henry maiden

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Henry Maiden spent his entire adult life in mental institutions. Apart from a two-year period when he was sent to the Derby Borough Asylum, this fifty year span was spent at Powick Asylum. He was first admitted in 1868, aged 21, with his address given as Kidderminster and his occupation as Shoemaker.

Henry’s birth was registered in Kidderminster in 1847, in which his name is spelled Mayden. The names of his parents and his actual date of birth are not recorded, but there is a baptism record for a Henry Maiden, baptised on 29 March 1847 in the parish of Chaddesley Corbett. His parents are listed as Samuel Brace, a wheelwright from Upton Warren, and Ann Maiden, from Chaddesley. The fact that they have different names and were not living together means that Henry was illegitimate.

In the 1841 census, Ann Maiden, aged 17, was employed as a servant in the village of Stone, while Samuel Brace, aged 14, lived with his mother and siblings in Kidderminster. In the following census, Ann was now a servant in a magistrate’s clerk’s household in Dudley. Samuel, now 24 and a wheelwright, is listed as a visitor to a home in Chaddesley Corbett. Was it possible that he was there to visit his son?

Both Samuel and Ann married, but not to each other. Ann’s marriage record does not give her husband’s name, so it is not possible to trace her any further. Samuel married Elizabeth Bishop in Birmingham on 30 September 1855, and the censuses of 1861 to 1891 record the names of eight children. Samuel died on 3 June 1905, leaving over £1000 (a considerable sum in those days) to his daughter Anne Elizabeth Brace, and two coal merchants named Herbert and William Gardener, perhaps nephews.

In the 1851 census, Henry, aged four, was living with his grandparents, William and Esther Drew in Chaddesley Corbett. William and Esther had married in 1839, with Esther’s surname given as Maiden, and listed as a widow. Her previous marriage, to George Maiden, in February 1823, has given her four children, Henry (baptised in May 1823, so Esther was pregnant at the time of her wedding, not uncommon in those days), Anne (1825), Mary (1827) and Eliza (1829). George died in 1830.

Henry’s whereabouts in 1861 are somewhat of a mystery. He would have been fourteen years old that year, so he should have been at home or at a school, but there is no one of his name, with his birthdate and birthplace, recorded anywhere in Britain in the 1861 census. There is no one listed under the name of Henry Mayden, Brace or Drew. He was not in the returns from Chaddesley Corbett, nor in those from Kidderminster Workhouse.

Henry Maiden was first admitted to the Powick Asylum on 20 May 1868, suffering from acute mania. The cause of his malady was rather poetically described as “Disappointment in love”, but then adds that dreaded word “Syphilis”. An incurable condition at the time, it would be forty years before Dr Paul Ehrlich developed his “magic bullet”, Salvarsan. If Henry really did suffer from syphilis, his case notes make no mention of the disease.

The admissions register notes that Henry was admitted from the Kidderminster Union [Workhouse] but unfortunately the register of the workhouse is closed for reasons of privacy, so we do not know when he was admitted. As he does not appear in the 1861 census return for the workhouse, one must assume that he was admitted sometime between 1861 and 1868.

He appears in the census returns from Powick for 1871 and 1881, then in the Derby Asylum census return from 1891, then from Powick again from 1901 and 1911. In three of these returns, he is listed simply by his initials.

Throughout his time at Powick Henry suffered from a number of ailments, including catarrh, pneumonia, impetigo, hallucinations of hearing, sciatica, fractured ribs, coughing, eczema, bronchial breathing in both lungs, and haemorrhoids. At the same time, however, there are notes that mention “Heart & lungs act normally”. Most often, he was treated with Sulphonal, a drug first synthesized in 1888, and used as a sedative and to induce sleep.

During his incarceration Henry proved to be a bit of a nuisance. Time and time again, his case notes mention that he was disruptive, talking loudly, incessantly, and incoherently swearing, breaking windows, and tearing up his clothes and bed linen. When not causing havoc, he worked in the shoemaker’s shop, or on the ward, or on the asylum farm. He also enjoyed playing the tin whistle (“& will do so all day if allowed”) and collected buttons and bits of cloth with which he decorated his coat.

Unfortunately, we do not have a complete set of Henry’s case notes. The volumes containing case notes for the last two years of his first incarceration, and the volumes for the last eleven years of his second incarceration are either missing, or were never deposited at the Hive. Therefore, it is not possible to have a complete record of his time at Powick.

The asylum became overcrowded, and the management made an arrangement with Derby Borough Asylum to take thirty patients. Henry was one of those patients transferred to Derby in June 1890. He appears in the 1891 census return for the Derby Asylum, listed merely as HM, and noted as a “Worcester County Patient”. Unfortunately, this is the only record of his time at Derby. The records of the Derby institution are not available online, so we do not know how Henry got on there.

He was transferred back to Powick on 5 March 1892. The admission note again gives “Disappointment in love” as the cause of his affliction, and again adds “Syphilis”, but this time the word is crossed out. Unfortunately, he seems to have not changed his behaviour at all. The first case note after his return to Powick reads “March 10   Is suffering from Chronic Mania. Talks in a rambling & excited manner, about his strength, his work & his abilities. His language is often filthy & obscene, & his habits most destructive. He has delusions of sight & hearing, & is dangerously disposed. Is well nourished, & his heart & lungs are acting well.”

Again and again Henry’s case notes fail to record any change in his condition. The case notes become shorter, with fewer details on his misdeeds and behaviour. Henry died on 30 April 1918 and was buried on 4 May. The cause of death is not recorded, and autopsy reports at the Powick asylum are not available before 1920, so the reason for his death is unknown.

Written by Cathy Broad, 2025

To view Henry’s patient records, click here.

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