VPRS 8239 Boarded Out Register

Full description

Under s.95 of the Lunacy Act 1890 (No.1113), the Governor-in-Council could make regulations for the boarding out of patients. The regulations stated that the same person could not receive both male and female patients and prescribed other matters such as the class of person to whom patients might be boarded out; the type of accommodation and the distance from the hospital; the permissible occupations of the patient; the hours to be kept by the patient; the degree of liberty of a patient whilst boarded out and the dietary requirements to be provided for the patient.

The Register of Boarded Out Patients records the details of such patients in chronological order by date of discharge. They record the name of the patient; admission details, date of boarding out and date of return or death. The name and address of the people or organisation to whom the patient had been boarded out was recorded in a remarks column. From 1922 this column is headed `to whom boarded out' and in unit 2 of the series these details are fewer and the column is simply titled Guardian.

Initially the admission details included the admission number and date of admission, but later only the date of admission was recorded. Patients were numbered in order of date boarded out, with males and females having separate sequences of numbers. The numbers do not correspond to any others used in the records of Sunbury Asylum. On two occasions, 28 March 1924 and 4 January 1926, the Register was rewritten to include only those patients still boarded out.