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Severalls Mental Hospital, Colchester

EmmaB84

EmmaB84

Brummie babby
Hi, i'm not sure where to post this as it's also about surnames not just the facility.

Alfred Cecil Palmer (my great granduncle) was a Staff Sergeant major. In 1909 at age 29 he married a 17 year old Polly Eveline Reynolds.

In 1939, I found that Polly E Palmer in Severalls Mental Hospital, still married and labelled as "incapacitated". It looks like she died in that facility in 1941.

One year later in 1942, Alfred aged 63 married a 40 year old Grace Jessie Searley. One of my distance relatives said he took pity on her, she was always asking for money for her "ventures" and was a strange and mean woman. Apparently Alfred himself was also a very harsh man, probably due to his army background.

Alfred died in 1948, and Grace lived until 1994. Unfortunately I couldn't find much on her, it was noted in the baptismal records that her mother had "a bogus marriage with a Spaniard" and so no fathers name was listed.

I suppose my main interests in this was trying to find out exactly what it meant for a married, "incapacitated" woman to be sent to a mental hospital and especially die there 2 years later. Severalls had been knocked down and redeveloped into apartments so any other records were very hard to find. I'd love to find out more about this mysterious Grace woman as well if possible.

I do have other details for places and dates if anyone needs it.

Regards,
 
EmmaB84 said:
Hi, i'm not sure where to post this as it's also about surnames not just the facility.

Alfred Cecil Palmer (my great granduncle) was a Staff Sergeant major. In 1909 at age 29 he married a 17 year old Polly Eveline Reynolds.

In 1939, I found that Polly E Palmer in Severalls Mental Hospital, still married and labelled as "incapacitated". It looks like she died in that facility in 1941.

One year later in 1942, Alfred aged 63 married a 40 year old Grace Jessie Searley. One of my distance relatives said he took pity on her, she was always asking for money for her "ventures" and was a strange and mean woman. Apparently Alfred himself was also a very harsh man, probably due to his army background.

Alfred died in 1948, and Grace lived until 1994. Unfortunately I couldn't find much on her, it was noted in the baptismal records that her mother had "a bogus marriage with a Spaniard" and so no fathers name was listed.

I suppose my main interests in this was trying to find out exactly what it meant for a married, "incapacitated" woman to be sent to a mental hospital and especially die there 2 years later. Severalls had been knocked down and redeveloped into apartments so any other records were very hard to find. I'd love to find out more about this mysterious Grace woman as well if possible.

I do have other details for places and dates if anyone needs it.

Regards,
Click to expand...
Hi and Welcome to the forum. The term incapacitated then may have been a catch all definition covering a number of various mental or physical illnesses. Today its defined as any diagnosable medical condition, including mental dementia and severe, permanent medical or cognitive disability, that prevents the inmate from completing activities of daily living without significant assistance.

In those days many people were diagnosed with mental illness were institutionalised in the many Victorian lunatic, mental or insane asylums in many large towns. Unfortunately, back then understanding and treating mental heath conditions was as you can imagine quite challenging, and undeveloped so people were “put away” for their own good.

Not every inmate of an institution would have been diagnosed with mental illness. There institutions did also hold young unmarried women who had become pregnant. There are also records of women in the infamous Bedlam Asylum who were put there by husbands as a back door method of divorce. This tended to before the wealthy

Good luck with your research
 
mw0njm. said:
interesting post mort thanks. i wonder if the wife was section'd did it mean they got a automatic divorce? and they could re-marry.
Click to expand...
Never a straight froward answer to this, but we can kick ideas around. Marriage was really a financial contract for wealthy people. So divorcing your wife could give rise to breach of contract. If you have married the daughter of a wealthy business family, you may have to give the dosh back.

So have her put away but stay married and play around. Sorry I’m not suggesting we all do this, but it did happen in the past.
 
Morturn said:
Never a straight froward answer to this, but we can kick ideas around. Marriage was really a financial contract for wealthy people. So divorcing your wife could give rise to breach of contract. If you have married the daughter of a wealthy business family, you may have to give the dosh back.

