BOTLEYS PARK HOSPITAL, CHERTSEY: RECORDS

The main series of records comprise:

6206/1/ PRE-1948 MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES AND SUB-COMMITTEES 1932-1947
For further records relating to the early history and administration of the hospital, see 6206/3/-.

6206/1/ Botleys Park Hospital Standing Sub-Committee 1932-1937

6206/1/ Surrey County Council mental hospitals committee 1937-1939

6206/1/ Annual reports 1939-1947

6206/2/ POST-1948 MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES AND SUB-COMMITTEES 1948-1981
For further records relating to the administration of the hospital after 1948, see 6206/4/- and 6206/5/-.

6206/2/ Botleys Park Hospital Management Committee 1953-1981

6206/2/ Botleys Park Hospital Management Committee annual reports 1948-1964

6206/2/ North West Surrey Group Hospital Management Committee 1956-1972

6206/3/ PAPERS RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT AND EARLY HISTORY OF BOTLEYS PARK HOSPITAL UNDER SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL 1929-1948

6206/4/ ADMINISTRATION 1950-1989

6206/4/ Statistics and financial estimates 1959-1986

6206/4/ Files of Botleys Park Hospital group secretary/administrator 1950-1976

6206/4/ Files of the unit general manager, mental handicap services, North West Surrey Health Authority 1978-1989

6206/4/ Architectural drawings, 1972 1984

6206/5/ FILES OF THE DIVISIONAL NURSING OFFICER, LATER DIRECTOR OF NURSING SERVICES 1969-1986

6206/5/ North West Surrey Health Authority 1969-1985

6206/5/ North West Surrey Community Health Council 1983-1986

6206/5/ SW Thames Regional Health Authority 1980-1983

6206/5/ National Health Service re-organisation 1980-1983

6206/5/ Staffing 1972-1984

6206/5/ Patients 1969-1986

6206/5/ Botleys Park Hospital School 1972-1983

6206/5/ Murray House, Ottershaw 1978-1984
For further records relating to Murray House see 6206/9/-.

6206/6/ STAFF RECORDS 1938-1985
For further records relating to staffing, see 6206/3/5-8, 6206/5/13-23 and 6206/8/2.

6206/7/ PATIENT RECORDS 1920s-1990s
For further records relating to patients, see 6206/2/7, 6206/5/24-36 and 6206/8/2.

6206/7/ Case files 1920s-1990s
There is also a card index to deceased patient files, giving name, date of birth, date of admission, where admitted from, diagnosis, I.Q., next of kin and date of death.

6206/7/ Patients' money account books 1941-1976
The volumes contain a record of payments by employers to resident and non-resident patients. They give name of patient, name and address of employer, amounts paid and often date of birth, date of admission and National Insurance number of patient.

6206/7/ School of occupational therapy 1956-1977

6206/8/ PUBLICATIONS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS 1930s-1980s

6206/8/ Botleys Bulletin, 'official organ of the Botleys Park Hospital Staff Club' 1949-1978

6206/9/ MURRAY HOUSE, OTTERSHAW 1978-1983
Murray House is adjacent to Ottershaw Hospital, 1½ miles from Botley's Park Hospital. It was used to house the mentally handicapped from 1928 and became part of Botley's Park Hospital. For further records relating to Murray House, see 6206/3/13 and 6206/5/38-40.

6206/10/ CLINICAL RESEARCH PAPERS OF DR H KINNELL, CONSULTANT AT BOTLEYS PARK HOSPITAL 1960s-1980s

6206/11/ SURREY VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL WELFARE 1928-1948

6206/12/ COLLECTED PAPERS RELATING TO OTHER HOSPITALS 1948-1991

6206/12/ Brook House, Green Lane, Addlestone ?1951-1980s

6206/12/ St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey 1948-1973
For further records of St Peter's Hospital, see 6206/4/7.

6206/12/ Glebe Cottage, Virginia Water 1984

6206/12/ Weybridge Hospital 1979

6206/12/ St Thomas's Hospital, London 1991

6206/13/ LONDON MENTAL HOSPITALS SPORTS ASSOCIATION 1967-1987
The hospitals in the Association included Botleys Park, the Epsom mental hospitals, Banstead, Cane Hill, Holloway Sanatorium, Netherne and Royal Earlswood.

6206/14/ CHERTSEY POOR LAW UNION 1911-1912
Murray House at Ottershaw was formerly the workhouse of Chertsey Poor Law Union, which presumably explains the presence of this salaries account book.

