Search Hampshire, Portsmouth Hospital Records

Each result will give you a transcript of the vital facts and an image of the original hospital document. Each transcript can vary, but most will include the following:

• Name
• Age
• Birth year
• Birth date
• Admission year
• Admission date
• Death year
• Residence
• Institution name
• Place
• County and country

Images

The images may give you even more information about your ancestor and why he/she was a patient at

St James Hospital. The information you will find in the original records depends on the age of the

record and the type of document. The registration records’ standards changed and the amount of detail recorded differed through the years. Below are some of the details the original record may reveal.

• Marital status
• Occupation
• Denomination
• Condition
• Previous treatment
• Name and address of a relative
• Whether a criminal
• Poor law union
• History of insanity in the family
• In some cases, you will find a portrait of your ancestor
• Details about improvements or changes

The Portsmouth Hospital Records have been digitised by Findmypast from the collection held by the Portsmouth History Centre. The collection includes a range of documents from the years St James Hospital operated as the city’s lunatic asylum including:

• civil registers
• deaths
• indexes to admissions and discharges
• maintenance ledger
• medical journals
• patient notes,
• registers of discharge, transfers and deaths.

Patient notes recorded the individual’s progress from their condition when they first entered the hospital and how or if the person improved. You will find notes such as, ‘delusions of grandeur’, ‘excited’, ‘clean’, or one patient was recorded as claiming she was the ‘Queen of Brighton’.

The hospital opened on 30 September 1879 as the Portsmouth Lunatic Asylum. In 1914 it became the Borough of Portsmouth Mental Hospital. In 1948, the site came under the authority of the National Health Service and was renamed St James Hospital.