old asylum stories revealed in photographs
Researchers are using century-old photographs from the former Bristol Lunatic Asylum to gain insight into the lives of patients during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. While the photos were originally intended as diagnostic tools, they are now viewed as evocative records of human experience and recovery.
Why it matters
These archives provide a humanizing perspective on the history of mental health treatment and the evolution of psychiatric care.
Share Save Add as preferred on Google Anthony Ward Bristol Bristol Archives Alice Kate Berth suffered from melancholia, a subtype of depressive disorder characterised by a loss of pleasure in all activities Century-old photographs of patients treated in a mental asylum during the Victorian and Edwardian eras are being unearthed to give a rare insight into the lives they led.
Paul Tobia, a former mental health nurse, is devoting his time to studying the patient records of people treated at the hospital known, at the time, as Bristol Lunatic Asylum.
Tobia already leads talks about the patients, and the photographs are being exhibited at the Glenside Hospital Museum, based near Frenchay.
He said: "From about 1890, they started taking photographs of the patients, and these I became particularly interested in because they were really evocative. I felt they really brought the patients to life."
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