Soins

1910 · réf. 1362 — Original photographic scrapbook. c.1910-1935. Folio 41 x 32cm. Contemporary beige cloth with remnants of painted decoration and pasted paper images to the boards and spine. The contents comprising 91pp. of black and white photographs and postcards mounted on tick card leaves with occasional ink-stamp annotations completely full. 37pp. of these containing over 115 original photographs plus a few postcards directly relating to Chartham Mental Hospital with the remainder detailing other apparently related local military and family scenes presumably that of the compiler who was most likely a staff member as well as some broader art/theatre images. There is some splitting to the upper joint and wear and rubbing to the spine and boards although remaining firmly bound. The contents with five leaves removed five images removed from the extant pages including one page partially cut away other pages apparently with images removed and subsequently replaced although this done contemporaneously by the compiler a little chipping to page edges and occasional abrasion nicks or minor marks to a few of the images are otherwise in good order. An unusual photographic scrapbook documenting life at Chartham Mental Hospital during the first decades of the twentieth century predominantly the 1920s-30s. Presumably kept by a staff member or possibly a patient the album depicts hospital staff at work and leisure including male and female nurses and specific portraits of Drs. Taylor Baker and Pearce portraits of patients staff and patient football teams cricket teams and musical bands fancy dress and Christmas parties images of the hospital decorated for various events and several military images possibly relating to staff/patients. The hospital was originally founded as the second or East Kent County Asylum in 1872 near the village of Chartham on the outskirts of Canterbury. In 1920 it was renamed the Kent County Mental Hospital Chartham developing into a self-contained village with its own farm workshops baker butcher fire-brigade church graveyard gasworks sports teams and band with male patients typically working on the farm and female patients working in the laundry or as seamstresses. During this period following the end of the end of the First World War as covered in the present scrapbook the hospital also housed a number of ex-service patients who often had special privileges. In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service and was renamed St Augustine's Hospital eventually closing in 1993. [Original photographic scrapbook]. hardcover