Records released for the first time have revealed the secrets behind the incarceration of patients at Beckenham’s infamous “Bedlam” hospital.

Nearly 250,000 patient records dating from 1683 to 1932 have been made available online detailing the lives and stories of the hospital’s former inmates.

Bethlem Royal Hospital is thought to be the world’s oldest psychiatric institution and has been treating patients for almost 800 years.

The hospital, which moved to its current location on Monks Orchard Road in 1930, has a chequered past in how it determined not only who was insane, but also in its treatment of patients. 

News Shopper rifled through the records to find some of the more unusual reasons people were locked up.

1. Attempting a royal assassination with a dessert knife

Margaret Nicholson was sent to the hospital in August 1787 after she attempted to stab King George III with a pearl-handled dessert knife.

She spent the rest of her life there, dying in May 1828.

2. Enjoying theatres, musicals and shopping too much

Ingrid Schwitzguebel was admitted in July 1909 by her own husband after he claimed her “desire for theatres, musicals and lounging in London’s fashionable streets” had all become too much.

Records go on to show she suspected her husband of cheating and had threatened to attack him with a hat pin.

3. Having an overtaxed brain due to writing a dictionary

In July 1886, 66-year-old Alexander Tolhausen was committed with an overtaxed brain due to writing a dictionary.

According to his medical notes, Mr Tolhausen, who was working on a technological dictionary in French, English, and German, allegedly got dressed and undressed six times a day and threw his breakfast at his wife.

4. Refusing to marry your cousin

Kate Jeffery was sent to the hospital for melancholia in October 1910.

She blamed her family for trying to force her to marry a cousin whom she thought was immoral.

5. Paralysis

In February 1901, Richard Cook Thompson, who believed he was a messenger of God, was admitted with paralysis.

His medical notes recorded that he believed he was “one of the apostles” and had “a message from almighty god to go to Windsor Castle”.

6. Believing you were the pope

Mr Thompson wasn’t the only one to believe he was a divine messenger – James Duggan was also incarcerated in October 1906 for saying he was “the pope of Rome”.

7. Insisting you had not yet been born

According to her notes, Ethel Julia Ouselay Collins was committed for “mixing her ideas with religious matters” including believing she had not yet been born.

So, where can you find out more?

The database has been put online by family history organisation FindMyPast in partnership with Bethlem Museum of the Mind.

Debra Chatfield, FindMyPast family historian said the records compiled from letters, photographs and medical reports provide an extraordinary level of detail about the patients.

She said: “It’s hard not to empathise with the inmates as you learn about their often harrowing and tragic stories.

“Publishing these records online allows those stories to be told for the first time to a wider audience, and you might discover that you had an ancestor who was sent to Bedlam.”

MORE TOP STORIES: