General Ledgers

The General Ledger was the main financial record of the Retreat, under the double entry bookkeeping system, showing all its financial transactions under the various account headings, with cross references between the folios showing the debit and credit sides for each entry As financial transactions became more complex over time, the finer detail of transactions in the General Ledger becomes less evident in many of the accounts because the Ledger entries are themselves summaries of information in supporting volumes. However, the General Ledger was from the beginning supported by volumes a which contained details of some information only summarised in the Ledger. A notable example of this was the House Expenses, which were detailed in the House Expenses Book, analysed in the Household Cash Book, and then totalled in the General Cash Book before being entered as totals in the General Ledger: see House Expenses Books RET 3/4/1, Household Cash Books RET 3/4/2, and General Cash Books, RET 3/2/6. Other supporting volumes detailed patients' disbursements, RET 3/10/1, subscriptions and donations, RET 3/1/2/3-6, and salaries and wages, RET 3/5/1 The Journals and the General Cash Books were the key series which supported the General Ledger: their role is discussed under RET 3/2/5 and RET 3/2/6 As time went on, the General Ledger was sub-divided into parallel series, reflecting the increasing volume of information: separate Patients' Ledgers began as early as 1816, see RET 3/2/2; in the twentieth century there were separate Bank Ledgers, Ret 3/2/3 and Trade Ledgers, RET 3/2/4 Throxenby Hall and Millfield, branches of The Retreat, kept their own supporting accounts, see RET 7/3/4

1792-1925

6 volumes

Open and available at the Borthwick Institute for Archives. This material has been digitised by the Borthwick Institute for Archives as part of a Wellcome Trust funded project, and can be freely accessed online through the Wellcome Library catalogue.