HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS
The institutions that once housed the sick, destitute or unstable were often vast, self-sufficient communities that generated huge quantities of paperwork. While the survival of archives is patchy, these can be rich seams for family historians to mine.
Before the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, there were various types of care – private institutions, charitable hospitals or dispensaries, and those operated through the local Poor Law. The
