Adults and children who died in the old UK long-stay mental handicap hospitals. Can you help with this?
Were these adults and children treated more properly at their deaths than they were in their lifetimes?
Peter Limbrick writes: In January this year I wrote to Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care with the questions below. So far I have had no reply or acknowledgement. While I am asking him again, with the help of my MP, I would like to hear from anyone who has information or who wants to help me in this campaign.
My letter is below and after that I am listing the institutions I was in touch with in the 1970’s. Can you add to my list of long-stay mental handicap ‘hospitals’?
Dear Secretary of State,
Re: Adults and children who died in the old UK long-stay mental handicap hospitals
I was in contact with a lot of these institutions during the 1970s while working for a charity called One-to-One*. They were very enclosed places more or less separate from normal society housing between fifty and seventy thousand people. I am aware that some of them had cemeteries inside their walls.
Do you have a record of people who died in these institutions since the 1950s? Do you have information of where they were buried or cremated? In the case of cemeteries inside institution grounds, do you have records of what has happened to those burial grounds since the institutions were closed down?
I hope my question will be treated by your department as a very serious issue about thousands of lives and worthy of a time investment. If you feel I should send my question to other people, please help with clear information and by personally endorsing my concerns. Please do not refer me to the individual institutions. They have all gone by now or changed their character and purpose.
I am hoping to establish whether these adults and children were treated more properly at their deaths than they were in their lifetimes.
Yours sincerely...
Long-stay mental handicap hospitals that I was in touch with:
|
Aston Hall |
Derby |
|
Bagnall |
Stoke on Trent |
|
Bridge |
Witham |
|
Brockhall |
Blackburn |
|
Bromham |
Bedford |
|
Bryn y Neuadd |
N. Wales |
|
Church Hill House |
Bracknell |
|
Darenth Park |
Dartford |
|
Eastry |
Sandwich |
|
Ely |
Cardiff |
|
Essex Hall |
Colchester |
|
Forest |
Horsham |
|
Forest |
London ? |
|
Harperbury |
Radlett |
|
Hensol |
? |
|
Ida Darwin |
Fulbourn |
|
Lea Castle |
Kidderminster |
|
Little Highwood |
Essex? |
|
Manor House |
Aylesbury |
|
Normansfield |
Teddington |
|
Offerton House |
Stockport |
|
Prudhoe |
Newcastle |
|
South Ockenden |
Essex |
|
St Ebba's |
Epsom |
|
St Margaret's |
Birmingham |
|
Stone House |
Dartford |
|
Turner Village |
Colchester |
