Catalogue description East Kent Lunatic Asylum/St. Augustine's Hospital, Chartham

Finding the Medical Records of an Individual Patient

The most comprehensive records of patients are the medical case books/papers. These are arranged initially by date of admission to the hospital or later by date of discharge, transfer or death. Thus if you know the date of death, then the registers of removals, discharge or death will list the date of admission. The medical case books/papers can then be ordered.

If the information on an individual is from a particular census you will need to examine the register of arrivals and admissions. Once the date of admission has been ascertained, the medical case books/papers can be ordered.

Long-stay patients who were admitted before 1914 often have both an entry in the case books and a case paper file. Long-stay patients also have more than one page in the case books. Often the case notes are continued in the rear of the volume or in a continuation volume (e.g. MH/T3/Mc 18-20 and MH/T3/Mc 52-54).

Useful Reading: Specific

Allen, Rosemarie. 'History of a Hospital (St. Augustine's Hospital, Chartham)'.

Bygone Kent. Vol. 11. No. 12. December 1990

Canterbury & Thanet NHS Trust. St. Augustine's Hospital, 1875-1975

Useful Reading: General

Smith, Leonard D. 'Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody': Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England. Leicester University Press. 1999

Bourne, Susan & Chicken, Andrew H. Records of the Medical Professions: A Practical Guide for the Family Historian. 1994

CLASSIFICATION SCHEME

A ADMINISTRATION BY GOVERNING BODIES 1854-1993

Aa 1-38 Annual reports 1876-1953

Ab 1-2 Records of the Commissioners in Lunacy 1875-1960

Ac 1-42 Minutes of the Chartham Asylum Visitors Committee, Chartham Mental Hospital Sub-Committee, Hospital Management Committees and St. Augustine's and St. Martin's Hospital Executive Committee and sub-committees 1919-1980

Ad 1-16 Records of administration of the Chartham Asylum Visitors Committee, Chartham Mental Hospital Sub-Committee, Hospital Management Committees and St. Augustine's and St. Martin's Hospital Executive Committee and sub-committees 1872-1979

Ae 1-3 Minutes of the Asylums Committee of the County Council, later the Mental Hospitals Committee 1916-1948

Ah 1-20 Minutes, agendas and papers of Canterbury and Thanet Health District, District Management Team 1977-1985

Aj 1 Minutes, agendas and papers of Canterbury and Thanet Health District, District Planning Group 1982-1985

Ak 1 Notes of meetings of Canterbury and Thanet Health District, District Unit Administrators in the Psychiatric Sector 1975-1978

Al 1 Minutes, agendas and papers of Canterbury and Thanet Health District, Senior Staff meetings 1982-1985

Am 1-15 Minutes, agendas and papers of St. Augustine's Hospital Group, Medical Advisory/Executive Committee/Division of Psychiatry of the District Medical Committee/Medical Staff Committee 1957-1986

An 1 Minutes of St. Augustine's Hospital Works Committee 1979-1985

Ao 1-3 Agendas and correspondence of St. Augustine's Nurse Education Committee 1970-1974

Ap 1-5 Correspondence and minutes of St. Augustine's Hospital staff committees 1951-1986

Ar 1-19 Printed reports, rules and regulations 1854-1993

Az 1 Miscellaneous 1958

C GENERAL ADMINISTRATION 1875-1971

Ca 1-4 Medical Superintendent's journals 1875-1909

Cb 1-6 Administration files 1934-1971

Cd 1-10 Church of England Chaplain 1875-1945

Ce 1-2 Roman Catholic Chaplain 1893-1959

Cg 1-3 Inventory books 20 Century

Ch 1-3 Matrons' reports 1919-1945

Cs 1-7 Staff records 1898x1969

F FINANCE 1875-1963

Fa 1 Annual accounts 1893

Fb 1-5 Stewards' reports 1910-1948

Fc 1-12 General ledgers 1938-1950

Fd 1 Union accounts 1925-1938

Fg 1-2 Reports of the auditor 1896-1914

Fp 1-8 Patients' accounts 1944-1962

Fs 1-8 Staffing accounts 1875-1963

Fz 1-2 Miscellaneous accounts 1914-1929

G BUILDINGS AND ESTATES 1894-1963

Ge 1 Estate rentals 1894-1963

K RECORDS OF PATIENTS 1875-1975

Ka 1-21 Registers of arrivals and admissions 1875-1975

Kb 1-7 Registers of the state of wards 1971-1972

Kc 1-14 Civil registers 1907-1948

Kp 1-27 Registers of patients 1875-1960

Kr 1-29 Registers of removals, discharges and deaths 1875-1973

Ks 1-14 Registers of deaths 1907-1957

Kt 1-3 Day hospital attendance registers [St. Martin's Hospital, Canterbury] 1966-1971

Kz 1-6 Miscellaneous records [patients, burials and infectious diseases] 1875-1974

M RECORDS OF MEDICAL CARE 1875-1973

Mb 1-3 Registers of medical history 1939-1945

Mc 1-69 Medical case books 1877-1949

Md 1-258 Medical case papers 1925-1948

Mj 1-17 Medical journals (patients) 1875-1925

Mk 1-9 Medical registers 1907-1949

Mo 1-9 Registers of operations 1930-1973

Mp 1-13 Post-mortem/necropsy books 1875-1943

Mr 1-6 Registers of mechanical restraint and seclusion 1890-1961

S FRIENDS OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOSPITAL 1955-1985

Sm 1-3 Minutes 1955-1985

Z MISCELLANEOUS 1966-1980s

Za 1-2 Printed material 1966-1980s

The hospital was managed on a daily basis by staff but administered by a series of governing bodies and this is reflected in the arrangement of the records. The records of administration by governing bodies are held under MH/T3/A. The day-to-day general management of the hospital by staff is held under MH/T3/C, with the financial administration being held under MH/T3/F. The administration of the estate is held under MH/T3/G.

