Kent Family History Society

"I was very pleased to be asked to speak at the Thanet Branch of the Kent Family History Society in Birchington last month. This was my fourth visit and it was good to see familiar faces as well as some new ones. The Society has always been welcoming and my talk on Hospitals-Their Records and where to find them elicited of plenty of questions. I look forward to returning for a fifth time."

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Thanet Branch - Report for February

At our February meeting, Lady Mary Teviot spoke on 'Hospitals - their records and how to find them'.  She gave a brief history of hospitals and explained the different types of hospital which developed during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Among them, voluntary hospitals, founded through philanthropy, took patients nominated by subscribers and were quite particular as to the patients they admitted.  Asylums were open for the mentally ill and sanatoria isolated, and attempted to treat tuberculosis cases, whilst cottage hospitals were opened from the 1860s, Mary explained what records, including for patients and staff, were likely to survive and where they might be found (usually country records offices, but see the National Archives database).  As to how they might be accessed, whilst records are often closed for 100 years, applications by relatives, under the F.O.I. Act, could succeed.  She lightened the talk with some amusing examples of odd diagnoses and misbehaviour of patients and staff.

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Birchington Parish Council Magazine
Spring 2019

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More on this and on other topics

The Schedule of talks for 2019

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