Cast-iron grave marker

Cast iron grave marker Cast-iron grave marker Cast-iron grave marker

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Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

Buy

License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

License

Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

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License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

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Cast iron grave marker
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Cast iron grave marker, for patient's grave at the Sussex Lunatic Asylum/Brighton County Borough Asylum, 1859-1939.

Simple iron crosses like this marked the graves of former patients of St Audry’s Hospital. They were buried in the hospital’s grounds in Melton, England. Patients may have spent most of their lives as inmates and then died in the institution. They were marked in the hospital cemetery with a number, not their name.

The hospital opened in 1765. It was originally a workhouse for the poor. It became the Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum in 1827. The hospital was also known as St Audry’s Hospital for Mental Diseases from 1917. The hospital and the Asylum Museum attached to it closed in the late 1980s. The grave markers were removed when the hospital grounds were redeveloped as a golf course.

Details

Category:
Psychology, Psychiatry & Anthropometry
Object Number:
1996-271/17
Materials:
cast iron
Measurements:
overall: 465 mm x 187 mm x 12 mm, 1.828 kg
type:
grave marker
credit:
Princess Royal Hospital