Creating databases of Victorian children's hospital patient admissions. (360G-Wellcome-084252_Z_07_Z)

This project will give historians a unique means to study hospital provision for the sick child in London in the 19th century, building on the RRMH-funded Great Ormond Street Hospital Historic Patient Database (GN073912). It will create patient databases for two additional Victorian children's hospitals, and offer them through the internet to medical historians, epidemiologists, historical demographers and family historians. Archival standard microfilms ofthe registers will be deposited at the repositories. The databases will form acore research tool for an academic project into the development of institutionalised childcare from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The project will produce papers in refereed journals, and a symposium on childcare history. This application is intended to be the first in a series relating to hospital patient admissions records. The sources identified for inclusion in this project are among the very few surviving records of child morbidity in 19th century Britain. Three Victorian Scottish children's hospitals also have records identified as suitable, and plans to incorporate these have been formulated. Despite the growth of such hospitals in Victorian Britain, general hospitals continued to treat large numbers of children. Accordingly, the project will beextended to include admission records for a selection of general hospitals. Twelve potential institutions have been identified (see Appendix 1 for full list) with records suitable for such a study. As some of these begin in the late 18th century, this would also provide insight into childhood disease in the era preceding specialist children's hospitals.