June 11, 2025
June 11, 2025
Join us for an autumn edition of our bestselling guided walking tour. Explore the historic grounds of this former purpose-built psychiatric institution, later known as Glenside Hospital. Tour lasts approx. 60 minutes and include an annual pass to our museum.
June 9, 2025
June 9, 2025
One aspect of maintaining mental fitness is to participate in activities that bring joy. With this exhibition we would like to celebrate creativity as well as entertain our visitors. We welcome artists who would like to use our collection for inspiration, but this is not a requirement. The exhibition is in a church so it is not a traditional space. Submissions close Weds 20th August, visit this page for full info on how to apply.
June 4, 2025
June 4, 2025
On Saturday 26th July at 11am, join our experienced guide Anwyl Cooper-Willis for a fascinating guided walking tour unlocking a secret side of Bristol. Explore the historic grounds of this former psychiatric institution, later known as Glenside Hospital. A limited number of tickets are available for this event. Booking required.
May 17, 2025
May 17, 2025
Mood States has been exhibited at, among other places, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and The Museum of the Mind. We now welcome this fascinating collection to Glenside Hospital Museum in Bristol.
Featuring a dozen head sculptures, each representing different mood states, the collection offers a physical manifestation of the mind's inner workings, assuring viewers they are not alone in their darkest thoughts.
April 14, 2025
April 14, 2025
Glenside Hospital Museum is not just about preserving history — it’s about shaping the future. Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, 2025 has marked the launch of the PoW! (Protect Our Wellbeing) initiative.
Find out more details here and book tickets for some our exciting community events.
April 7, 2025
April 7, 2025
Cary Grant was a world famous film actor (born Archibald Leach) and was raised here in Bristol. Read on to discover the uniquely sad link we have with him here at Glenside.
April 1, 2025
April 1, 2025
On Saturday 31st May join us for the perfect opportunity to explore the stunning historic grounds surrounding Glenside Hospital Museum with our experienced volunteer and guide Anwyl Cooper-Willis. Take a photo during the tour and tag either our Facebook or Instagram account to be in with a chance to win a Tea in the Turret experience for up to 4 people!
March 29, 2025
March 29, 2025
We were delighted to welcome Bristol Lord Mayor this afternoon a for the launch of our Protect our Wellbeing (PoW!) campaign, made possible with a grant from National Lottery Heritage Fund.
March 28, 2025
March 27, 2025
March 27, 2025
Every Saturday until September 2025. Tickets only: booking essential (via Eventbrite).
March 26, 2025
March 21, 2025
March 21, 2025
March 17, 2025
March 17, 2025
This new exhibition brings together voices from the past and present to reflect on how self-injury has been seen, experienced and understood.
Inspired by characters from early modern plays and shaped by real life experiences today, I Am Worthy invites you into a shared space of empathy, challenge and reflection.
February 6, 2025
February 6, 2025
On 6th February 2025, Glenside Hospital Museum had the honour of welcoming HRH The Princess Royal to mark an extraordinary milestone—40 years of preserving and educating the public on the history of mental healthcare.
January 26, 2025
January 26, 2025
The museum originated from humble beginnings, starting out as a collection of intriguing objects and documents gathered on the balcony in the hospital dining room. Today, the museum's displays are carefully curated by a dedicated team of volunteers to captivate and educate visitors about mental healthcare. Read 10 great facts in this celebratory post.
January 25, 2025
January 25, 2025
Glenside Hospital Museum, Bristol, is honoured to welcome Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal on 6th February 2025 to mark forty years of providing a dynamic educational resource for the general public and a safe space to discuss mental health.
April 16, 2024
April 16, 2024
The history of commonwealth nurses and their contribution to the NHS is one that is often overlooked. Discover this hidden history at Glenside Hospital through the exhibition ‘Answering the Call’ which showcases the triumphs and challenges faced by these nurses.
March 30, 2024
March 30, 2024
Celestine Lewis is one of many who came to work in hospitals as they became part of the NHS.
March 30, 2024
March 30, 2024
May Tanner provides her history of working in Bristol hospitals as it became part of the NHS.
