (Assistant Medical Superintendent in the 1950s), this period was under the ‘Dead Hand of Fentonism’, and Fenton destroyed what had been a highly successful mental institution for almost 70 years. Between 1920 and 1949 there are no records available in the archive so research the author of this Blog conducts is impossible to recreate after 1920.
Between 1852 and 1920 there had been 4797 male patients at the Powick Asylum. Of these patients 1880 had been in the institution on two occasions. There were then 90 other patients who had been in between 3 and 8 occasions. In these cases:
57 were there on 3 occasions
15 were there on 4 occasions
8 were there on 5 occasions
5 were there on 6 occasions
4 were there on 7 occasions, and
1 was there on 8 occasion.
There were thus 2827 male patients who made solitary visits to the asylum
*The institution had been the Worcester City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum until 1890, and became Powick Mental Hospital from 1920.