caroline martin

find out more about caroline martin

Caroline Martin was born Caroline Bright in 1845, in Toddington, Bedfordshire, to William and Sarah Bright. As a child, Caroline worked as a Straw Plaiter. Her father was an Agricultural Labourer and a Plant Dealer. Caroline had one brother, named Ezra John. Caroline’s mother died in 1857, and so she lived with her now widowed father, and younger brother Ezra.

In 1866, Caroline Bright married Frederick Martin, in St Michael-Penkevil, a small village in Cornwall. The time they spent in Cornwall was in between the 1861 and 1871 censuses, so we aren’t sure of their living circumstances during this time, but the 1871 census notes that their children Frederick (1867) and Maud (1869) were born in Truro, which suggests that they lived there for a number of years. They went on to have more children, namely: Albert, Seymour, Edward, and Marrietta.

Her Husband Frederick Martin worked as a gamekeeper, and the couple lived together at the Gamekeeper’s Cottage in Hanbury, where Frederick was head gamekeeper for Sir Henry Foley Vernon of Hanbury Hall. Whilst Caroline was a patient at Powick, her husband Frederick retired and became a boarder at the New Inn, in Hanbury. Frederick died on the 2nd of February, 1912.

Caroline Martin was admitted to Powick Asylum on the 24th of January 1888, where she was treated for acute mania, supposedly brought on by a quarrel with her husband. She was discharged and returned twice, when she was then admitted for a prolonged period of time, between 1896 and 1906. After being discharged from Powick in 1906, Caroline went to live with her son, Frederick Henry Martin, who was working as the Head Teacher of an Elementary School in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. It’s unknown whether Caroline continued to live with her son, but she died in Gainsborough in 1929.

To view Caroline’s patient records, click here.

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