February 9, 2024
February 9, 2024
When the word Asylum is mentioned, all sorts of images come to mind. What impression did Glenside have on those who lived and worked there? Hear from those who worked and lived there.
January 17, 2024
January 17, 2024
This article explores what we can glean about those who wrote the records of the Bristol Lunatic Asylum found at the Bristol Archives.
June 23, 2023
June 23, 2023
The Electroconvulsive Therapy concept was that seizures, or convulsions, could be beneficial in treating psychiatric illness.
June 22, 2023
June 22, 2023
An exciting exhibition of contemporary art exploring mental health care at Glenside Hospital Museum, Bristol. One of three ground-breaking new exhibitions across the UK.
June 4, 2023
June 4, 2023
The straitjacket, what is the meaning behind this device? Is it a form of care, as some claim, or a form of brutality, as others argue?
June 1, 2023
June 1, 2023
Edible Histories was an arts project that took place part as part of the Bristol 650 celebrations. Five objects that tell the story of Bristol were selected from Aerospace Bristol, Bristol Zoo Project, Tyntesfield, Glenside Hospital Museum and M-shed.
May 22, 2023
May 22, 2023
Denis was a talented and ambitious graduate from the Royal College of Art. He was a patient at Glenside Hospital in the 1950’s and suffered from bouts of severe depression.
April 13, 2023
April 13, 2023
Five artists display their pictures following ten mornings of exploration in the Museum. Their inspiration has been drawn from the stories and beautiful colours in our stained glass windows as well as the curious objects on display.
August 1, 2022
August 1, 2022
The 1918 Education Act made schooling for all disabled children compulsory. It was a very significant piece of legislation. By 1921, there were more than 300 institutions for blind, deaf, 'crippled', tubercular, and epileptic children.
April 24, 2022
April 24, 2022
This film installation spotlights a pivotal, yet often overlooked, moment in the history of medical cinema.
March 24, 2022
March 24, 2022
John Edward Hewitt, known as Jack, was born on the 24th of November 1899, to parents Robert and Mary Ann Hewitt in Castleford
March 10, 2022
March 10, 2022
A travelling exhibition previewed at Glenside Hospital Museum. Warm and gentle support for women who want to be heard: voices of the Bristol Crisis Service for Women
May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021
Reverend Harold Nelson Burden was an early pioneer of mental healthcare for children and adults. He founded Stoke Park Colony with his first wife Katherine in 1909.
March 21, 2021
March 21, 2021
Exploring the beautifully drawn collection of portraits from the people of Epsom's hospital cluster by artist Georgia Kitty Harris.
February 15, 2021
February 15, 2021
In the ten years I have been researching the patients of the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, the thing that most struck me was the disparity between the popular view of asylums and the results of my studies.
October 7, 2020
October 7, 2020
To celebrate World Mental Health Day we join with poet Shagufta K. Iqbal in exploring how we survived lockdown and how communities can come together to support each other.
August 8, 2020
August 8, 2020
We have been working with poet Caroline Burrows to create an online poetry event to be launched on September 10th for World Suicide Prevention Day
April 19, 2020
April 19, 2020
The mysterious Lady of the Haystack. Why was Louisa admitted in 1781 to the lunatic ward of St Peters Hospital?
December 13, 2019
December 13, 2019
Stretcher-bearers are the unsung heroes of the First World War. They were often considered to be nothing more than a porter, but they were in fact extremely brave individuals who returned to the battlefield to collect the wounded.
November 16, 2019
November 16, 2019
The Red Cross logo that we are so familiar with today, is the same design that has been seen since early 1900s. This white cotton armband was worn to signify neutrality, protection, and caring for the sick in times of war.
October 31, 2019
October 31, 2019
When most of us think of soldiers, we are automatically drawn to the image of a typical soldier in uniform with a gun and helmet. But this wasn’t always the case.
October 10, 2019
October 10, 2019
The Monkey Brand was first produced in the 1880s by an American firm which was bought by the British company the Lever Brothers in 1899. This soap was used in the First World War
September 30, 2019
September 30, 2019
Most of us have a hot water bottle somewhere in the house and this object is an early 1800s version of just that!
