Cell Barnes Hospital, St Albans
- Held At: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
- Title: Cell Barnes Hospital, St Albans
- Description: Cell Barnes Colony; Cell Barnes Hospital
- Date: 1932 - 1998
- Accession Number: Off Acc 1346
- Accession Number: Off Acc 1025
- Accession Number: Off Acc 1467
- Document Reference: HM2
- Access Conditions: [Access restrictions may apply] THIS COLLECTION IS HELD OFF-SITE. PLEASE CONSIDER ORDERING IN ADVANCE
- Custodial History: OVERVIEW
Built by Hertfordshire County Council to provide care for those with learning difficulties and learning disabilities (the 'mentally deficient' or 'mentally handicapped'), being those who had been ill since birth or an early age and who were seen to have no prospect of a full recovery
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The 1886 Idiots Act allowed local authorities to build asylums for 'idiots' or 'imbeciles'. These people were distinct from 'lunatics', who had simply become mentally ill and were possibly recoverable. The 1890 Lunacy Act, however, did not make that distinction. However, under a new umbrella term, The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 introduced a hierarchy of categories of mental deficiency, from Idiots at the bottom of the scale, to Imbeciles, the Feeble-Minded, and up to Moral Defectives. All had to be deficient from birth or from an early age. The Act set up a Board of Control, in effect those who had been the Lunacy Commissioners. Previous to the building of Cell Barnes, the care of those in Hertfordshire with learning difficulties and disabilities is indistinct, their being absorbed by whatever 'care systems' dealt with the poor, criminals or lunatics. Otherwise they would simply live in the community.
SITE HISTORY
The name Cell Barnes may originate in a barn or barns which were attached to Sopwell Priory, which was a cell of St Albans Abbey. Another theory points to the use of this cell as a retreat by Dame Juliana Berners/Barnes, reputed author of part of The Boke of St Albans (1486) and supposed Prioress of Sopwell. The old part of the Female Nurses Home is alleged to have been her home. The Cell Barnes part of the Sopwell estate was leased in 1531 to John and Nicholas Aylward, but at the Dissolution the land passed to Sir Richard Lee. Upon his death in 1575 the site was leased and farmed by various families including that of Mary Pemberton (nee Coningsby). From 1690-1736 it was in the hands of the Thrale family. A large brick farmhouse, Great Cell Barnes, was built in the 1800s on what is now Cell Barnes Lane, with 208 acres attached. From 1881-1886 it was occupied by Viscount Grimston, followed by the Ansons, then from 1922 by Viscount Enscombe. Part of the hospital site, it was extended and became used as a nurses' home. Nearby Little Cell Barnes farmhouse is much earlier, possibly of the 15th century. In the 1990s this housed the London Road Residents Social Club.
In 1910 29 acres of land were bought from the Gape Trustees for a mental deficiency colony, but this was later sold and the site became Nicholas Breakspear School. Hertfordshire County Council purchased 93 acres of Cell Barnes from the Earl of Verulam in the 1920s, to be developed as a 'colony for mental defectives'.
CELL BARNES HOSPITAL: BEGINNINGS
The architects for the hospital were J M Sheppard and Partners of London, and the work was contracted out to Messrs H M Nowell Ltd. The building costs were to be nearly 200 000. The Council actually overspent on the buildings so much of the furniture and furnishings had to be bought second-hand. George Dollimore, the Head Gardener, laid out the grounds. On 2 Mar 1933 five women were admitted as the first patients. The intention was that 400 of those initial 600 beds would be for Hertfordshire patients. An opening ceremony on 5 Oct 1933 was attended by the Rt Hon Sir E Hilton Young, Minister of Health. The first Medical Superintendent was Dr Noel N M Burke, in whose honour the recreation hall is named. Although the new Mental Treatment Act, 1930, was in force, the Colony would be governed by the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. It was not a 'mental hospital' as defined by s21(1) of the Mental Treatment Act, but a certified institution for the reception of mental defectives as defined by s71 of the Mental Deficiency Act. A diagnosis of Idiot, Imbecile, Feeble Minded, or Moral Deficient (with Epilepsy also noted) would be made, categories which reflected a range of ability from low grade to high grade. Idiots were "so deeply defective in mind as to be unable to guard against common physical dangers". Imbeciles were "incapable of managing themselves or their affairs, or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so". The Feeble-Minded (the 'socially inefficient') had problems "so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or the protection of others" and, if children, a condition that was "so pronounced that they by reason of such defectiveness appear to be personally incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in ordinary schools". Moral Defectives displayed from an early age "some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment had little or no effect".
CELL BARNES HOSPITAL: WORLD WAR II AND ST BARTS
In Summer 1939, when war seemed inevitable, plans were issued by the government making provision for the care of air-raid casualties and for the continuation of the treatment of the sick in the event of hostilities. These plans constituted the Emergency Medical Service (EMS). EMS hospitals were basically civil hospitals but they were also used for large numbers of service patients, particularly those requiring treatment in specialised units and also when demands for hospital care suddenly increased. London was divided into five sectors, with one or more teaching hospital per sector. These central hospitals were to deal with emergencies due to either acute illness or to injury, including those resulting from enemy action. At the edge of each sector a large hospital, usually a mental health hospital, was taken over by the government as a base hospital. Hill End was the base hospital for the Bart's sector, and new units for the surgical care of patients with head and chest diseases were established. Cell Barnes was also used for Bart's patients. Both hospitals had the services of Bart's nurses.
