In a previous post, I wrote of Sarah Hardiman, the first (and only legal) wife of my Great Grandfather George Hardiman. George Hardiman was a journeyman silversmith, born in 1839 in an impoverished part of Clerkenwell, North London. Sarah (nee Withall) was born ten years later. Sarah was a ‘lunatic’. Apparently.
Family history has taken me to some interesting places, both physically (to archives, museums, streets) and mentally, as I work my way through a tangle of lives that are only ordinary at the most cursory glance. What shocking things we learn when we dig deeper.
A few weeks ago I met with Rosemary Morgan of London Roots Research for a genealogy and friendly catch up. We met at the London Metropolitan Archives where I wanted to look into the records of Banstead Mental Hospital, where, as I wrote in that previous post, I had discovered Sarah had died in the early 1930’s.
Banstead Asylum, as it was orignally called, only closed in 1986 but had a history that went back more than a 100 years. In 1873 the Middlesex County Council bought Hundred Acres Farm for the sum of £10,000 to build its third mental asylum.
The Banstead Asylum opened in 1877. It housed 1,700 patients, two thirds of whom were female. Each block, which housed 160 patients, was designated by a letter. Block A was the female infirmary, Block H the male. Blocks B to F and Block L housed women and Blocks J, K and M men. Continue reading “Sarah’s story – family history and poetry from the darkest places…”
No more wriggling out of writing ...... 