Last month we were looking through a file of order papers for patients at Herrison Hospital, the Dorset County Lunatic Asylum. Order papers were created for all patients who were admitted to Herrison and they are the best place to start when looking for information about particular cases. They state the reasons for a patient’s admission and record personal details like age, marital status and next of kin.
We get a lot of enquiries about Herrison patients, so looking through this file wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But in this case we did find something unusual – a paper for ‘A Man Unknown’ (ref. NG-HH/CMR/4/32H/5222). His age, marital status, profession, and religion were all recorded as ‘not known’, and no relatives were known of either. This was a mystery that deserved some investigation!
As it happened, the order paper did not originate at Herrison. It was from Epsom in Surrey, where the Man Unknown had been admitted to the London County Asylum, Horton, on 29th September 1904. It revealed that he had been ‘found wandering by the police’ – P.C. George Brown stated that the patient came to him in Shaftesbury Avenue and said he did not know who he was or where he lived or anything about himself.
“He says he does not know his name, nor where he lives nor the names of any of his friends. Keeps answering to every question ‘I don’t know’.”
We thought this story might have a tragic ending, but that was not the case! The front of the document revealed that the patient was to be removed to the Dorset County Asylum at Dorchester as he was chargeable to Poole Union. This meant that, somehow, it had been discovered that he lived in Poole. Indeed, it was noted at the bottom of the page that his wife, Mrs Scanlan, lived at The Pines, Serpentine Road, Poole, with their son, Horace J. Scanlan.
Filed with the order paper was a removal order, dated 30th November. This gave the patient’s name as Horace Edward Scanlan.
So who was Horace Edward Scanlan and why did he lose his memory? To try to find out, we had a look at one of the casebooks for Herrison (ref. NG-HH/CMR/4/14a/5). From this, it appeared that the patient eventually regained some of his memory, for he was able to tell staff that he was an engineer by trade and had been engineer superintendent of Bournemouth Steam Packet. He also revealed that he had swamp fever when he was 21 years of age, had been a heavy drinker and took drugs for sleeplessness.
The casebook showed he was diagnosed with ‘mania’, for which the cause was assumed to be alcohol and sleeping drugs. The prognosis was favourable. Over the next few months, his mental health improved until on 13th February he was ‘discharged as recovered’.
Using the British Newspaper Archive, we found an article published in Lloyd’s Weekly News on 9th October 1904 which explained how Horace’s name and address had been identified: after he was found, a description of him had been published in the Daily Chronicle and a Mr Charles Summers of Swanage wrote in, stating that the description matched that of his friend, Horace Edward Scanlan of Poole. The article went on to say that
‘enquiries instituted on receipt of this communication led to the discovery that Mrs Scanlan had identified the “lost-memory” man as her husband’.
Mr Scanlan had apparently been known to suffer from loss of memory in the past, and it was surmised that he absent-mindedly boarded a Waterloo train and became lost in London.
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Coincidentally, while looking for Horace’s entry in the casebooks, we came across another unknown man, and this one was even more mysterious! Having located the right casebook (ref. NG-HH/CMR/4/14a/8), we found that this ‘Male Person’ was discovered walking the High Street in Lytchett Minster, naked. A Dr Telfordsmith declared him to be insane, after not being able to persuade him to answer any questions. The doctor also noted that he was liable to shout seafaring remarks!
Upon admission to Herrison on 30th September 1904, the unknown man claimed that his name was Henry Octavius Keegan, and that he was an Irish American with two brothers, whose mother lived in Philadelphia. The casebook records his story as follows:
“He is a seaman on board the barge Arthemia lying in India Dock London. He left the ship on the 24th Sept dressed in blue serge suit and sailors’ peaked cap with £52 odds in his pocket. Met in with 2 women had some drink and remembers no more till he was brought here by the police.”
The staff at Herrison declared that Henry had probably been drugged and was not insane. He remained in Herrison for a little over a month, during which time he was observed to be in good health. He even wrote a letter to his mother ‘in which he says he will never touch drink again’. He was discharged on 11th November.
We had a look on Ancestry to see if we could find any more details about Henry’s life, but despite his rather unique middle name we found very little. The only record we came across was an incoming passenger list for a ship which left Southampton on 12th November and arrived in New York on 20th November. Henry Octavius Keegan, an American whose last address was in Dorchester, appears on the list, but the entry has been crossed through and the words ‘not on board’ written on top of it.
So, did Henry ever make it to America? Did Horace return to his job as an engineer? We will no doubt do a bit more digging into the life of Horace (and hopefully Henry if we can find any more records!) so keep an eye out for another blog about these Unknown Men in the future.