Yarmouth - Norfolk - (South Denes)
Royal Naval Hospital Yarmouth - 1811
Royal Barracks South Denes (before 1818)
Yarmouth Royal Military Lunatic Asylum
- 1844
Crimea and
after - 1854
Yarmouth Naval Lunatic Hospital - 1863
Yarmouth Naval Hospital - 1931 (Act)
St Nicholas Hospital
- 1956
"Many military buildings have been built in Great Yarmouth over
the years. One of the most striking is the Naval Hospital, which was
originally for sailors wounded in the Napoleonic Wars. It then became a
barracks, but was
converted back to a hospital 40 years later
and was used
to
accommodate sailors who were mentally ill. Hence the navy slang
to
describe those sailors who are showing signs of mental wear and tear is
going to Yarmouth."
(online leaflet -
archive
"The naval hospital at Great Yarmouth had been constructed between 1809 and
1811 to treat the sick and wounded of the North Sea Fleet."
(Jones and Greenberg 5.2006) -
"It was completed in 1811 at a total cost of £120,000 and was built
to receive 198 wounded in the Navy during the war with France, but no naval
wounded ever arrived."
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
From Crisp's History of
Yarmouth (1877?) -
archive copy -
offline text
The Royal Hospital or Asylum built by Government at a cost of
£120,000
Foundation stone laid by Admiral Rilly Douglas in 1809
The building was erected by Mr Peto (father of Sir Samuel Morton Peto)
from designs by H. Pakington, Esq., for a Naval Hospital. "The rooms in
front are 150 feet long, and the whole area within the Asylum is about
fifteen acres, and the interior arrangements are admirable, to say nothing
of the spacious court-yard to the north".
Opened 1811?
13.3.1812 The South Gate taken down and sold for £26 to
Mr.
Jonathan Poppy. It presented, two massive round towers, flanking a square
curtain, beneath which was the arch.
1815 600 wounded men from Waterloo lodged in the Naval Hospital
"It was next turned into a barracks but was rarely used as such".
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
St Nicholas Gatt, the seaway approach between sandbanks, became shallower
and unsafe for men at war. The Admiralty converted the hospital to a foot
barracks. (History, gazetteer, and directory of Norfolk, 1845)
April 1818 (passage written)
Excursions in the County of Norfolk "The most splendid
public ediface in Yarmouth is the royal barracks (originally intended for a
naval hospital) on the South Denes." - "Nelson monument now building on the
South Denes between the royal barracks and the haven's mouth" (page 117)
"In 1844 it
became a military lunatic asylum and was used for this purpose for ten
years."
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
1844 The Naval Hospital converted into a Lunatic Asylum.
"Taken over by
the army in
1844, it housed a 'Military Lunatic Asylum' until the outbreak
of the
Crimean War when the Admiralty re-acquired the building."
(Jones and Greenberg 5.2006)
"The hospital was inspected by Commissioners during the period it was used
as a military lunatic asylum-that is, in 1844 and 1845"
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
Dr Sillery was the staff surgeon initially in charge.
October 1846 Patients moved from
Shorncliffe
to Yarmouth
February 1847
Charles Alexander Lockhart Robertson (1825-1897) was
Asistant Staff-Surgeon for five years. Previously at
Dunston Lodge.
Appointed after a short service as
Assistant Surgeon in the Army. (1896 retirement notice)
18.5.1848 to 24.6.1852 Lunacy Commission Reports on the Royal
Military Lunatic Asylum, Yarmouth numbers 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 in the
National
Archives
at MH51/42
See also Royal Military Lunatic Asylum at
Fort Pitt
June? 1848 Volume seven of The half-yearly abstract of the
medical sciences
(January to June 1848)
, edited by William Harcourt Ranking (of Norwich), included, for
the first time, a "A Report on the Recent Progress of Psychological
Medicine".
This was written by
Charles Lockhart Robertson.