September 5, 2019
September 5, 2019
The museum houses the story of the institution opened, in 1861, as Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Before the asylum was built it was derided by the mayor and city councillors as the ‘Lunatic Pauper Palace’. They were adamant that the building was an unnecessary expense and for 16 years the city managed to resist its legal requirement to provide decent accommodation for lunatics.
May 16, 2019
May 16, 2019
‘Too Much to Bear’, an interactive audio performance with Leigh Johnstone from Fluid Motion Theatre which uncovered his great grandfather’s experiences as a stretcher-bearer in the trenches during the First World War.
May 5, 2019
May 5, 2019
History portrays a neat progression from medieval and early modern supernatural belief toward the 19th-century science, but is that a simplification?
April 16, 2019
April 16, 2019
Albert James Home was born in Midsomer Norton, Somerset, then a mining town and new railway hub. The only child of William Home and Sarah Smith.
December 11, 2018
December 11, 2018
In the 80s and 90s, a very common complaint about psychiatric hospitals was that many patients were admitted numerous times; this was called the ‘revolving door problem’.
November 6, 2018
November 6, 2018
This first article will be part of a series considering the continuities and changes to life in the asylum, often focusing on individuals whose stories illustrate facets of the era before the asylum became Beaufort War Hospital in 1915
March 13, 2018
March 13, 2018
Dr Donal Early (1917-2004) pioneered a radical new way of treating mental illness in Bristol in the 1960s and with his wife Dr Prudence Early
February 28, 2018
February 28, 2018
Over his lifetime Denis Reed painted some 250 oil-paintings as well as watercolours and sketches. In 1934, he studied Drawing and Pictorial Design at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) and went on to study in London at the Royal College of Art in London (RCA) in 1938.
December 3, 2017
December 3, 2017
History is often portrayed as a series of narratives in which great men (and they always seem to be men) changed the world with their strength and leadership, intellect or malevolence
August 7, 2017
August 7, 2017
Bristol Lunatic Asylum took leisure activities for patients seriously. It was seen as part of supporting the patients to regain their health.
June 23, 2017
June 23, 2017
alldaybreakfast presents: UNLOCKED. An atmospheric performance inside the museum exploring experiences of people dealing with mental illness in the past and present.
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017
Drawing Classes - An amazing opportunity to put pen to paper in the fascinating museum of the former Bristol Lunatic Asylum, led by a qualified teacher.
March 5, 2017
March 5, 2017
Nowadays epilepsy is not seen as a psychiatric condition and a person with epilepsy is unlikely to be treated by a mental health unit. In the nineteenth century it was different as the Lifton family were to discover.
February 20, 2017
February 20, 2017
Unlocked is inspired by the archive of Bristol Lunatic Asylum held at Glenside Hospital Museum. Funded by Bristol City Council and the Arts Council England.
February 12, 2017
February 12, 2017
When I was a nursing assistant working on an elderly male psychiatric ward in the early 1980s I witnessed patients having grand mal epileptic fits about once a week.
February 5, 2017
February 5, 2017
Participants at GHM’s Drawing Classes set about capturing our collection on paper. Using the technique of pencil and ink wash they created strong, powerful images.
November 5, 2016
November 5, 2016
Patients Arthur Nichols and John Weston both write about the asylum food. Their experiences can be compared to both the official reports from the Asylum Visitors and Commissioners
October 25, 2016
October 25, 2016
The Bristol Lunatic Asylum’s notes on Arthur Nichols include several letters from him to various friends and family, providing us with an insight into him as well as the asylum
July 10, 2016
July 10, 2016
In his book Life in a lunatic asylum: an autobiographical sketch, John describes the Airing courts where the patient’s exercised, as he saw them in the 1860’s. These same Airing courts can still be seen today if you visit Glenside Hospital Museum
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016
Poor mental health can strike at any time. In Victorian Britain it could be caused by a skin disease or as now old age.
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016
During the 1890s the asylum began to take photographs of the patients and place them in the case notes. Most have survived and I have now an archive of over 700 of these photographs which have been digitally restored.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016
Colonel Robert Jones, CB, promoted the use of the Thomas splint for the initial treatment of femoral fractures and reduced mortality related to compound fractures of the femur from 87% to less than 8% in the period from 1916 to 1918.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
Voluntary aid Detachments, VADs, or even Very Adorable Darlings as they were sometimes called, were generally young women with very little work experience. They were trained in First Aid and what was called Home Care, and were often from upper class families
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
Surviving service records clearly show the journey from the battle field to the hospital. Wounded soldiers were treated in a field hospital and then despatched by hospital train and boat to the Britain.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
On the morning of Tuesday, September 7th, it began to be whispered that Royalty would be in Bristol that day, until at last it became pretty generally known throughout the city
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
William Blunt was born in Wilby Northampton on the 12th June 1895. He was the fourth of the six children of William and Eliza Blunt.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
The Golden Age of the postcard was from 1902 until the end of the Penny Post in 1918. Before the war there were eleven deliveries each day.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
At the start of the war those men enlisted as orderlies in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) had often been rejected by the army as physically unfit, prohibited from being a soldier by age, height, and even flat feet. As the war progressed the army became less fussy as the need for more men to fight was so great.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
The Glenside Hospital Museum has two original autograph books in their Collection, and scanned copies of two others belonging to staff at the hospital. Soldiers and members of staff contributed comic rhymes and verses, quotes from favourite writers and poets, and also drawings and water colours.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016
The SS Donegal was a hospital ship returning from France with wounded troops.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016
James Vincent Blachford (M.B, B.S. LRCP MCP), was born in Staffordshire in 1866. He went to school at Dulwich College and completed his medical training in Durham.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016
Sadly there are no lists or hospital archives from The Beaufort War Hospital. Military hospital records were destroyed in the 1920s, viewed by the War Office as of little interest as they concerned the Home Front
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016
The blue uniform worn by soldiers in military hospitals was known as the ‘Convalescent Blues’. The uniforms were made of blue flannel lined with white, worn with a white shirt and red tie
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016
Agnes Mary Witts gave her next of kin as a Mrs W B Taylor from Cheshire. We have searched on Ancestry.com but can no firm evidence of her birth, marriage or death. We do however have her service record from The National Archives.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016
The War Office supplied the hospital with trained sisters and nurses from Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Staff Reserve. Women enlisted from the UK and from Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
April 29, 2016
April 29, 2016
Stanley Spencer worked at Beaufort War Hospital as an orderly for ten months during 1915 and 1916. Despite feeling intimidated by the institution, Stanley took to the work and worked hard.
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
Anne Campbell Gibson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. In 1881 she enrolled at The Nightingale Fund Nurses’ Training School at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
This story was brought to us by Patsie Smith who was researching her grandmother. She discovered that Elsie Withington had been a nurse at The Beaufort and had met her husband there, William Tattersall, who was serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
This is a photograph of resident and visiting doctors and surgeons at the Beaufort War Hospital during the First World War. We have identified some of the people in the photograph but sadly not all of them
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
The Beaufort was never short of entertainment for the recovering soldiers. There were visits to Bristol Zoo and The Hippodrome, Charabanc rides to the countryside, cricket and football matches
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
Elizabeth Horridge was born in Sheffield in February 1886. She trained at the North Derbyshire Hospital and worked at Jessop Hospital for Women and the General Infirmary, Stoke on Trent, where she was a Sister of a surgical ward.
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
The story of Charles Francis Hutchings was brought to us by a museum visitor, Michael Hutchings, who worked at The Glenside Hospital as a carpenter. Michael discovered that his grandfather had died at Beaufort in 1919.
April 28, 2016
April 28, 2016
Hilda Newport was born in Melbourne, Australia. She came over to the UK in 1910 and was a staff nurse at the Middlesex Hospital in London.
