Ann Tourle/Turle/Turrell
Born: c.1794
Died: 1866
Author: Lynda Fase
Ann’s Early Life and Marriage
Ann Turle was born Ann Moore in about 1794, somewhere in Sussex. Moore does not seem to have been a common name in West Grinstead, Sussex. But Ann was already about 30 when she married as a resident of that parish in October 1825, so she had had time to move around and live a life.
Ann’s new husband was John Turle, some years younger than Ann, possibly as many as six. He was an agricultural labourer, with deep roots in West Grinstead, and a lot of family there. Unlike many local people, John was able to sign his name on the marriage entry, and he wrote ‘Turell’, while ‘Turle’ had been written on the first line of the entry. Ann of course signed with a mark.
The couple’s first child, Harriet, was baptised in March 1826, four months after the wedding. By 1833 they had four more children: twins George and Elizabeth (called Eliza), and Emily and Daniel. There was also a mysterious Ellen, who would have been born in 1837, but she only appears as a daughter in 1851, not in 1841. I can’t find any other Census record, or any records of a life event for her. All five (or six) of the children survived childhood, which was probably quite rare at the time.
Where they lived
West Grinstead was a scattered community, consisting of hamlets and farms. In 1841 the Turell family was living at Butcher’s Row, just over the river to the south of the small group of buildings surrounding St George’s Church. You can see the location marked with three buildings below the church in the centre of the 1960 map (right).
William and Mary Turell lived next door, with their growing family. William was likely to be John’s younger brother, or certainly a relative if not. William was also an agricultural labourer, but he had been in the army and possibly brought his wife back from Ireland.
1960 map of West Grinstead (taken from website British History Online)
Beginning of Ann’s Troubles
In November 1847, Ann was 53 and obviously showing serious signs of ‘dementia’, as later diagnosed by the authorities. Sussex had no mental asylum, so she was uprooted from her home and sent to St Lukes Asylum in Old Street, London, funded by Horsham Union.
Ann spent a year at St Lukes. It was a grandiose building but not so nice inside. Patients had cells with high windows, no heating and beds with straw (this is a description from an earlier time, but it had probably not changed much). There were also exercise yards, but only for patients who were not violent (Lost Hospitals of London website).
In November 1848, Ann was transferred to Otto House, perhaps one of the licensed private asylums that took in pauper patients. There was also an Otto House licensed asylum in Hammersmith, but all references to it say it was for private patients only. In any case, Ann was discharged from there, apparently cured in May 1849.
What happened at home
If Ann returned to her family, it was not for long. In 1851, her husband was described as married in the Census, but Ann was not listed, nor was she identifiable anywhere else in the Census.
George, Emily, and Daniel were recorded in the Census, with the young men probably working on the land, whilst Emily perhaps kept house.
In Ann’s absence (or during any brief return) there had been big changes for the relatives next door. In 1849 they were sponsored by the parish authorities, who gave them nearly £70 for the cost of their journey from West Grinstead to London, and from there to the USA. This was a time of penury for agricultural labourers and there was a lot of encouragement for them to emigrate. The authorities must have thought it worth spending this large amount of money to avoid future charges for the care of paupers. Did John Turle think of joining them? His wife’s instability and perhaps uncertain future would have made that difficult. William was a more adventurous person, perhaps, having left the village before as a soldier.
The 1850s brought two tragedies to Ann’s family, and we don’t know whether she would have been aware of them. In 1855 Daniel died at the age of 22, and he was buried in West Grinstead churchyard. In 1856 Emily married, becoming Emily Styles. Her sister Eliza Tourle was probably a witness, along with Peter Tourle (likely a cousin). Nobody could sign their name. Emily Styles died and was buried in the churchyard in 1858. Ann was probably still being held in London, so even if she was capable of learning the news, communication must have been difficult.
In 1859 the Sussex County Asylum opened in Haywards Heath, and Ann was transferred there from Peckham House, with many other Sussex patients. It seems likely she had been at Peckham House for most of the decade. If so, she would have been living in conditions criticised by the Commissioners in Lunacy. In 1851 they described the rooms being “badly lit, and some like prison cells” whilst “the ‘pauper lunatics’ [were] not well-supplied with washing equipment and [had] too few towels.” (Lost Hospitals of London). To be honest, this does at least suggest some reasonably adequate expectations. Improvements may have been made after this, but there was also an outbreak of cholera in 1855, lasting for 72 days.
Later times for Ann and her family
In 1861, Ann was back in Sussex, but John Tourle was described as a widower in the Census. The enumerator may have assumed Ann had died, or John didn’t know whether his wife was alive or not. Perhaps he did not want to admit where she was? John had moved out to the hamlet of Dial Post, presumably because of a change of employer or other circumstances. It might have been because of the sale of Butchers Row cottages in 1857 (see below).
The couple’s son George was still single and living at home, and their daughter Eliza was keeping house. That would have been the household situation when Ann died in Sussex County Asylum in 1866, aged 72, nearly twenty years after she was first admitted. She had also survived for seven years after being admitted at Haywards Heath with ‘delicate’ health.
In 1870, Eliza married a 49-year-old bachelor called William Brooks. She seems to have signed her name (as Turrell), but he could not sign. Witnesses were not obvious family members.
Father John and brother George continued to live with the couple. In 1871 they were at a place called Bassell’s (the name of a farm), closer to the church settlement, and in 1881 they were back at Butcher’s Row. (Dial Post and Bassell’s are on the map above).
John Turle/Tourle/Turrell was still apparently working at the age of 80, and he lived to the age of 88, dying in 1890. What a different world he lived to see, compared to the world of the 1840s, when Ann had last lived as part of it.
AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS
Questions about Ann? 53 is young for senile dementia but possible, and maybe quite old for the first onset of other kinds of psychosis. But there is a lot we don’t know. She seems to have been living with a close and stable family, although they would have been suffering from the same poverty as their neighbours. We don’t know anything about the first thirty years of Ann’s life either. She must have been quite a healthy woman to have survived for twenty years in the system – possibly during a cholera outbreak – and lived into her seventies.
I also wonder how much contact Ann had with her family, and how much they knew about her over all this time. If they couldn’t read, write or travel, then probably not much. It reminds me a bit of my own great grandmother in much more recent times, but with the same mentality of shame. She was in mental institutions from 1902 until her death in 1923, beginning when my grandfather was a baby. I still don’t know how much my grandfather knew about that. He certainly never said anything to us about it.
Also, a comment about their name. It seems that when a family member wrote it, they usually wrote Turell or Turrell. But educated people in official positions, who were perhaps not familiar with the Sussex accent, wrote Turle or Tourle. Where did the largely uneducated family get their spelling from, I wonder?
Author: Lynda Fase
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