UK-WORKHOUSE-HOSP-L Archives

Archiver > UK-WORKHOUSE-HOSP > 2003-08 > 1060896557


From: Peter Lindley <>
Subject: Re: [UK-W&H] Life in Asylums 1914 to 1918
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 22:29:17 +0100
References: <4.3.2.7.0.20030812224943.00b0ea80@pop.clara.net>
In-Reply-To: <689o5+A76WO$EwRx@varneys.demon.co.uk>


Eve Many thanks for your message. Your points about contact with the
outside world are very well made. However, I'm afraid that I have very good
evidence both from asylum records and the Board of Control (the managing
agency for all of the asylums) records that flour rations (and some other
foodstuffs) were dramatically reduced and in 1917 that the BoC instructed
the asylums to substitute part of the flour rations with potatoes. Also I
have the results of a national survey of the menus/diets provided in all
the asylums with a 100% response rate. These very clearly show a very poor
and monotonous diet. I still have a lot of work to do of course and will be
looking carefully at the Visitors Committee records the few that I've seen
so far have nothing at all to say about the rationing even the Medical
superintendents reports that I've looked at rarely mention this. There's a
lot of work left to make sense of what happened but the most compelling
evidence is the BoC inquiry of 1918 that explicitly links the reduction in
the quality and quantity of essential foodstuffs chiefly flour with the
increase in death rates. Following this report flour supply was increased
and the death rates reverted to the pre-war level.
regards
Peter

At 23:48 12/08/03 +0100, you wrote:
>In message <>, Peter
>Lindley <> writes
> >Eve, Thanks for your message. I will most certainly look very closely at
> >the impact of the flu epidemic in the Asylums but even the BoC seemed to
> >think that the impact of flu was not felt as keenly in the Asylums as it
> >was amongst the general population. What do you think about the idea that
> >in some ways the Asylums were protected against the worst of the flu
> >epidemic because many of them were remote from centers of population also
> >many staff lived in?
>A fair number of staff lived out, perforce, and the most able bodied
>patients were occasionally allowed to do agricultural work outside (in
>rural areas) for pocket money, and especially in wartime, so there would
>be mixing. I don't think thast the flour ration would be withheld -
>remember asylums were subject to regular inspection by local dogooders
>who were usually only too keen to pick holes in any perceived
>administration defects.
> I can see people in institutional environment catchiung things more
>readily than people outside, in fact, since they mixed communally, and
>all it needed was one man sharing his cold or flu generously with the
>rest......
>--
>Eve McLaughlin
>
>Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians
>Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society
>
>
>==== UK-WORKHOUSE-HOSP Mailing List ====
>Visit Mary Hallett Parish locator
>Website at www.fourbears.worldonline.co.uk
>
>==============================
>To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records,
>go to:
>http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237

******************
Peter Lindley

******************

This thread: