Century-old photographs of patients from the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, dating back to the Victorian and Edwardian eras, are being revealed. Paul Tobia, a former mental health nurse, is researching patient records from the institution, which is now a campus of the University of the West of England (UWE).
Tobia's research indicates that approximately 46% of the patients treated at the asylum recovered. The former hospital is now being re-evaluated as a place of hope and recovery, with the Glenside Hospital Museum, one of the few UK museums dedicated to former mental hospitals, located within its grounds.
Tobia has collected 1,000 photographs and a database of 8,000 patients admitted to the asylum up to 1913. He noted that while the original intent of the photographs may have been diagnostic, they serve more effectively as expressions of humanity. Stella Man, consultant director at the museum, highlighted that these images provide a rare glimpse into the lives of poorer people in Bristol during that period.