Two years ago I launched an
Xmas "Competition" to identify the mentally ill patients who were resident in Harpenden Hall in the 1851-1901 censuses.
The results were very satisfactory but there were five patients, listed only by initials, who could not identified.
At the
HALH meeting last Saturday I discovered that
Gary Moyle, of HALS, has contributed a chapter
Madhouses of Hertfordshire 1735-1903 in the newly published book
A Caring County? Social Welfare in Hertfordshire from 1600 [review planned]. Gary's chapter includes a list of the known patients at Harpenden Hall and this has allowed me to put names to the initials of these five "missing" patients. They were:
From the 1851 census
H P = Henry Pigott [1850-1853 - died of epilepsy] Unmarried, 35, Formerly
Stock Brokers Clerk, St Albans, Herts
From the 1891 Census
S, E = Eliza Slack [1890-1891] Widow, 56, Widow Of Solicitor
C, E
= Ellen Mary Crump [1888-1893] Widow, 31, Daughter Of Solicitor, London,
Primrose Hill Rd
B, E E A = Ellen Annette Eliza Bertlin [1889-1891] Widow, 27,
Daughter Of Merchants Widow, Hampstead, London
A, R C = Rosa
Clemence Ashwell [1890-1896] Widow, 50, Daughter Of Clergyman C Of E,
Wales
The dates are the dates the patient was in the asylum, and it turns out that some of the initials were mis-transcribed. If you can expand on any of the above, linking them to their families, etc, I can include the additional information when I update
the existing list of "census" patients next month.
