History of psychiatry resources

• Donated archives and manuscripts (PDF) (before 1990)
• Institutional archives (PDF) – some headings and brief explanations indicating the various sorts of documents in the archives.
• Roll of honour (PDF)College Officers, and prizes, fellowships, awards and medals, 1971-current

Lists created by Thomas Bewley in the course of researching his book Madness to Mental Illness: A history of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

• Chairmen and presidents (PDF) 1841-2008
• Honorary Members and Fellows (PDF) 1841-2005
• Honorary Corresponding Members (PDF) 1880-1970
• Other officers (PDF) 1841-2006
• Fellowships and scholarships (PDF) 1982-2004
• Prizes and prize winners (PDF) 1883-2005
• Miscellaneous awards (PDF) 1992-2005
• Obituaries (with advice on how to read them) (PDF) 1841-2005
• Presidential lectures with dates and places of all annual general meetings (PDF) 1851-2005

Artwork

• Portraits and paintings collection to take you to the College’s artwork on the ArtUK website
• Portraits of past presidents, with reflections by the artists and sitters

Witness Seminars

• Witness seminars – on psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s, primary care mental health (c.1960-2019), old age psychiatry (1960-89) and child and adolescent psychiatry (1960-90) transcribed from the spoken words of the people who were there.

Membership lists

• Yearbooks (1853-1965) contain membership lists of the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane, the Medico-Psychological Association and the Royal Medico-Psychological Association, the RCPsych’s predecessor bodies (archive ref: GB 2087 RCPSYCH/P/1)
  

Committee meetings

• There are gaps in the archives regarding minutes of many committee meetings of our predecessor organisations. However, the Journal of Mental Science will give you access to reports from those committees, and in some cases, the discussions stemming from them. Meetings are mainly listed in the section of the Journal headed ‘Notes and News’. Also, look for headings such as ‘Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland’ and the geographical ‘Division’ meetings.  You will need to use an institutional access or log in to your RCPsych account to access them. The Journal’s ‘front matter’ and ‘back matter’, though, are free to access and often contain much information about our organisation and its membership.
  

Miscellaneous

• Association and College rule and charters (PDF) 1841-1971
• Asylum Rules, Cardiff, 1919 (PDF)  
• Gaskell Prize and Medal, question paper, 1897 (PDF) 
• Hospital Bathing Rules, Tooting Bec, London, 1966 (PDF)
• Nursing examinations archives (PDF) 1891-1970
• Nursing examination, question paper, 1894 (PDF) 

• Madness to Mental Illness supplementary material created by Thomas Bewley while researching his book
• For timelines and other links regarding RCPsych history go to Our History
• Past presidents
• Library and Archives and History Blogs
• HoPSIG Newsletters, 2015-present These contain useful short articles on various aspects of the history of psychiatry, by authors from multiple academic and clinical backgrounds.
• Psychiatry past and present: do we need history? BJPsych Bulletin, 43(3), 126-130.

Displays and posters

• Ten Presidents of the Medico-Psychological Association and their Asylums (PDF)
• Dr Helen Boyle of Brighton – First Woman President of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association (PDF)
• Public education and the development of mental health information (poster 1) (PDF)
• Public education and the development of mental health information (poster 2) (PDF)

• Bethlem Museum of the Mind records the lives and experience, and celebrates the achievements, of people with mental health problems. It aims to become a leading information and learning resource for the history of mental health care and treatment.
• Glenside Hospital Museum, Bristol
• Museums of Health and Medicine: 27 museums of health and medicine in London
• The Science Museum, London, has medical galleries which include psychiatry and psychiatric institutions.
• Wakefield Mental Health Museum
• Museum Dr Guislain, Ghent, Belgium
• Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg, Germany
• MuSeele e.V. - Museum für Psychiatrie, Göppingen, Germany
• Museum Ovartaci, Aarhus, Denmark

The Wellcome Collection is a free museum, library and archives collection that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health. It has an amazing collection of books and archives related to mental health.  Much historical material has been digitised and is also available online. Search the catalogue