April 10, 2016
April 10, 2016
A week in the life of a nursing assistant by Paul Tobia
March 20, 2016
March 20, 2016
Asylum Lives blog post by Paul Tobia
This blog starts with the lives and experiences of people who suffered from mental health problems from 1861 to 1900 at the Bristol Lunatic Asylum
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
Sergeant Harry Cator was born in Drayton, Norfolk to a railway worker. He joined the British Army in September 1914 and arrived on the Western Front in June 1915 as a Sergeant in The East Surrey Regiment
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
Albert Proud was born and lived his entire life in Benwell. He joined the North East Sea Service in 1915, and was wounded in the hand in 1916
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
At the beginning of our project, while assessing the Beaufort Archive at The Glenside Hospital Museum, we found a copy of John Mulholland’s Medical Report. He was at Beaufort in 1917. We have matched this report with his Service Record.
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
James Gaskell was born in Chorley, Lancashire. He enlisted in The East Lancashire Regiment (The Chorley Pals) on the 15th September 1914, giving his age as 19 years 8 months, and his occupation as weaver.
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
Harry Cogswell was born in Box, Wiltshire, the second of four children. He suffered from poor health throughout his childhood, but he loved singing and was a chorister at his local church.
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
Australian Sapper Carl Eliasson enlisted on the 20th June 1916. His enlistment papers tell us hat he was a telegraphist from Fremantle Australia
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
George Pine was a Bristol boy who fought with the Gloucesters from 1915 to 1918. He left for France in March 1915 aged 23.
March 1, 2016
March 1, 2016
Military Hospitals were fine places for war-time romances. We have researched three stories of couples who met at Beaufort and subsequently married.
February 29, 2016
February 29, 2016
William Kench was the Head Male Nurse at the asylum. He was appointed the Regimental Sergeant Major when the asylum became Beaufort War Hospital (1915-1919).
February 4, 2016
February 4, 2016
Mildred Roberts was an Anzac Nurse, she left Perth in 1915, enlisted in the Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service and was posted to Beaufort on the 2nd June
February 2, 2016
February 2, 2016
Kate Underwood was one of thirteen children from an Oxfordshire family. She was adopted by the Underwood family when she was six years old. During the First World War she worked in a field hospital before becoming matron of The Beaufort War Hospital from 1916-1918.
February 2, 2016
February 2, 2016
Marion Dunn was used to life in an institution. The 1881 census records her parents as attendants at Exeter Asylum, and by 1878 Marion was working there too
January 31, 2016
January 31, 2016
Arthur Wilson, a railway porter, was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He enlisted in The New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the 11th August 1914, aged 20.
January 31, 2016
January 31, 2016
Carleton Blakeney was a school teacher born in New Brunswick, Western Canada, in 1895. He enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at the end of 1915.
January 27, 2016
January 27, 2016
Fabian Sperry enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the 12th August 1914, just seven days after war was declared.
January 27, 2016
January 27, 2016
Ernest Salmon, aged 38, enlisted on the 29th December 1915 in New South Wales, Australia.
January 27, 2016
January 27, 2016
Royal Edward Penna’s family were from Cornwall. His grandfather emigrated to Australia in about 1860. Penna was a shoesmith by trade, and he joined The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 5th August 1915, at the age of 21.
January 15, 2016
January 15, 2016
How Richard McCracken came to be at Beaufort War Hospital in July 1916
October 2, 2015
October 2, 2015
We have a special exhibition about Glenside Hospital’s First World War History as part of Bristol Cathedral’s First World War centenary commemoration ‘We Have Our Lives’.
July 19, 2015
July 19, 2015
Electroconvulsive Therapy is an area that fascinates many people and has been in use since the 1940s when other therapies have not been effective
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015
Beaufort War Hospital became a centre in the relatively new medical discipline of Orthopaedics in the summer of 1916.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015
This box from the hospital’s collection contains the Smart-Bristow faradic apparatus. Our box is probably late 1920s
April 16, 2015
April 16, 2015
Matron Annie Gibson 1888: one of Florence Nightingale’s favourite nurses.
February 7, 2015
February 7, 2015
This week, two visitors arrived at Glenside Hospital Museum bearing gifts. The items relate to Phyllis Davis, who had trained and worked at Glenside Hospital between 1931 and 1938.
