Since the hospital opened in 1852 until it closed in the early 1990s, I reckon that about 3500 staff worked here. Some worked in the place for their entire careers – like 26 year old Richard Clarke who was Appointed in 1901. He retired on pension in 1935 having reached the grade of Charge Attendant. Others like Mary Desmond who was appointed in September 1901, left three months later because, we are told that she “did not like Asylum work”.
We know very little about most of the early staff and it is not really until the 1930s that we can say that we get to know them. There are exceptions of course. A great Charge Nurse – now retired – that I worked with – remembers when he was a young man working with a very senior man called Mick Murphy. Mick is recorded in the Register of Male Attendants as starting as a 3rd Class Attendant in September 1923. If 95 years seems like a very long time, it is just the span of three working careers.
A colleague, who wishes to remain nameless, showed me an exam certificate of her relative – Attendant Ellen Sullivan – who passed the examination of the Medico-Psychological Society in 1899
When we delved a bit deeper into the Records, we found that Ellen had started work in the Asylum in 1893. She was 19 years old. Her name appears in the Register of a Female Attendants for that year.
Now Ellen comes into closer view when we see her in the same book signing “the Obligation” – a commitment to uphold the standards of the hospital and subject oneself to be bound by the rules and regulations.
Another document – this time the Census – captures Ellen. On this night in April 1901, we find Ellen living in the Asylum. The clerk fails to record her home address. But we are just in time. Ellen leaves the Asylum to get married in August 1901 and fades from our records. A brief glimpse of the life of one of our colleagues.
As the generations blend together, it becomes possible to see oneself being part of an unbroken line of staff, reaching back to the early days of the hospital