The Wellcome Collection includes the following archives: 

• Dr Carlos Paton Blacker, 1895-1975
• Dr John Bowlby, 1907-90
• Dr Rudolph Freudenberg 1908-83
• Dr Ismond Rosen 1924-96
• Sir Martin Roth, 1917-2006
• Dr William Sargant, 1907-88
• Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries
• Eugenics Society
• Mental After-Care Association
• National Association for Mental Health (later MIND/Mind)
• The Retreat, York, 1792-2000
• Severalls Hospital, Essex: research, including oral history, by Dr Diana Gittins for her book Madness in its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital.

• The National Archives: Useful for researching national health policy. Its Hospital Records Database can help you identify the location of asylum and mental hospital archives. Its guide,  How to look for records of mental health, may be useful. The National Archives’ Discovery catalogue will tell you what is in their archives at Kew, London, and/or where you can find records on the same subjects in other archive collections.
• The Royal College of Surgeons of England has a comprehensive database of biographies of its Fellows from 1843 until the present day. The Royal College of Physicians has a similar database of biographies of Fellows, since its foundation in 1518. It also lists some useful sources of information, should you be undertaking a biographical study.
• Nottingham Psychiatric Archive: This archive is a bibliography of research done in Nottingham that follows on from the interests of Duncan Macmillan, including Professor John E. Cooper’s work with the World Health Organisation.
• Bethlem Museum of the Mind Archives  includes archives of the Bethlem Royal, Maudsley and Warlingham Park Hospitals. 
• Planned Environment Therapy Archives includes documents, objects, photographs and audio-visual materials that preserve the history of individuals, groups and organisations which have contributed to the development of therapeutic living and learning.
• The Internet Archive has many primary sources relating to the history of psychiatry.
• Hansard is the official report of all Parliamentary debates. Find individual members of both Houses, their contributions, debates, etc dating back to 1803.
• Kings College London Archives include the Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience.
• Many former county and borough asylum/mental hospital records are in local or county or city archive collections
• Universities may have extensive archives, such as the Lothian Health Services Archive at the University of Edinburgh.
• A large part of the BMJ archive is free to access.
• Archives Hub is another UK source for finding repositories and accessing archive catalogues.

• Mental Health in Historical Perspective – a number of volumes in this book series are open access and free to download.
• University Presses are publishing more open access, e.g. UCL Press
• Medical History  Peer reviewed open access journal
• Mental Health History Timeline
• Promoting mental health through the history of psychiatry podcasts and other resources on the History of Psychiatry created by Prof Rab Houston

Oral history is the recording of people's memories, experiences and opinions.

• A living history of everyone's unique life experiences
• An opportunity for those people who have been 'hidden from history' to have their voice heard
• A rare chance to talk about and record history face-to-face
• A source of new insights and perspectives that may challenge our view of the past.

  The Oral History Society promotes the collection, preservation and use of recorded memories and plays a key role in facilitating and developing the use of oral history. It has a new special interest group: Psycho-Social Therapies and Care Environments.

Available on YouTube. Some are controversial and contain historic images and interviews.

UK

• Ward F13, 1968 Granada TV, (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Life beyond the Door, 1963
• The Final Days, 1997
• Stanley Royd, Former Pauper Lunatic Asylum Wakefield
• Inside Out - High Royds Hospital, Jan 2010
• Wasted Lives, 1972 (Part 3)
• Meanwood Park Hospital

USA

• 1950s Treatment of the Mentally Ill Movie Columbus State Hospital 89534

Wellcome Library

• Neuro Psychiatry 1943 - copies of both the long and short versions of Neuro Psychiatry 1943 are held in the archives of the British Film Institute. The long version has been digitized and a copy of this is held in the Wellcome Trust Film Archive, Euston Road, London, UK.

Bethlem Museum of the Mind

• Museum of the Mind Film Collection

• Change Minds is a unique heritage and creative, wellbeing project engaging those living with mental health problems. 
• The Crichton, heritage project