Records of patients were maintained by the records department and are divided between patient records (e.g. admissions, removals, deaths), which are held at MH/T3/K, and medical records, which are held at MH/T3/M. Further sections of the catalogue are miscellaneous records at MH/T3/Z and the records of the Friends of St. Augustine's Hospital at MH/T3/S.

EK/TR4 Photocopy plans of St. Augustine's Hospital, 1972 and 1975

Held at East Kent Archives Centre

EK/U9 Items relating to the architecture of St. Augustine's Mental Hospital, 1992

Held at East Kent Archives Centre

MH Records of the Ministry of Health

Held at the Public Record Office

MH/Md2 Records of Barming Lunatic Asylum (later Oakwood Hospital)

Held at the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone

Uncatalogued Records of the Canterbury and Thanet Health District

Held at the East Kent Archives Centre

East Kent Lunatic Asylum, Chartham

St Augustine's Hospital, Chartham

Under the Public Records Act 1958, some classes of documents are subject to statutory embargo periods. These include medical records, which are closed for 100 years; personnel or sensitive records, which are closed for between 50 and 75 years; and administrative and financial records, which are closed for 30 years. All closed records are listed as such.

Limited access to closed records can be granted, but only after compliance with strict guidelines. Please ask staff for further information.

Deposited by St. Augustine's Hospital/Canterbury and Thanet Health Authority, July 1993 and August 1994, under the terms of the Public Records Acts

Acc EK 1993/1 and EK 1994/1

• Chartham, Kent
• Health services

The first publicly-run lunatic asylum in Kent was situated at Barming Heath, near Maidstone. By June 1872 it was clear to the County Quarter Sessions that one asylum was insufficient for the needs of the county. As a result, the Kent New Asylum Committee was constituted. After a short period, the Committee purchased 120 acres on Chartham Downs near Canterbury, with the intention of building an asylum to serve the whole of East Kent. The site was described by the Commissioners in Lunacy as being in 'so bleak and elevated a position, exposed on all sides'. The site was approved by the Commissioners only after intervention by the Secretary of State.

The first asylum buildings were designed by John Giles and Gough and built between 1872 and 1875. On 5 April 1875, the first patients (East Kent patients housed at Barming Heath) arrived at the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, Chartham Downs. Staff in the first year consisted of a medical superintendent, sixty nurses, a chaplain, a clerk/steward and ten tradesmen. These were overseen by a Committee of Visitors formed by the County Lunatic Asylum Committee of Quarter Sessions.

On the removal of many of the administrative powers of Quarter Sessions in 1889, responsibility for managing the asylum passed to Kent County Council. From 1920, the managing committee of the county council was the Kent County Mental Hospitals Committee.

With the formation of the National Health Service in 1948, Kent County Council was absolved of responsibility for the hospital. Renamed St. Augustine's, the hospital, along with St. Martin's Hospital (formerly Canterbury City Mental Hospital) was run by the St. Augustine's Hospital Management Committee (later Hospitals Executive Committee). This committee was responsible to the Canterbury and Thanet Health District, later Authority.

The hospital closed in 1993 and redevelopment of the site was started in 1997.

History and Development of the Site

1872 Site purchased for £6,236

5 April 1875 The first patients arrived

1875 The gas works were in operation

1876 Accommodation had been built which could accommodate 870 patients at a cost of £211,852

1887 A twenty bed sanatorium was added (later used as a night nurses home)

1893 A new mortuary was built

1898 Hawthorn, May and Hazel blocks were opened

1924 New blocks were added

1910 Staff recreation rooms were added

1929 An operating theatre was built

1931 A new nurses home was built (later named Godfrey House)

1938 The mortuary was redesigned

1939 Admission block and two convalescent villas were built at a cost of £60,000. These were taken over in 1940 and used as a military hospital.

1948 A report on the inception of the National Health Service listed a total estate of 300 acres, 200 of which were under cultivation and 73 residences for staff

Records of Individual Patients

Patients from East Kent usually came to St. Augustine's, with a few exceptions. From 1902, Canterbury Borough had its own Mental Hospital (later St. Martin's Hospital). Prior to this, Canterbury Borough patients were reported as being in various location including Fisherton House, Wiltshire and in 1896 at Derby County Asylum. Often, St. Augustine's took patients from surrounding counties who could not be housed in local asylums. This was particularly true of the London boroughs. During World War I, patients from a number of counties were transferred to Chartham as a result of their usual hospital being requisitioned by military authorities. These patients are listed in separate admission and discharge books. The hospital was also part of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) during World War II. Records of the EMS in this hospital are not held.