Bethlem Royal Hospital

Records relating to Bethlem Royal Hospital, colloquially known as 'Bedlam', founded as the Priory of the Order of St Mary of Bethlehem in London in 1247. These records begin when the Hospital came under the control of the City of London Corporation by charter from Henry VIII in 1547.

Founded in 1247 by Goffredo de Prefetti as the Priory of the New Order of our Lady of Bethlehem following a donation of property by Simon FitzMary on the outskirts of the City of London by Bishopsgate, very close to the site of today’s Liverpool Street station. By 1403 the Priory had become a hospital with at least some patients within described as insane, though by 1460 it was primarily being used as a hospital for those suffering from severe mental health issues. It was around this time that ‘Bedlam’, a corruption of ‘Bethlehem’, started to be used as a colloquialism for the hospital. Following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the City of London successfully petitioned the King to grant Bethlem to the city in 1547. Following a brief period under the control of the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, the Hospital came under the control of the Board of Governors of Bethlem and Bridewell in 1557. From this point Bethlem became a charitable hospital for the care of poor ‘lunatics’ whose family or parish had no means or expertise in looking after them. In 1676 the Hospital moved to purpose built accommodation in Moorfields, in a palatial building designed by Robert Hooke that could house 120 patients, doubling the numbers it could accommodate at the previous site. Two ‘incurable’ wings were added by 1739 that housed an additional 100 patients. In 1815 the Hospital moved to a new site at St George’s Fields, Southwark, as the Moorfields site had fallen into an advance state of disrepair. At this site Bethlem also took on the role of the State Criminal Lunatic Asylum, housing those judged to be ‘criminally insane’ up to the establishment of Broadmoor in 1863 in a purpose built wing, paid for by the British state. Following Parliamentary enquiries in 1815 and 1843 the Hospital reformed its treatment practices, and gradually became a place of treatment for the middling class of patient as the expansion of the county asylum network took care of the so-called ‘pauper lunatics’. In 1925 the Southwark site was wound down, and in 1930 the Hospital moved to a purpose-built site in Monks Orchard. This site consisted of multiple low-level buildings in a country park setting. With the onset of the NHS in 1948 Bethlem was joined with the Maudsley Hospital and became part of the centralised health service. The Joint Hospital became the foundation for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust formed in 1999, known as the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust from 2006.

See Andrews et al ‘The History of Bethlem’ for further details.

These records are arranged in the Australian Records Series System, and the catalogue has been adapted for display on Archives Hub. There may be some slight differences in description between this entry and the initial cataloguing work.

Any records containing sensitive personal information of subjects who may still be alive will be closed. Some records may be unavailable for access due to preservation concerns

Full catalogue available at http://archives.museumofthemind.org.uk/brha.htm