Last year I started cataloguing the County Lunatic Asylum records which are part of our Quarter Session collection. I soon discovered that the material contained numerous handwritten and printed reports. These were mainly annual reports written by the Medical Superintendent of the asylum, the Committee of Visitors and the Commissioners in Lunacy. The latter two wrote reports after carrying out inspections of the institution. A first, I thought these would make very dry reading but soon found that they offered a wealth of information about life in the asylum and the types of challenges they faced. 

A report from the Committee of Visitors for the year 1866 revealed some interesting information about a short cholera outbreak in the asylum that year. It named four patients who contracted the disease and died. The word attacked refers to the time they were diagnosed. 

The Committee of Visitors reported that luckily there were no other cases but sadly they had the disagreeable duty to perform of investigating the outbreak. It is noted that the death of Ralph Havis ended in the resignation of the Assistant Medical Officer, Mr Hughes. On the 24 November 1866, The Morpeth Herald reported that medical staff in the asylum were being investigated on alleged charges of neglect. They stated that an inmate in the institution had died of cholera and was not attended by a doctor until after he had passed away.  

At the time of the outbreak, Richard Wilson was the Medical Superintendent. His annual report for the year 1866 mentions the sudden outbreak of cholera which occurred towards the close of the year. He claims that the crowded state of the asylum caused much anxiety as there were no suitable detached buildings for the immediate isolation and treatment of infected patients. He respectfully suggests to the Committee of Visitors that they could consider building a small, detached building where sick patients could be comfortably and suitably tended as well as isolated from the other inmates in the case of extreme fever or epidemic outbreak. 

Unfortunately, Mr Wilson was unsuccessful. The Commissioners in Lunacy visited the asylum on 27 February 1867 and their report stated that they were strongly of the opinion that it was not desirable to construct places for the sick away from the immediate vicinity of the medical officers. They suggested that it would be preferable to make some additions to the rooms that had been formed out of the old asylum bathrooms which had been used during the prevalence of cholera the previous year. 

In the Medical Superintendent’s report for 1898, it is noted that the deaths from phthisis (tuberculosis) continue to be excessive in number. The Superintendent of the asylum is now Mr T. W. McDowall. In his report he points out that there is still a great need for a detached hospital for the early separation and treatment of infectious diseases. He states that the north of England is at the present time threatened with an epidemic of smallpox and at any time this loathsome and dangerous disease could be introduced into the asylum population.  

By 1901, the Committee of Visitors appear to be taking things more seriously as their report refers to the urgency of building an isolation hospital. This it appears was partly in response to concerns raised by the Coroner of North Northumberland in a letter to the Committee.  

Alnwick, 5^th March, 1901 

Dear Sir, 

I held two inquests, one on Saturday last and one yesterday, at the County Lunatic Asylum, Morpeth, on the bodies of pauper lunatics, both of whose deaths were attributable to erysipelas [infectious disease of the skin] following upon slight wounds accidently received. In enquiring yesterday into the means of isolation for infectious diseases (and it is well known that erysipelas is a highly infectious disease), it appears that both paupers had been in one ward, and that there is no infectious ward at the asylum for the isolation of infectious cases.  

The jury added a rider to their verdict in the case yesterday as follows: –  

“The jury desire to record that they have learned from the evidence with surprise that there is no infectious hospital, or means of isolating infectious cases, at the asylum, and they consider such defect should be immediately remedied.” 

I sincerely trust that your committee will immediately take the matter into very serious consideration, especially so, as it was given in evidence yesterday that the subject had been more than once brought to their attention, both by the Superintendent Medical Officer and by the Lunacy Commissioners. 

Yours, &c., 

Chas. Percy, Coroner. 

The report from the Committee of Visitors for the year ending 31 March 1902, states that plans for an isolation hospital have been forwarded to the Secretary of State and the Lunacy Commissioners. Plans had originally been drawn up to accommodate ten patients, but the Commissioners recommended that this should be changed to six patients to reduce costs.  