On 23 Sep 1940 a German parachute mine fell in the hospital grounds, damaging buildings but inflicting no fatal casualties (see HM2/A3/40 for ARP file, and HM2/A3/74 for 1996 letter recalling the incident).
Tenterden House (formerly Old Lye House), situated three miles from Cell Barnes in Bricket Wood, was acquired in 1946 and used as an annexe to reduce the overcrowding in the hospital. The first patients, older girls, were admitted in Dec 1947.
CELL BARNES HOSPITAL: NHS
The National Health Service (NHS) Act was passed and implemented in 1948, the hospital being acquired by the NHS on 1 Jul 1948. Cell Barnes and Harperbury Hospital, also for the mentally handicapped, were grouped with their annexes under the Cell Barnes and Harperbury Group (No 8) Hospital Management Committee (later the Verulam Group) which was responsible to the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.
In 1958 three new wards were completed, also two units for resident staff, and the Acland Social Staff Club, for which HRH the Duke of Gloucester KG performed the opening ceremony.
Dr Thomas, Medical Superintendent, was selected to serve on the Royal Commission which led to the Mental Health Act 1959. That year saw the wards no longer locked. In 1967 the Physiotherapy Department was opened. The Ena Daniels School, comprising four classrooms, a nursery and staff rooms, was opened in June 1968, named after the Chairman of Hospital Management Committee. In 1969 the hydrotherapy pool opened. A further two new wards were completed in 1969, intended for the more severely disabled. In 1970 the charitable Cell Barnes Trust was set up by Doris Drown MBE (1906-2000). Arranging visits to patients, annual holidays and Christmas parties, it continued to work with former patients after the hospital's closure. A Day Hospital opened in 1976.
CELL BARNES HOSPITAL: CARE IN COMMUNITY, HORIZON HEALTH TRUST, CLOSURE
The NHS policy of care in the community, rather than in large institutions, came to be more fully implemented with the Community Care Act 1990. A year later the new Horizon Health Trust (1991-2001) began its winding down of Hill End, Cell Barnes and Harperbury. The widespread closure of such outdated institutions was the culmination of decades of NHS and Government policy drift towards community care, fuelled by public outcry and anti-psychiatry, enshrined in legislation such as the Mental Health Act 1959 and the Community Care Act 1990, and encouraged by the proven success of out-patients facilities, a better acceptance and understanding of mental health, and increasingly effective self-medication. A 1957 Royal Commission had concluded that mental handicap was not a medical condition, and that no resident should stay in hospital if they could be supported in outside world. Outside of the institution they could be 'normalised', a Swedish concept advocating life in small houses in open society, this philosophy being integral to the Community Care Movement. Drugs, such as Corpromazine (marketed 1952) and Largactil (marketed 1954) enabled patients to benefit from training to make their behaviour more socially acceptable.
As relatives protested at the closure process and the public voiced concerns, the site was formally opened as Highfield Park on 13 Nov 1997. St Albans District Council currently (in 2009) owns the freehold, and it is run on a long lease by the independent and charitable Highfield Park Trust 'for the benefit and enjoyment of existing and new communities in the area'. The closure of the hospital was marked by a 'farewell ceremony' on 31 Mar 1998 (see photographs and programmes in HM2/Ph/16-17 and HM2/Pr/8).
RECORDS
Compared with Hill End records (HM2), this collection is relatively administrative and photographic, being especially strong on events and publicity. Service-user records do not survive well, and case files remain with the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Useful references to service-users and staff can be found dispersed thoughout the collection, and the catalogue will detail those.
Records often reflect these periods:
1931-1948: with the effect of Mental Treatment Act, 1930, and in conjunction with the Public Assistance Committee
1948-1962: under the National Health Service, with Bart's operating on site
1962-1983: under the National Health Service, without Bart's, and with the effect of the Mental Health Act, 1959, which came into force 1 Nov 1960
1983: with the effect of the Mental Health Act, 1983
APPENDICES AND OTHER MATERIALS IN PRINTED CATALOGUE
1. Map of area
ACCESS
Some of the items catalogued in HM2 are freely available for the public to consult and there is no restriction concerning the information within them. However, for many of the records catalogued here access is restricted, both to the items themselves and to the information they contain. Personal information relating to living identifiable individuals is protected by the Data Protection Act 1998. Health records are protected by what was the 100 year closure period, being a variation by the Lord Chancellor in 1961 of the 30 year closure of NHS records set out in the Public Records Act 1958. There is a right to apply for such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 but it is likely that an exemption to that Act would apply, and the information would not be divulged. Please contact Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies for further information.
Note. It is necessary for this catalogue to acknowledge and make use of historical terms which were once in medical and legal use, but which are now superseded and perhaps deemed to be derogatory or even offensive. - Terms:Mental hospitals
- Terms:Psychiatric hospitals
- Terms:Mental health
- Terms:Learning difficulties
- Terms:Learning disabilities
- Level: Fonds
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