Asylum Records for Joseph Fleming / James Evans

[Scott Nelson]

"Four years after the Whitechapel murders, in 1892, Joseph Fleming was admitted to the Stone Asylum, the City of London asylum near Dartford, Kent. Some two and a half years later, in February 1895, he was transferred to Claybury Hospital at Woodford Bridge in Essex. He was still at Claybury when he died on 28 August 1920."

I wonder where Chris got this from?

-- query to heaven

[Jurriaan Maessen]

Chris Scott got everything there is to get from Redbridge, it seems. I put in query a couple of weeks ago in the hopes that maybe by now some missing case notes would have been retrieved from oblivion, but no such luck.
Just received a response from the Redbridge collection officer to my request for any Claybury Asylum records. Unfortunately, the records appear not to have survived. There should be a law against the destruction of documents.

Here's the response I received:

"Dear Mr Maessen,

Thank you for your enquiry, and please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to your email. We have been operating under reduced opening hours with our staff part furloughed until last week, so it’s taking longer to respond to enquiries.
As far as I am aware, the majority of Claybury records were destroyed when the hospital was closed. We hold a small collection, and there are others at the London Metropolitan Archives, however I believe these only cover admissions between 1915-1928.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...?id=32&page=13

We did receive a small number of Goodmayes Asylum records from the North East London Foundation Trust in early 2019, amongst which was a single Claybury Admission Register, but this was for female patients only.
I was successful if finding records for a James Evans in two of our Claybury volumes:
Male Admission Register (covering admissions from May 1893 - December 1898)
List of Male Patients (covering patients admitted between 1893 and 1907)

Please note that list of male patients simply repeats the information in the admission register. Whilst we do have some male case notes for 1895, the case note books only covers male patients admitted up to mid-January 1895.
I can provide you with a typed transcript of the records for James Evans (for a fee of £10), however I note the details of Mr James Evans’ admission have already been published on the following forum:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...laybury-asylum

Kind regards,

****
Collections Officer

Redbridge Museum & Heritage Centre

Redbridge Central Library, Clements Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 1EA

[MrBarnett]

Chris Scott got everything there is to get from Redbridge, it seems. I put in query a couple of weeks ago in the hopes that maybe by now some missing case notes would have been retrieved from oblivion, but no such luck.
Just received a response from the Redbridge collection officer to my request for any Claybury Asylum records. Unfortunately, the records appear not to have survived. There should be a law against the destruction of documents.

Here's the response I received:

"Dear Mr Maessen,

Thank you for your enquiry, and please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to your email. We have been operating under reduced opening hours with our staff part furloughed until last week, so it’s taking longer to respond to enquiries.
As far as I am aware, the majority of Claybury records were destroyed when the hospital was closed. We hold a small collection, and there are others at the London Metropolitan Archives, however I believe these only cover admissions between 1915-1928.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...?id=32&page=13

We did receive a small number of Goodmayes Asylum records from the North East London Foundation Trust in early 2019, amongst which was a single Claybury Admission Register, but this was for female patients only.
I was successful if finding records for a James Evans in two of our Claybury volumes:
Male Admission Register (covering admissions from May 1893 - December 1898)
List of Male Patients (covering patients admitted between 1893 and 1907)

Please note that list of male patients simply repeats the information in the admission register. Whilst we do have some male case notes for 1895, the case note books only covers male patients admitted up to mid-January 1895.
I can provide you with a typed transcript of the records for James Evans (for a fee of £10), however I note the details of Mr James Evans’ admission have already been published on the following forum:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...laybury-asylum

Kind regards,

****
Collections Officer

Redbridge Museum & Heritage Centre

Redbridge Central Library, Clements Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 1EA

That’s a real shame.

I received a similar email from them when I enquired about the records of Thomas Fogarty (Pearly Poll’s husband). Fortunately in Fogarty’s case he was transferred to another asylum for the last few months of his life and his case notes from there, and an amazing photograph, are still in existence. That was some compensation, but by the time he reached the other asylum he was very withdrawn and barely able to communicate. The Claybury records dated back several years to when his mental illness was first diagnosed in an East End infirmary, and those case notes may have been much more revealing.