Archives Catalogue

A catalogue to the records held at Bethlem Museum of the Mind can be accessed from this page using the sidebar navigation. The catalogue is structured so as to make browsing easy. Alternately, you may search the Archives and Museum website, including the entirety of the archives catalogue.

Clicking on Home will take you to a page containing a table of contents which groups the various archive series into fourteen broad categories. This allows you to specify the type of record you are interested in, instead of having to trawl through a long list of all our archives series.

Clicking on Provenance gives you an overview of the record-creating bodies (including Bethlem Royal Hospital, the Maudsley Hospital and Warlingham Park Hospital) and the relationships among them.

Clicking on Series List allows you to see a full list of all our archive series. You can use this page if you already know which series you are interested in finding out more about.

Clicking on Gallery sends you to a page showcasing a small number of records which can be directly consulted online. Following the links on this page takes you to the catalogue description of the records, as well as to a full set of digital images of those records.

Clicking on Search allows you to use Google to conduct freetext searches for words and phrases across the entire website, including the archives catalogue. Please note that, for technical reasons, it is not possible at present to restrict search results to the contents of the catalogue only.

So, for example, if you want to know what meeting minutes are held at the Archives and Museum, you can click on Home and then, from the inventory listing, click on "Meeting papers" to go to a list of these. If you decide that you want to find out more about series BCB, for example - the minutes of the Court of Governors of Bridewell and Bethlem Hospitals - just click on the link to go to a description of that series.

If, on the other hand, you already know that it is the minutes of the Court of Governors you want, you could click on Series List and choose it from the alphabetical list, where it is sorted under its reference code, BCB.

You may be more interested in what kinds of records have been digitized and are available to consult online. If so, clicking on Gallery will take you to some examples, and following the links on this page will take you directly to the relevant catalogue descriptions and the images themselves. The majority of the images available online are from the minutes of the Court of Governors, which have been digitized as part of a project funded by the Marc Fitch Fund.

Or you may prefer to conduct a simple search on the phrase "Minutes of the Court of Governors" and browse through the list of results you get.

To return to this introductory page, just click on the text "Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum" which occurs at the foot of every page, as well as at the top of the table of contents (Home) page. Links to the Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum website home page may be be found on the table of contents (Home) page, as well as here.

This is only a trial version of our archives catalogue. It does not cover the entirety of our holdings, and what is covered is not always covered in sufficient detail. The thesaurus terms, or keywords, used in the catalogue, are taken from the UK Archival Thesaurus (UKAT). They are introduced in the catalogue by the words "This item contains references to". Further information about UKAT may be obtained from the project website (but please note that following this link will take you out of the website of Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum).

The digital images which are attached to the catalogue are provided for the purposes of private research only. If you wish to use these images in any other way, please contact the Archivist for copyright permission.

Comments on the quality of the information the catalogue provides, and on the experience of using it, may be directed to the Archivist. It is anticipated that a new version of the catalogue, which will include improved search functionality, will be launched in early 2006.