In his report for the year ending 31 March 1902, Medical Superintendent Mr McDowall, mentions five deaths due to typhoid. His frustration is evident, and he isn’t afraid to note that the want of an isolation hospital has always been a serious defect in the arrangements of the asylum. He states that it is now more than twenty years since he directed attention to this matter and it is only quite recently that a decision was made to provide a small hospital where cases of infectious diseases could be removed and thus diminish the risk of contagion.  

Northumberland Archives is a heritage partner to the The Village Halls Heritage project. The project was developed by Community Action Northumberland (CAN) and aims to preserve, record and share the heritage of many of Northumberland’s Village Halls. The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. On 19 November 2021 a group of nine representatives of Village Halls across Northumberland visited our searchroom at Woodhorn to learn about sources to trace the history of their Hall and how to look after documents in their care. One of the group members, Alison Cowen, has written about her visit.

Twenty one years ago my husband and I moved into Newton on the Moor.  We soon found ourselves joining in events held at the Jubilee Hall and when our son came along we used the hall to host his christening and birthday parties.  When I found out about the Village Halls Heritage Project I jumped at the chance to delve into the history of the building. I love history, so the chance to visit the Northumberland Archives, at Woodhorn, as part of the Village Halls Heritage Project Training was right up my street.

As I stood outside the gates with several other members of the project I felt a shiver of excitement, or was it just the cold?

Once inside we were given a very warm welcome by head of the archives, Sue Wood. She explained Northumberland archives are split over two sites with the one at Berwick upon Tweed covering the area from Berwick in the north of the county as far south as Ellingham and takes in the villages of the Cheviots. If you are covered by the old Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council, then that’s where your records are held. Woodhorn covers the remaining county of Northumberland.

The archives collect a huge range of documents and photographs, sometimes given as a gift for example by a family or as a deposit by a particular body such as a social club. They receive these from both official and private sources with the aim of preserving them future generations and to make them available as a resource for people, such as ourselves, researching a particular topic or investigating their family tree.

We were then able to go ‘back of house’. This took us behind the scenes to the vast secure strong rooms. These are sealed rooms that have their temperature and moisture levels carefully controlled to keep the documents in as good a condition as possible. All the shelves were full of boxes, electronic and moved at the touch of a button. I couldn’t help thinking it would make a great setting for a murder scene, archivist squashed by shelving! (this can’t happen as there are safety features built in). Each set of shelves had a number and each box on the shelf a number. Finding something must be like a giant game of Battleships. Another interesting room was where, subject to copyright, documents, maps, photographs etc, can be copied for a small fee. Apparently TV production companies often use this facility for period detail such as posters.

Back in the public search room we learned how to use the catalogues and indexes which were all linked to the numbers on the shelves and boxes in the strong rooms. If you want to visit the archives you can book a session using the online form via their website. You explain the topic you’re exploring and a researcher will have several documents from the strong rooms waiting for you. It seems quite straight forward.

Sue had put on a display of images and other documents relating to village halls that were currently stored at Woodhorn. I was delighted that several related to my own Jubilee Hall in Newton on the Moor. We were shown how to use various online resources including Northumberland Communities and the British Newspaper Archives. The latter is a subscription service, however if you have a Northumberland Libraries card you can visit this site free of charge at any county library. My own village hall was used as an example as to what could be found and I was amazed to find that the hall had been used as the venue for a music event attended by some quite influential people at the time in the late 1800’s. Fascinating.

If you’ve got any records, pictures etc in your own village hall it may be worth depositing them at Woodhorn. It’s very easy and you still ‘own’ them and the copyright of them, so that if you don’t want them available to the public in a particular time frame because someone is still alive and may be upset by this if it was made public, you can say so. There a uncomplicated form to complete and the staff are both helpful and knowledgeable.

We were encouraged to think about the environment we store our village hall documents in. When you deposit them at Woodhorn they go to great lengths to clean dust and mould from everything storing them in acid proof boxes with brass fastenings. Julia (Plinston) is going to look at potentially buying suitable products in bulk so that each hall can purchase smaller quantities from her. Apparently one of the worst set of documents to clean came from the old Dickson, Archer and Thorp solicitors in Alnwick. The property was almost Dickensian and some of the documents were covered in pigeon poo!

I personally could have stayed all day and can’t wait to get started researching my own village hall in the New Year.