Under the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 (3&4 Geo.V, cap.28) 'to make further and better provision for the care of feeble-minded and other mentally defective persons', institutions certified by the newly established Board of Control might receive those deemed idiots, imbeciles or, if under 21, suffering from a lesser degree of mental deficiency, on application of their parents or guardians supported by medical certificates. Other mental defectives might be admitted under a reception order of the judicial authority (in this instance Surrey Quarter Sessions). As an alternative to being placed in an institution a mental defective might be placed under guardianship.

The visitors of licensed houses appointed under the Lunacy Act of 1890 were also to act as visitors of mental defectives in institutions or under guardianship. Such visitors were to examine each defective at periodic intervals (one year from the reception order; thereafter, if the order was continued a further year, at the end of that year; thereafter at five yearly intervals) and were to report to the Board of Control whether the defective was 'still a proper person to be detained in his own interest in an institution or under guardianship'. Those persons originally placed in an institution or under guardianship when they were under 21 were also to be examined on reaching that age to determine whether they should continue to be detained.

Initially Surrey County Council implemented the Act by boarding out patients in institutions belonging to the Metropolitan Asylums Board. In January 1928, the Chertsey Poor Law Guardians sealed an agreement with the County Council for the accommodation of 'mental defectives' in the Chertsey Poor Law Institution, Murray House, Ottershaw, which soon passed into County Council hands in 1930, upon abolition of Poor Law Unions.

The former Godstone Union Workhouse, Clerks Croft, Bletchingley, was also used by the Council to hold people committed under the Act. Existing provision being inadequate, in 1931 Surrey County Council purchased Botleys Park in Chertsey for the construction of a new 'colony for mental defectives' which opened in 1932.

The 18th century mansion house at Botleys Park was adapted to provide accommodation for the nurses' home and new hospital buildings were erected. Mentally handicapped patients were divided into three groups (male, female and children) and were housed in villas in the grounds. Administrative and medical blocks, workshops, kitchens, a recreation hall and school were built at a cost of about £500,000. The institution was formally opened by Lady Henriques, wife of Sir Philip Henriques, chairman of Surrey County Council, on 24 June 1939.

During World War II the hospital was used as a war hospital. Following the passing of the National Health Act control of the hospital was transferred from Surrey County Council to the National Health Service in 1948. The hospital was administered by its own Hospital Management Committee.

By 1951 Botleys Park Hospital also included Murray House at Ottershaw, Brook House at Addlestone, Royal Hostel, Elstead, and Sherborne House, Basingstoke, Hampshire. In 1964 Botleys Park Hospital Management Committee amalgamated with Woking and Chertsey Group HMC to form the North West Surrey Group Hospital Management Committee. It subsequently became part of NW Surrey Health Authority. In the most recent National Health Service reorganisation the hospital became part of the Surrey and Borders NHS Trust.

Records less than 30 years old are closed to public inspection. Records relating to individual patients are closed for 100 years.

Deposited by the Chairman of Homewood NHS Trust in January 1994 and March 1996.

An item level description of the archive is available on the Surrey History Centre online catalogue

For further records relating to Botleys Park Hospital, 1904-1994, see 6305. These include a visitors' report book, 1935-1960; minutes of management committees and sub-committees, 1937-1956; admission registers, 1927-1939; papers relating to the Occupational Therapy School, 1969-1985; contracts and plans for the construction of Botleys Park Colony for Surrey County Council and to the adaptation of Murray House, Ottershaw, previously the workhouse of Chertsey Poor Law Union, 1930-1962; and registers and papers relating to Chertsey workhouse, 1904-1932.

For reports of medical superintendent; registers of services in hospital chapel; St Francis Home records; secretary's files; ward reports; papers relating to the Friends; and photographs, 1935-1998, see 7267/1/-.

The records held as 9853 comprise the main series of patient registers for the hospital from alphabetical registers and admission registers to general registers and discharge/transfer registers. Combined with other patient records, including case files, in accessions 6205 and 6306, this collection provides a virtually complete record of patients passing through the doors of Murray House and Botleys Park Hospital from 1927 up to the 1980s.

For photographs of patients and staff at Botley's Park War Hospital, c.1940-1945, see Z/701. For further papers relating to the war hospital, 1939-c.1999, see 8003. For papers relating to an inquiry into the administration of the war hospital, 1940, see CC73/2/-.