(offline)
["Assisted Dr Ranking, of Norwich, in
preparing his 'half-yearly abstract', in which his thorough knowledge of
French and German was of great service." (1896 retirement notice)
5.5.1849 Unsuccesful application by Charles Lockhart Robertson for
the post of Resident Physician and Superintendent in the
Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum
7.2.1851,
Andrew Smith promoted to inspector-general when
Sir James McGrigor retired as director-general. He had been
deputy inspector-general since 1845.
Lockhart Robertson (1856) says Andrew Smith "believes that the
insane patients of the army are best cared for by a frequent change of
medical officers, inexperienced as regards the treatment of mental
disease."
September 1851
Charles Lockhart Robertson resigned as he was
refused permission to continue working at the Yarmouth Asylum. He wrote to
the Secretary at War: " It cannot, I think, be "questioned by any competent
member of the medical profession, that the practice of frequently handing
over the insane patients of the army to the care of officers quite
unconversant with the practice of this special department of medicine, is
alike injurious to their interests, and to the scientific status of the
Military Lunatic Asylum." - "His tenure of office at Yarmouth
having expired, he resigned the Army service,
entered at Cambridge, graduated as M.B. in 1853, and practised as an
alienist physician for four years in London. In 1858 he was appointed
Medical
Superintendent of the
Sussex County Asylum, then in course of erection.
This post
he
held until 1870, when he was appointed
Lord Chancellor's Visitor."
(offline)
Towards the close of 1852 George Russell Dartnell (1799-1878), Army
surgeon in charge of the Military
Lunatic Hospital, Great Yarmouth. He had returned to Britain in 1843. By
1854 he was Deputy Inspector-General, Army Medical Department. After
retiring from the army in 1857, he operated Arden House Private Lunatic
Asylum at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire which he also owned from 1858 to
1876.
25.2.1853
Andrew Smith became Director-General of Army
Medical Services.
The
Naval Hospital Muster Books for Haslar finish in 1854
May 1854 "The Yarmouth Hospital ceased.. to be
"occupied as
a hospital for military lunatics, possession of it
having been resumed by the Board of Admiralty for the
purposes of a general hospital foi the sailors of the Baltic fleet...
The lunatic patients at Yarmouth consisted of
19 officers, 69 soldiers, and 5 women... The Secretary
at War having requested our opinion as to the best mode of
providing for those inmates, we named
Grove Hall, Bow, as
a well-conducted asylum, and capable of affording proper
accommodation for the soldiers and women; and ...
Coton
Hill Lunatic Asylum Hospital, (an
institution under good management, near Stafford,) for the
officers... But we trust the arrangements thus made are
"merely of a temporary character". (May 1850 report of the Commissioners in
Lunacy, quoted
(Lockhart Robertson 1856)
"On the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 the Admiralty claimed the
building. The military patients were removed and the place fitted to
receive wounded from the Baltic, but none ever came".
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
20.7.1855
Question in House of Commons subsequent to a leading article in the
Asylum Journal (No. 11) about the breaking up
of the Military Lunatic Hospital at Yarmouth, and (No. 12)
Charles Lockhart
Robertson writing "actuated by a natural sympathy with the
present sad state of my former patients."
3.3.1856
Hansard: Colonel Henry Boldero "had minutely visited the
lunatic asylum at Chatham
some years ago, and was disgusted and horrified with what he saw. After
some considerable difficulty he had found a building, an unused barrack at
Yarmouth exactly fitted for the purpose; he had reported this to the
Government, who had sent down a medical officer, whose report was
unfavourable. He was not discouraged; he obtained leave from the Government
of the day to take down other officers, and at last he prevailed upon the
Government to have the lunatics transferred to that place. He was
astonished to find that they had been retransferred again to Chatham." Told
"that the reason was simply this. The buildings in question belonged to the
Admiralty, and as there was an expectation of a large number of invalid
seamen during the war, the Admiralty had reclaimed the property, and the
War Department had no choice but to give it up."
"When peace was
declared the War Office again took over the hospital and it was used by
them as a convalescent hospital for soldiers."
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
July 1858 Fifty-seven invalids, mostly Indian sufferers, arrived at
the Military Hospital on the South Denes from
Chatham -
(Crisp)
11.7.1859 Eighty invalids, mostly Indian sufferers,. arrived at the
Military Hospital on the South Denes from Chatham. -
(Crisp)
The
building was re-modelled in 1863, and 37 new wards added, by Mr. G.
Tyrrell. Eighty inmates were received the same year (September) from
Haslar, making a total of 169. [See
Netley]
"In 1863 the Admiralty again claimed the building, this time for the use of
naval lunatics. Various alterations were then made. The boundaries were
enlarged by taking in ground on the north and west sides and by the
purchase in 1865 of about ten acres from the Corporation of Yarmouth at a
cost of £10,982."
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
The eleven acres of ground on the east cost the Government
£11,000 in 1875.
The
Twenty Second Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy
(1867/1868) includes a "Report on Yarmouth Naval Lunatic
Hospital" (See Rossbret site)
1914-1918 "During the War arrangements were made for the admission
of a number of ex-naval patients chargeable to the Ministry of Pensions".
(Hansard 3.3.1931)
3.3.1931
Hansard Yarmouth Naval Hospital Bill - House
of Lords - Contains detailed history - "The hospital has been continuously
used by the Admiralty as a mental hospital since 1863 and is still so
used." - "The Ministry of Pensions are also anxious to increase the number
of patients they have under treatment at Yarmouth by removing them from
other institutions, and thus providing further accommodation for civil
patients". Currently 119 patients. About ten new naval patients a year
anticipated. Ministry of Pensions want to transfer between 100 1nd 130
patients. "There is normal peace accommodation for 213 patients, but this
number could be increased to 260".
Report of the Royal
Commission on the
Law Relating to
Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency. 1954-1957, paragraph
880: "The Yarmouth Naval Hospital Act, 1931 Under this Act special
procedures are laid down for the admission, detention and discharge of
patients in the Yarmouth Naval Hospital. Persons who may be admitted as
patients include officers of the Royal Navy or Royal Marines whether they
are on the active list or not, and certain other categories of persons who
are serving of have previously served in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines,
Royal Fleet Reserve, Royal Naval reserve or Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve,
and also other war pensioners already detained elsewhere under the Lunacy
and Mental Treatment Acts (except voluntary and temporary patients). The
procedures for the compulsory admission, detention, visitation and
discharge of patients in this hospital (other than voluntary patients)
differ in many ways from those which apply to certified and temporary
patients under the Lunacy and Mental Treatments Acts. We understand that
the future of this hospital is at present under consideration, and that
changes are contemplated which, if approved, would involve the abolition of
these special procedures. It seems to us desirable that the procedures and
safeguards which we have recommended for patients in other hospitals should
also apply to patients in this hospital.
Queens Road, Great Yarmouth.
Simon Cornwall::
Originally: Naval Hospital/Barracks
Built: 1800-1811. Architect: Henry Pilkington.
Converted to housing.
Clive Baulch: This building opened 1876. Closed as a naval
hospital in
1956. Became NHS.
St. Nicholas' Hospital in Great Yarmouth, the former Royal Naval
Hospital, was attached to the
St Andrew's Hospital under the Yarmouth
Hospital Transfer Act 1957
1960 Hospital Plan 245 beds. Planned to close by 1975
31.12.1977 211 beds. Mental Illness
Paul P. Davies History of Medicine in Great Yarmouth, Hospitals and
Doctors (ISBN:0954450906), published by the author, Great Yarmouth,
2003. I am told that this has about 100 pages devoted to the Royal Navy
Hospital. This description is taken from an online bookseller:
718 pages of A4 size... history of all the Gt Yarmouth hospitals up to the
opening of the James Paget Hospital in 1981. It includes the General,
Escourt (Isolation), St Nicholas' (Naval), Gorleston Cottage, Gorleston and
Northgate (Workhouse) Hospitals. The various smallpox, cholera and military
hospitals, which at one time were in the town are also included. Details of
many of the past doctors of the town are given, dating back to the 18th
century and the well-established practices are traced back to their
origins. The book is well illustrated with photographs, advertisement and
health notices. Medicine is interlinked witrh local and social history and,
were appropriate, this is included.
|