OPENING GUIDELINES - GEORGE MARSHALL MEDICAL MUSEUM

We’re so pleased to say we will be opening George Marshall Medical Museum on Monday 17th May.

A few guidelines for visitors, which is made clear before entering the Museum:

  • In accordance with current UK Government guidance, all visitors are now asked to either scan the QR code before entering or fill in a form with a few contact details which can be posted in a secure box inside the museum.

  • A ‘keep left’ system will be in place, with visitors asked to leave at least 2m between them and other visitors.

  • Groups of up to six are allowed in accordance with the current guidance.

  • All visitors must wear a face covering from nose to chin, unless exempt.

  • We have installed extra hand gel in the museum.

  • The Trust’s Health and Safety team have designated the museum a safe space for up to ten people.

We look forward to seeing you at the GMMM very soon!

Take care, everyone.

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final guest blog by maddie hale

It’s been just over two months since I started my placement at the George Marshall Medical Museum and the time has flown by! This year has obviously been very different because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this has affected the way that work experience can be carried out. I had no idea what to expect when I started this placement, as this was my first time doing any sort of history-related work experience.

 At our first (virtual!) meeting, Louise Price, the curator of the museum, introduced me to the museum and we brainstormed ideas for possible projects, like creating resources for schools, transcribing oral interviews, or researching patients from Powick Asylum. Researching patients was the first thing I had a go at, and, as I’ve discussed in my previous blog posts, this is what I’ve been doing for the majority of my placement!

On the first day of my placement, I spent several hours searching for the patients using the Find My Past website, and I immediately knew this was what I wanted my project to be on! In my previous blogs, I’ve talked about the difficulties with using sources like censuses, and birth, marriage, and death records, and the entirety of my time doing this research has been a learning curve. The more I researched, the more interested I was, and the more I was able to create a picture of the patients’ lives. Being able to work on something centred around mental health has been really special for me, and I feel like I’ve really gotten to know some of these people and their lives rather than just seeing them as patient numbers.

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I can’t wait for everyone else to get to know them as well as I do, and my summaries of these patients will be on the Medical Museums website, and will be displayed in the museum when it re-opens! Current circumstances have obviously meant that I haven’t been able to visit the museum in person, and I’m incredibly excited to be able to go and see it in person, hopefully soon!

I’ve absolutely loved doing this work experience placement, and I would even say that it’s been my favourite part of my university experience so far! I’ve learned about the way the museum is run, I’ve been able to learn how to work with primary source material, like the museum’s database of patient case notes, and I’ve written blog posts, which is something I’d never done before and has been hugely helpful for me in reflecting over the work that I’ve done! The museum’s database is available to access on the website if you’re interested in learning about the patients, which I highly recommend having a look at! Doing this research has really opened my eyes to what historical research can do, and volunteering with the museum is something that I would absolutely love to do in the future!

It’s been an absolute privilege to be able to do this placement, and I feel very lucky that I have had such a wonderful supervisor to guide me. Louise and I have had weekly meetings which have been extremely helpful for my placement and have become something I look forward to every week, especially with the pandemic meaning that we can’t get out and about to see people as much as we’d like! Mostly I’d like to say a big, big thank you to Louise, who has definitely been one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed this so much!

I’d also like to say thank you to my module supervisor, Elspeth King, for arranging my placement, and for all of her help and guidance with my work experience module!

If you ever get the chance to do a work experience placement with the George Marshall Medical Museum, take it! You’ll definitely love it as much as I have!

Guest blog by Maddie Hale, Work Experience Student

I’m coming towards the end of my placement with George Marshall Medical Museum, so I’m now starting to compile the work that I’ve done! It’s been almost two months since I started my placement, and I’ve spent the majority of my time researching patients at Powick Asylum, to try and find out about their family history, and their lives outside of the Asylum.

As I described in my last blog, I’m definitely learning as I go along, and over the past few weeks I feel that I’ve become more confident with using source material such as censuses, marriage records, and birth and death records. I talked before about the difficulties of using these sources, and I’ve definitely run into more obstacles since! This has meant that for some of the patients, I’ve been able to find extensive family histories, but for others, I’ve been unable to find them outside of Powick at all!

One of the more peculiar things that I’ve come across is the 1901 census for Powick. I’ll use Joseph Lowe as an example to demonstrate this. Below is a snippet from the 1891 Halesowen Census, which lists that Joseph Lowe is a fifty-year-old rivet maker from Halesowen, and that he lives with his housekeeper and domestic servant Jane Jones. Typically, this is what most censuses look like, although they do vary between years and places!

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1891 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Islington, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Shropshire & Worcestershire, England

However, the 1901 Powick Census looks a little bit different.

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1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Powick, Upton on Severn, Worcestershire, England

Instead of names, the patients have been listed by their initials alone, and there is no indication at all of where they were from. This is the only census I have come across in my research so far that looks like this, and as you can probably guess, it hasn’t been very helpful!

For Joseph Lowe, I knew he was a patient at Powick in 1901, so I searched for his initials in the census, and found two results. His case notes had told me his age that he was a nail and rivet maker, which helped me to determine which J.L. was him.

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1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census
Powick, Upton on Severn, Worcestershire, England

 In this case I was able to find the patient I was looking for, but patients with more common initials, or a more common occupation, are much more difficult to find, and this means that there are some gaps in the research that I’ve done.

I’ve been able to find quite an extensive family history for some of the patients I’ve been researching, and every person’s is different! Joseph Lowe’s life was quite interesting. He lived at the same address for his entire life, even after both of his parents died, and he didn’t marry until he was 50, when he married Jane Jones, who had been his housekeeper for over 20 years!

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all of the patients I’ve been researching, and being able to create a picture of their lives. Mental health is something that’s very important, both to me and to Louise Price, the curator of the museum. Louise has tasked me with creating summaries of these patients and their lives, for visitors of the museum to be able to read, and to get to know them as people, not just as patients! I’m very excited for people to be able to learn about these patients when the museum re-opens. This research is very time-consuming, and it’s definitely hard work, but it’s also one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever done!