So have her put away but stay married and play around. Sorry I’m not suggesting we all do this, but it did happen in the past.
Click to expand...
i did read that the only way was through parliment and you had to have to have a very good reason so say they are mad commit them out the way.:(
 
Morturn said:
Never a straight froward answer to this, but we can kick ideas around. Marriage was really a financial contract for wealthy people. So divorcing your wife could give rise to breach of contract. If you have married the daughter of a wealthy business family, you may have to give the dosh back.

So have her put away but stay married and play around. Sorry I’m not suggesting we all do this, but it did happen in the past.
Click to expand...
I'd be worried more if it were my own parents or grandparents so no issue there! I suppose we might not ever know the real answer.
 
I don't think it is as simple as divorcing someone because of insanity.
Prior to the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937 (so pre-1938), access to divorce in England and Wales was quite limited.

It is correct to say that a divorce could not be granted on the grounds of imprisonment or insanity - but it also could not be granted on the grounds of cruelty (absent adultery), desertion, or simply both parties being fed up with one another. However, it's not really meaningful to ask "the only reasons a divorce couldn't be granted" - there were fairly few reasons a divorce could be granted. Until 1938, it was basically adultery and only adultery, or a nullification.
Even after that act it seems that things were still not simple. It appears to be a question of whether the insanity caused the reason being cited as grounds for divorce.
 
EmmaB84 said:
Hi, i'm not sure where to post this as it's also about surnames not just the facility.

Alfred Cecil Palmer (my great granduncle) was a Staff Sergeant major. In 1909 at age 29 he married a 17 year old Polly Eveline Reynolds.

In 1939, I found that Polly E Palmer in Severalls Mental Hospital, still married and labelled as "incapacitated". It looks like she died in that facility in 1941.

One year later in 1942, Alfred aged 63 married a 40 year old Grace Jessie Searley. One of my distance relatives said he took pity on her, she was always asking for money for her "ventures" and was a strange and mean woman. Apparently Alfred himself was also a very harsh man, probably due to his army background.

Alfred died in 1948, and Grace lived until 1994. Unfortunately I couldn't find much on her, it was noted in the baptismal records that her mother had "a bogus marriage with a Spaniard" and so no fathers name was listed.

I suppose my main interests in this was trying to find out exactly what it meant for a married, "incapacitated" woman to be sent to a mental hospital and especially die there 2 years later. Severalls had been knocked down and redeveloped into apartments so any other records were very hard to find. I'd love to find out more about this mysterious Grace woman as well if possible.

I do have other details for places and dates if anyone needs it.

Regards,
Click to expand...
May I ask if the people concerned are connected to Birmingham?
 
pjmburns said:
May I ask if the people concerned are connected to Birmingham?
Click to expand...
Hi, yes I was just thinking about that and worried i'd be in trouble! Alfred and most of my family come from Birmingham. He also married Polly Eveline (who passed in Severalls) in Aston.

Also yes I have noticed alot of peoples names swapped back and forth with their first and second names in many records.
 
EmmaB84 said:
Hi, yes I was just thinking about that and worried i'd be in trouble! Alfred and most of my family come from Birmingham. He also married Polly Eveline (who passed in Severalls) in Aston.

Also yes I have noticed alot of peoples names swapped back and forth with their first and second names in many records.
Click to expand...
Not in trouble :D . I just wondered so we knew where to start searching. Although we are Birmingham History Forum we like to help but the more info we have eg date or place of birth, childrens' names etc all help.
 
Hi Janice, well I found lots of records a while back with the exact name, same details etc but the birthday was 1 whole week off, so I left them alone. But seeing one of my distant cousins tree has saved some of the medal photos that list also that incorrect birthday (but still list the correct birthday on his main profile) leads me to believe they are all his records. So I am just going through them at the moment to resave. Hopefully I will be able to dig a bit deeper
 
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