The blog for the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.
Written by David Pilcher, Retreat Digitisation Assistant This is the second in a series of blog posts celebrating the Retreat archive and our digitisation project as it nears completion. The Retreat is one of the most important institutions in the care and treatment of mental health patients. Over the last two and half years, staff … Continue reading Spotlight on the Retreat archive: A splendid time is guaranteed for all!
Written by Jane Rowling, Retreat Digitisation Assistant This is the first in a series of blog posts celebrating the Retreat digitisation project as it nears completion. Over the last two and half years, staff at the Borthwick have been working through the Retreat archive, updating the catalogue, preparing the documents for digitisation, carrying out conservation … Continue reading Spotlight on the Retreat archives: A Window on the 19th Century Pharmacist
Written by Gaby Davies, Borthwick Summer Intern (and York history student). Whilst looking through the York Medical Society records, it was interesting to find the York County Hospital ‘Wines and Spirits book’ 1861-1865. The pages contain lists of names of doctors, rooms and incidents, and the corresponding number of servings of port, sherry, brandy or … Continue reading Just what the Doctor ordered?
Written by Kath Webb. Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington didn’t visit the Retreat! The monarch would never have signed herself “Queen Victoria” in 1856, and the signature of the Iron Duke in 1821 fails to match up with authenticated examples. Mischievous or deluded patients from the democratic Retreat “family” were probably responsible for … Continue reading Who came to see the Retreat? A look through the Retreat Visitors’ Books
This is one of a series of blog posts published as material from the Retreat archive is digitised and made available online. More information about the Wellcome Library funded project to digitise the Retreat archive can be found on the project pages of our website. Digital surrogates from the Retreat archive project so far are … Continue reading Rehabilitating John Summerland
Written by Jenny Mitcham, Digital Archivist, Borthwick Institute Arranging a tour of the grounds of the Retreat for a morning in January was a bit of a risk. We were truly at the mercy of the elements! We were fortunate however to have picked a day when there was no snow or ice on the … Continue reading Continuity and Change at The Retreat
Written by Alexandra Medcalf Like most archives, although most of our holdings are manuscripts on parchment or paper, bound into volumes and loose leaf, we do have other objects in our strong-rooms. This painting shows people in the grounds of the Retreat, York, in the late nineteenth century. The Retreat was, and is, a psychiatric … Continue reading George Isaac Sidebottom: Spot the Cat
Written by Alexandra Medcalf. Before finding these documents, I had never considered the difficulties of rationing for vegetarians. Of course, we are all familiar with the fact of rationing in this country during the Second World War, but careful management of the country’s food supply was also necessary during World War One. After the country … Continue reading Vegetarianism in World War One
Followers of our Twitter feed, and keen visitors, may have noticed a new exhibition which has gone into the space outside our offices on the second floor of the Borthwick. This new exhibition, Best of the Borthwick, was designed by our archival trainees for 2012/13, Zoe and Amy, who have now finished their placement at … Continue reading The Best of the Borthwick