About the Project
CSV (Community Service Volunteers), a national volunteering organisation, was awarded £50,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund in the summer of 2005 to run Unlocking the Past. This project is developing a publicly accessible digital archive of oral histories and personal photographs of former staff and residents of the Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster - a large long stay Victorian institution for people with learning difficulties, which closed in 1996.
Potato Picking by Royal Albert Residents in the early part of the twentieth century.
(Ref No. 12.02 © Lancashire Museum Service)
The creation of the archive includes the collation of existing materials as well as carrying out fresh research. In addition this project website, exhibition and small book, drawing upon currently available official hospital records, provides contextual information offering historical interpretation of these personal stories, the origins and development of the institution and the social history of learning disability. The Lancashire Record Office, Museum of Lancashire and North West Sound Archive are committed to the long term preservation and accessibility of the project's work.
Why the Project?
An integral, but often hidden, part of Britain's history relates to people with learning difficulties and the institutions in which they were resident for many years. Furthermore for the Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster as with similar establishments, the existing public archive landscape is dominated by bureaucratic and medical perspectives; the viewpoint of residents and rank and file nursing/non-nursing staff is under-represented, and largely absent - thus reinforcing the inequalities of institutional life. By concentrating on these sections of the institutional community the project will enable individuals to reclaim and own their histories; for example, as a former resident from Meanwood Park Hospital, Leeds said:
"I'd just like people to know so they can realise what it was we'd to go through. It's not true what was written down! They did it just to keep us locked up, so that people would think we're mental."
A more balanced view of institutional life may emerge, so allowing insights into a world which is not currently possible and at risk of being lost forever.
Many Thanks:
Volunteers
This project is only possible with the involvement of many people. Many of these have shared their time, memories and photographs and are acknowledged by name throughout this website; other voluntary input is more hidden. Particular thanks go to Mandy Cody whose photographic expertise has been invaluable to the development of this project. In addition nursing students in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at St. Martin's College, Lancaster and postgraduates in Lancaster University's History Department have given many hours to the project. These contributions complement the committment provided by paid staff working for the organisations listed below.
Organisations Supporting Unlocking the Past
- Lancashire County Council- Record Office, Museum Service (i.e.Museum of Lancashire, Lancaster City Museum) Social Services Directorate, Lancaster Library
- Lancaster University - History Department, The Institute of Health Research, Centre for North West Regional Studies, Library
- Morecambe Bay NHS Primary Care Trust
- North West Sound Archive
- Open University - Social History of Learning Disability Research Group (Faculty of Health and Social Care)
- St Martins College, Lancaster - The School of Nursing and Midwifery
- Jamea Al Kauthar Islamic College, Lancaster
- Central High School, Lancaster
- The Adult College,Lancaster
