Conservation (6): Treatment of the Indexes to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh General Register of Patients

In 2004, the National Archives of Scotland awarded £1,100 (10% of the total cost) to conserve 94 Indexes to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh General Register of Patients (1869-1960). The Indexes are the first port of call for locating individuals’ entries in the Registers and, apart from the Registers themselves, they are probably the most frequently consulted series of LHSA-held records.

 

Condition

The volumes were in very poor condition, with detachment of the front and back boards and loss of spines frequently noted. Where still present, the half leather bindings showed extensive deterioration. Previous repairs to the spine, primarily with pressure sensitive tape, were observed. This level of degradation posed a significant risk to the long-term preservation of the textblock (the pages), with potential loss of the important informational content of these volumes. Although the textblock was in relatively good condition in general, there was localised, ingrained surface dirt and tearing, along with evidence of water ingress to several volumes.

Index to General Register of Patients, Oct 1928-Sep 1929, after treatment (LHB1/127/63).

 

Treatment

The decision to provide the volumes with a full cloth binding was carefully made, taking into account the limited available funding and perceived value of the original case as compared to the high need for long-term safe and easy access to the informational content of the textblock. As much of the original binding as possible was retained with leather title pieces, labels, and endpapers transferred to the new binding, and a sample case kept for reference purposes. Where necessary, the textblock was cleaned with a chemical sponge, and tears were repaired with wheat starch paste and Japanese paper. Photographic and written documentation of the treatment undertaken was also produced.

Index to General Register of Patients volumes on the shelf.

Conclusion

The project work on the indexes complements similar treatment of the Registers themselves, which was funded from the annual budget over the period 2000-2003. The treatment undertaken on these important volumes has ensured that access continues to be possible without risk of damage.

 

Acknowledgements

LHSA acknowledges the support of the National Archives of Scotland for both this project and an award of £1,850 in 2002, which contributed to the conservation treatment of two volumes of press cuttings from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.

Spotlight On… (8): The conservation treatment of case notes from Deaconess Hospital

The Deaconess Hospital (148 Pleasance, Edinburgh) opened in 1894, primarily to provide training for missionary Deaconesses. It also provided a much needed medical service to the local community. The hospital closed in 1985 and the building was the headquarters of NHS Lothian until 2010.

LHSA holds the general case notes for the Deaconess Hospital for the period 1894-1954. For 1894-1911, these take the form of 25 bound volumes. During a survey of all bound volumes in the LHSA collection, these were identified as a treatment priority due to their poor condition. Surface dirt, tearing to the textblock, leather deterioration of the cases and loss of spine and/or boards were common. In isolated cases, previous water damage was also evident. This level of degradation made accessing the information in the case notes difficult without causing further damage.

Example of a General Case Notes volume before and after conservation (LHB12/42/4).

The volumes were sympathetically repaired, retaining all aspects of the original. Where boards or spines had been lost, these were replaced with similar materials. This is time consuming, but ultimately effective work so that these important records can be used by future generations.

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’s Royal Charter

On 25 August 1736, Scotland’s first hospital, in the modern sense of the word, was granted a Royal Charter by His Majesty, King George II. Founded in 1729, it was first known as the Infirmary, or Little House, or Physicians’ Hospital. The Charter conferred the more familiar title of The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, by which it has been known ever since. LHSA produced three posters about the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh's Charter.

General information

King George II granted a Royal Charter in 1736, naming Edinburgh's Infirmary, which had been founded in 1729, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.  The charter is in Latin and has the Great Seal of Scotland attached.

As well as extending royal patronage to the hospital, the Charter made it into a corporation. This gave it legal rights to use a common seal, to perpetual succession, to sue and be sued, to own lands and erect properties upon them, to lend money and to make bye-laws, rules and regulations, on condition they were consistent with the laws of the land, and with the institution’s charitable purpose of caring for the sick poor.

Image of the Royal Charter and The Great Seal of Scotland.

The Charter also specified how the Infirmary was to be run. Twenty named managers were nominated in it, drawn from Edinburgh Town Council, the law, the church and the medical profession. They were given the right to elect their successors annually. Charitable contributors who had given five pounds sterling or more were made into a general court, which was empowered to make and amend managers’ regulations.

Originally in English, the text was translated into Latin by the noted Scottish classicist Thomas Ruddiman (1674-1757). It was then inscribed onto parchment and The Great Seal of Scotland was attached by means of intertwined blue and pink silk threads. The wax relief shows King George in military uniform, mounted on a rearing stallion and overlooking the City of Edinburgh. An idealised but still identifiable panorama of the Castle, the church and tenement buildings of the Royal Mile and Salisbury Crags, can be seen behind the horse’s legs.

The Seal was originally kept in a metal tin (not shown) and had broken into several pieces. The subsequent repair and restoration work, carried out by the National Archives of Scotland, can be clearly seen in the illustration, which is approximately life size. The Charter consists of four sheets of parchment folded to make eight pages, four sides of which are blank. As it was kept in its original leather pouch for over 250 years, the parchment had to be relaxed and flattened prior to the Charter, restored Seal and pouch being permanently housed in a specially made box.

 

The Charter text in English

The original English text reproduced in ‘The History and Statutes of The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’, 1778, can be seen in the following images.

Images of the Charter and Seal

First and second pages of the Latin text, 1736

Account of expenses associated with the Charter, 1737.

Front and reverse of The Great Seal of Scotland attached to the Charter.

Further resources

Poster 1: General information about the Charter and Seal

Poster 2: The Charter text in English

Poster 3: Images of the Charter and Seal

Conservation (5): The conservation of four handmade booklets by Robert Clennell

In 2006, the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust awarded £649 (50% of the total cost) to conserve four booklets produced by Robert Clennell, an early nineteenth-century asylum patient. The booklets form part of the private papers of Medical Superintendents of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum. Such patient writings, together with artwork and photographs, were used to illustrate what was perceived as the mental pathology of the diseased brain and are now a very scarce historical source for understanding mental illness from the patients’ point of view.

 

Condition

The booklets are constructed of varying numbers of folded sheets of European wove paper almost entirely covered with written text in iron gall ink with coloured borders and initial letters in watercolour wash. Three have been sewn along the spine to hold the folded sheets in booklet format. They exhibited extensive surface dirt, tears and creasing to edges and the centre fold, damage to the original sewing and localised surface abrasions. As a result, future use of these items, without prior conservation treatment, posed significant risk of transfer of dirt and exacerbation of the physical damage noted.

Booklet titled 'The Adventure. A poem' by Robert Clennell (GD16).

Treatment

Treatment was undertaken by Helen Creasy of The Scottish Conservation Studio during March 2006 and included careful surface cleaning using a chemical sponge and tear repair using wheat starch paste and a medium weight Japanese paper. Where the original sewing had been damaged, this was not repaired as this meant that an order had to be imposed on loose sheets that could compromise the integrity of the item. The four booklets were re-housed to provide suitable long-term protection and to facilitate easy identification and access. Photographic and written documentation of the treatment was also produced.

 

Conclusion

The conservation treatment has been carried out to a high standard and has successfully brought the booklets to a condition at which they can be accessed and displayed. In addition, the remedial treatments have been sensitively undertaken to ensure that the booklets are conserved without compromising their character or historical value.