Skip to main content

Historic Hospital Admission Records Project

Help

Patient details help

Personal Details : Parental Occupation : Residence : Registration Districts : Map

All databases contain the following personal details for each patient: first and last names, sex, age on admission in years and months, approximate year of birth and residential address at time of admission (with the exception of the Alexandra Hip Hospital admission registers).

Personal details

Name

There are two ways of searching the records by name: ‘Starts With’ or ‘Exact Match’. Click on the down arrow in the box to select the option you want to use if you do not see it displayed. The system automatically uses ‘Starts With’ unless you change it. This applies to both First Name and Surname fields.

You can search for a combination of First and Surname, or by either name alone.

‘Starts With’ searches for all names which begin with the text string you enter, so entering ‘starts with’ = Fred finds Fred, Fredk, Frederic and Frederick.

‘Exact Match’ searches for the precise word, so the same search for Fred using ‘Exact Match’ would only find those children whose name was entered in the registers as Fred.

Hints

The children’s names were entered into the database exactly as they appeared in the registers, so it is important when searching for a specific name to consider alternative spellings and abbreviations which may have been used. If you cannot find the children you are looking for, you can increase the chance of finding them by using the shortest form of the name in a ‘starts with’ search. If that fails, try using common ‘pet names’; Elizabeth may be shortened to Lizzy, while Henry often appears as Hry, Charles as Chas.

Sex

Searching by sex is simple; just select ‘Male’ or ‘Female’ from the drop down menu.

Age

The registers often provide the child’s age in years and months, but search is restricted to age in years only. You can search for children of a specific age or within an age range, either by using the child’s Year of Birth or Age on Admission.

Year of Birth should be entered in full eg 1856. If you are searching for a range using Year of Birth, the search starts at 1 January of the first year entered and finishes at 31 December of the latest year entered.

Examples

Children born in 1856, enter ‘from’ 1856 ‘to’ 1856. Similarly, if looking for children born in a ten year period, eg 1860 to 1869, the search should start at 1860 and finish at 1869.

If using ‘Age on Admission’ enter the age in whole numbers of years. Searching on a range of ages should be formulated in the same way as searches on Year of Birth: for all children age 10 on admission, search from 10 to 10; for all children between the age of 0 and 2 (or under 3 years old), search from 0 to 2.

Hints

Age starts at 0, for children admitted under one year (for such children their exact age, in months is shown in the display page). All the hospitals in HHARP had rules restricting access by age. In theory none accepted children under two, but the practice was quite different. They were stricter about the upper limit of 12, but there are a few records for admissions over this age limit. The eldest patient was actually a nurse at Great Ormond Street who was admitted to the Hospital in 1868 with scarletina. She was entered as Harriet ‘Nurse’, and was 30 years old. Although many nurses succumbed to a variety of infectious diseases, Harriet was the only one whose illness was recorded in the admission registers.

Parental occupation

The Evelina and Alexandra Hip Hospital records sometimes include information on parental occupation. This information is not searchable but is displayed in the Full Record and in the downloaded file when available.

Residence

All registers (with the exception of the admission registers to the Alexandra Hip Hospital) contain details of a child’s address prior to being admitted. This would usually be his or her home address. Addresses for Alexandra Hip Hospital patients can sometimes be found in the applications register. Addresses can be searched in several ways:

Location

This is a keyword search which looks for the specified term anywhere in the Residence field: eg, ‘Oxford’ will find Southern St Oxford, Oxford Street, Oxford St, Oxford Crescent, and the city of Oxford.

Hints

This field can be used to search for addresses both in London and outside. The addresses mirror the entries in the registers, including any abbreviations, so to get the best results it is advisable to either use single key words, or to consider using street abbreviations if the address you are looking for is not found. You can search for specific towns and cities outside London here. Combining a search for ‘Oxford’ in the Location field with ‘Outside London’ in the Registration District box, will enable searches outside the capital to be narrowed down. Records relating to children from outside the metropolitan area can be identified by the term ‘Outside London’ in the Registration District column of the Results Table. Further work in being carried out on the addresses outside London to make searching for them easier.

In this database the definition of London is the Metropolitan London area as defined in the Act for the Better Management of the Metropolis, 1855, and, therefore, many places which would now be considered part of Greater London, e.g. Highgate, Finchley, Chiswick, Croydon, etc. are classed as Outside London. See Registration Districts for a list of the 1881 Districts which were part of the 1855 definition of London.

