Author: Julia Kirwan

Born: January 1831

Died: 4th March 1871

Buried: 7th March 1871

Early life

According to records available on Ancestry, Thomas was born in January 1831 in Up Marden near Chichester. However, when Thomas was admitted to the Sussex County Asylum in 1865, his address was recorded as West Marden.

West Marden is described online as a hamlet, whereas Up Marden is a village very close by, so it’s possible that residents of the area used the larger village when giving their address to officials. West Marden is in the Chichester district of West Sussex.

Thomas’s parents

Original Baptism record for Thomas from the Parish Church of Upmarden.

A later Baptism of Thomas’s sister notes that the children’s father had been ‘miscalled’ James, and in this record this is recorded as an error. Instead, their father’s name is listed as Richard. See below:

Original Baptism record for Mary Ann from the Parish Uhurch of Upmarden

Thomas’s parents were Richard and Harriett Vinson. They married on 2nd October 1830 in St Mary’s Portsea. However, in the record below, Thomas’s father is listed as James: 

Working life

The 1841 Census shows Richard, Thomas’s father, was a shoemaker:

Research via Ancestry revealed that Thomas was the oldest of six children, with four younger brothers and a much younger sister born when Thomas was 18. Being a shoemaker, I would have thought Thomas’s father might have been keen to pass his trade on to one of his sons, and yet this doesn’t appear to have been the case. All the brothers seem to have chosen to work in agriculture, gardening or building.

The 1851 Census shows Thomas living at home with his parents and siblings, and his occupation is recorded as ‘farm labourer’.

In the 1861 Census, Thomas continued to be employed as an agricultural labourer.

Sussex County Asylum

It was on 23rd September 1865 that Thomas was admitted to the Sussex County Asylum. The record states he was “of unsound mind and not under proper care and control”. His age on admission was 36 and he was single.  

The Sussex County Asylum record also tells us that Thomas’s form of mental disorder was ‘Mania with Epilepsy,’ and that he was 15 when first afflicted. In the 1860s, mania was sometimes described as a ‘disorder of elevated mood’, which might today be referred to as bipolar disorder, an illness – alongside epilepsy – that can be more easily managed today.

Work in the Asylum

James Gardner’s book, Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Time, notes that, of those initially admitted in 1859:

 “Many suffered from epilepsy and as there were no anticonvulsant drugs available, were treated with potassium bromides, sedatives which were not always effective.  Robertson [the asylum’s first medical superintendent]admitted the following year that medical science had little idea about the cause and treatment of epilepsy.” (1)

Because Thomas worked as a farm labourer prior to his admission, I wondered whether he would have been employed on the farm at the asylum. James Gardner’s book states that the farm played a central role in asylum life and regularly employed 30 or 40 male patients. (2) It provided fresh produce and meat for patients and the surplus was sold to local people, thus offsetting some of the asylum costs. 

Another source, however, indicates that Thomas may have been allocated different work. In his book, James Gardner quotes from an unpublished book by J. Middleton on the Sussex Lunatic Asylum (1995), Chapter 3:

“It was felt to be therapeutic to vary the experience from previous employment. Thus, if a farm labourer became a patient, he was put to learn a trade like shoemaking; whereas a patient who had been used to the sedentary job of tailoring was sent to work in the garden or on the farm”.

Thomas’s final years

Thomas remained a patient at the Sussex County Asylum until his death on 4th March 1871, aged just 40. The cause of death was recorded as “Epilepsy”. 

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Footnotes:

1. J. Gardner, Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Time p.48
2. J. Gardner, Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Time p.115
   
   

Author: Julia Kirwan