Correspondence Files arranged by name of Patient

The bulk of the correspondence files on patients are contained in this series: these comprise individual folders for patients, which include the correspondence of the Medical Superintendent and his medical assistants with patients' relatives and friends concerning patients' health, treatment and other personal and administrative matters, and also correspondence, mainly from the Retreat Secretary, relating to patients' accounts. The files contain both incoming and copies of outgoing correspondence and occasionally other material is also included such as admission agreements and some medical notes on voluntary patients. The period covered by the files is roughly c.1900 to c.1960. The arrangement of these files on transfer to the Borthwick Institute was rather confused and it was difficult to establish with certainty the original order. Some files containing correspondence to and from the Secretary, mainly concerning accounts, were wrapped in bundles labelled 'Patients Accounts' or 'Secretary's Correspondence'. Other files, containing letters mainly to and from the Medical Superintendent concerning patients' health and treatment (although also containing correspondence about accounts), was parcelled in bundles labelled in a variety of ways: 'Patients deceased', 'Patients Recovered', 'Medical Case Records', 'Patients Left', 'Patients Transfers'. The bundles may not have represented an original sequence (except in so far as there was a rough divide between the correspondence of the Secretary and of the Medical Superintendent), but may merely have been the result of correspondence files being bundled up and put away when they were no longer current. As a consequence, there were many alphabetical sequences of patients' files among the bundles. In addition, however, a start had been made at some time during the past at rationalising the files into a single alphabetical order, and most (though not all) of the folders of patients' surnames A - G had already been brought together In view of this unsatisfactory state of arrangement, a complete reordering was made in 2004 when this new catalogue was compiled. All patients folders were re-filed in one single alphabetical sequence. This brought together files originally belonging to the Medical Superintendent and to the Secretary, so that sometimes there is more than one folder per patient. The accession of further archives from the Retreat in 2006 brought in a further 165 boxes of correspondence files on patients. These have now been inter-filed with those already catalogued in 2004, to make one sequence arranged in alphabetical order by name of patient.

c 1900-1960

273 boxes

The material described within the catalogue seen on the Wellcome Library’s website is available under normal conditions for archives and manuscripts material.

Access to correspondence files where material is less than 100 years old is restricted under the Data Protection Act 1998. Files of this type have not been digitised and do not appear within the catalogue information at the Wellcome Library: for information on these files please make direct contact with the Borthwick Institute for Archives.

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