Street name

This field is only available for searches on London addresses (see location hints for definition of London in HHARP). It has been constructed as a search aid for this database and contains a standardised version of the London street names given in the hospital register. Street names in this field are given in full. A search for ‘Abbey’ finds all streets beginning with that word; ‘Abbey Road’ finds records with that street in the address, but ‘Abbey Rd’ will find no records, as all instances of Abbey Road have been standardised to the full name.

Registration District (London and Glasgow only)

Registration District and Sub-District (for London Addresses) can be used to find records in specific areas of London and Glasgow . They are useful for family historians when looking for individuals where the exact address is not known. They are also useful for local historians and medical historians who want to examine admissions by geographic area.

Search these fields by selecting from the drop down menus.

Hints

Each address in London and Glasgow (location hints) has been assigned a Registration District and, in most cases in London, a Registration Sub-district. See Registration Districts for a brief explanation of Registration Districts and a list of the Registration Districts used in HHARP.

Click here for a map of Metropolitan London Registration Districts.

Addresses outside London have not been standardised or assigned to a Registration District. A keyword search using ‘Location’ must be used to find records relating to children from other parts of the country.

Registration Districts & Sub-districts – London 1881

Registration Districts were administrative regions created in 1837 for the purpose of civil registration of births, deaths and marriages. Each District was divided into Sub-districts, each of which had its own Registrar. The districts used in this database are those which existed in 1881, and addresses have been assigned to a district according to 1881 census data. The database covers the 30 London Registration Districts and 130 Sub-districts which fall into the 1855 definition of London.

Registration District (1881) Registration Sub-district (1881)
Bethnal Green Church
Green
Hackney Road
Town
Camberwell Camberwell
Dulwich
Peckham
St George
Chelsea Chelsea North East
Chelsea North West
Chelsea South
Fulham Fulham
St Paul Hammersmith
St Peter Hammersmith
Greenwich Greenwich East
Greenwich West
St Nicholas Deptford
St Paul Deptford
Hackney South Hackney
Stamford Hill
Stoke Newington
West Hackney
Hampstead Hampstead
Holborn Amwell
City Road
Finsbury
Goswell Street
Old Street
Pentonville
Saffron Hill
St Andrew Eastern
St George the Martyr
St James Clerkenwell
Whitecross Street
Islington Islington East
Islington West
Kensington Brompton
Kensington Town
St John Paddington
St Mary Paddington
Lambeth Brixton
Kennington First
Kennington Second
Lambeth Church First
Lambeth Church Second
Norwood
Waterloo Road First
Waterloo Road Second
Lewisham Eltham
Lee
Lewisham
Sydenham
London City All Hallows Barking
Broad Street
Castle Baynard
Cripplegate
St Botolph
St Bride
St Sepulchre
Marylebone All Souls
Cavendish Square
Christchurch
Rectory
St John
St Mary
Mile End Old Town Mile End Old Town Eastern
Mile End Old Town Western
Pancras Camden Town
Grays Inn Lane
Kentish Town
Regents Park
Somers Town
Tottenham Court
Poplar Bow
Bromley
Poplar
Shoreditch Haggerston
Holywell
Hoxton New Town
Hoxton Old Town
St Leonard
St George Hanover Square Belgrave
Hanover Square
Mayfair
St John Westminster
St Margaret Westminster
St George in the East St John
St Mary
St Paul
St Giles St George Bloomsbury
St Giles North
St Giles South
St Olave Southwark Leather Market
Rotherhithe
St James Bermondsey
St John Horsleydown
St Mary Magdalen
St Olave Southwark
St Saviour Southwark Borough Road
Christchurch Southwark
Kent Road
London Road
St Mary Newington
St Peter Walworth
St Saviour Southwark
Trinity Newington
Stepney Limehouse
Racliff
Shadwell
Strand St Clement Danes
St Martin in the Fields
St Mary le Strand
Wandsworth Battersea
Clapham
Putney
Streatham
Wandsworth
Westminster Berwick Street
Golden Square
St Anne Soho
Whitechapel Aldgate
Goodmans Fields
Mile End New Town
Spitalfields
Whitechapel Church
Whitechapel North
Woolwich Charlton
Plumstead East
Plumstead West
Woolwich Arsenal
Woolwich Dockyard

Map of Metropolitan London Registration Districts (1881)

Map showing London registration districts