Metropolitan Asylums Board Small Homes for 'Mental Defectives'

In the mid-1890s, the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) decided to make use of the scattered homes model that was becoming popular with poor law authorities for the housing of pauper children away from the workhouse. The system placed children in family-style groups, under the care of a house 'mother' ot 'father', in ordinary suburban houses. The MAB's scheme was to adopt scattered homes for some of the 'mentally defective' children in its care as an alternative to large institutions such as its residential school at Darenth.

The premises used by the MAB for this purpose included:

(16 Elm Grove was renumbered as number 26 in about 1909.)

Lloyd House (left) and 12 (right), Lloyd Street.

Most of the homes appear to have closed by 1910.

Records

Note: many repositories impose a closure period of up to 100 years for records identifying individuals. Before travelling a long distance, always check that the records you want to consult will be available.

• The Ancestry UK website has two collections of London workhouse records (both name searchable):
  • Ancestry: London Workhouse Admission/Discharges (1764-1930).
  • London Poor Law and Board of Guardian Records (1738-1930).
• The Find My Past website has workhouse / poor law records for Westminster.
• London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R OHB.

Bibliography

• Ayers, Gwendoline M. England's First State Hospitals and the Metropolitan Asylums Board (1971, Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine)
• Powell, Sir Allan The Metropolitan Asylums Board and its Work, 1867-1930. (1930, MAB)

Links

• None identified at present.

Except where indicated, this page () © Peter Higginbotham. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.

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