Fifth report of the Somerset County Asylum, for insane paupers : from 1st January to the end of the year 1852.

  • Tone Vale Hospital
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fifth report of the Somerset County Asylum, for insane paupers : from 1st January to the end of the year 1852. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/60 (page 18)
    JL ^ Clothing. Attend¬ ants and Servants. Offices. only is sharp enough to cut. The three prongs of the forks, which are made of mixed white metal, are short and broad. Some wooden utensils are in use for the helpless and destructive. The materials for the clothing are obtained from the manufacturers, and are entirely made up by the patients. As a general rule, the outer clothing is fitted to each individ¬ ual, which appears to have the effect of making some of them more careful in preserving it. Some clothing has also been made here for one of the new County Asylums ; and no doubt much more needlework could be done than is required for the wants of this institution. All the straw bonnets and straw hats have been made by the patients. A few stockings have been knitted by them. The boots and shoes are all made in the house, and principally by the patients. The number of attendants is upon an average about one for every fifteen male patients, and one for every eighteen female patients. On the male side one half of the attendants work with the patients, and some are tradesmen who are engaged all or the greater part of the day at their trades, and only assist with the patients at meal times or when they are going to bed or getting up. The female attendants have the assistance of one of the laundresses and the kitchen maid at meal times. Twenty of the patients work with the two laundresses during the day, and five or six occasionally assist in the kitchen. The night watching is taken by the attendants in turn. Besides attendants there is an engineer, bailiff and gardener, assistant gardener, carter, cowman, a baker and brewer, cook, and a porter. The offices extend behind the centre building, and are convenient; a larger brewhouse is however required, and there is sufficient space in the same yard to build another one. By a little change in the other offices a laundry room, as before stated, might be adapted for the use of about 15 additional female patients, at an inconsiderable expense, and the necessity of additional buildings for patients might be deferred for another year or longer. This would be a great advantage, as it would afford time to build a more commodious brewhouse and complete the work still unfinished at the farm yard.