At the time of the First World War 16 nations mobilized over 65 million soldiers; of these 8.5 million were killed, over 21 million were wounded and nearly 8 million were recorded as captured or missing. The First World War brought new, more brutal and more catastrophic methods of warfare and the condition known as… Read more A Soldier’s Struggle
You may remember that, a few months ago, we posted a blog about two ‘unknown men’ who were admitted to Herrison in 1904. One was later found out to be Horace Edward Scanlan, an engineer from Poole, and the other claimed to be Henry Octavius Keegan, an Irish-American who had gone out with two women… Read more A Man Unknown (part 2)
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… Read more A Man Unknown
For many, the Christmas period is a time of sadness as we reflect on people we have lost. For some, it was a time of removal, from one institution to another… Eliza Burbridge was admitted to Banstead Asylum 03 January 1882, on 21 December 1883 she was handed to the Relieving Officer of the Wimborne… Read more Eliza Burbridge and Herrison Hospital
Last year saw the cataloguing of the Herrison Hospital Archive completed by our Project Archivist, Sophie Smith. Sophie’s timing was perfect, leaving us just two days before the first lockdown. However, the conservation of the collection, which still had several weeks to run, was postponed due to the pandemic. This part of the project has… Read more The Conservation of the Herrison Hospital Archive
As Mental Health Awareness Week rolls round again, our Community Engagment Officer, Maria wanted to share a few experiences, reflections and plans from Dorset History Centre. As you may be aware, DHC cares for the records of Herrison Hospital, formerly the County Asylum. These records have been fully catalogued over the course of the last year, thanks… Read more Mental Health Awareness Week 2020
At the end of March (which feels a long time ago now), our project to catalogue the records of the Herrison Hospital collection ended. Before she left, our Project Archivist, Sophie Smith, gave us her thoughts on the project and the collection… — Working with a collection as complex and varied as the Herrison Hospital… Read more Herrison Hospital Collection: A Year in Review
Part of life at Herrison Hospital involved actively encouraging patients to interact with each other and staff, so that the hospital felt more like a community for the patients. In fact, patients who were deemed fit and able by a doctor would be given jobs within the Hospital such as working in the kitchen, laundry… Read more Christmas at Herrison Hospital
Earlier in the year Dorset History Centre had two work experience students join us for a month. In the second of three blogs they have written, Maddie talks us through her experience… — As part of my second year of Museum Studies at Reading University, I undertook a work placement at DHC, in particular indexing… Read more Work Experience and Herrison Hospital
In April, Dorset History Centre appointed Sophie Smith as the Archivist to catalogue the Herrison Hospital collection. In this blog she gives us her thoughts on her first three months… — When this Wellcome Trust funded project at Dorset History Centre began we were tasked with structuring the catalogue of the Herrison Hospital collection. The… Read more Herrison Hospital Project Update
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