By chance I found an electoral role record for my great aunt who was in Coleshill Hall in 1939. She had a child when she was 15 and was committed to a mental institution as a result. She spent much of her adult life there. She was born in 1914 and I remember meeting her soon after she had been ”released” which would have been in the 1980’s when she was around 70 herself. She went on to marry someone she had met in Coleshill and integrated back into mainstream life. I can see that many of the inmates in 1939 were young women and I wondered if there was any historical information relating to the incarceration of young woman for having a child outside of marriage / as a minor.
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Coleshill Hall Mental Deficiency Institution
- Thread starter Obitera
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- coleshill hall
Yes, in fact in 1920 my maternal grandfather was born to his 32 year old mother, a domestic servant, out of wedlock and she was disowned by her family and taken into the Salvation Army hostel on Ladywood Road, Edgbaston. He was taken into the care of Martson Green Children’s Home and was later adopted. A forced adoption. She left the area and had no further contact with her family and he never knew her identity. I have discovered it, years after his death. Clearly this sort of thing went on all the time and changed many peoples lives for ever.