Great-great-uncles can be a valuable source of information

I wrote yesterday about how I located my great-grandfather David Scott Ritchie of Tottenham by identifying first my grandfather's cousin and then his uncle. This is such a rich and interesting part of the story that I want to share it.

To recap, my grandfather's uncle is one of 3 boys, William, David Scott and Thomas Scott. Picture them in Lambeth in 1881, aged 9, 7 and 1. Their father, William Ritchie, states on the census that he was born in 1849 in Scotland. Right now, he is working as a commercial clerk for an oil merchant. Their mother, Emma Eliza Ritchie, has her family roots in Ipswich, Suffolk, where her father was a coach maker. All in all, they sound like a fairly well-off family, don't they?

The eldest son, William, certainly seems to have done all right. Thirty years later, when the 1911 census is taken in Wandsworth, he is 40, the father of 3 sons and a furniture dealer by trade. his rather large household includes his 66-year-old mother, Emma Eliza, and her second husband, James lavell, who works as a cab driver. Such are his means that he is also able to offer a home to his wife's sister and her infant son, plus his 24-year-old unemployed brother-in-law.

Thomas Scott Ritchie is likewise doing well for himself in 1911. Aged 31 and married to Ethel Louise, he is the proud dad of two little boys, Eric Scott and Donald. He has a good job as chief clerk at an advertising agency, which allows him and his young family to live comfortably in Brixton Hill.

But where was my great-grandfather, David Scott Ritchie senior, all this time? I was struggling to find any trace of him after he married my great-grandmother Maude.

Then a shocking record turned up. A David Ritchie with the birth date of 1874 and occupation of butler was listed as an inmate of the St Bernard's Hospital, Southhall, Middlesex on the night of the 1939 register. This hospital, also called Hanwell Mental Hospital, was established for the care of paupers. It appears that David was a patient with no-one willing or able to afford his medical care.

Such things turn up in genealogy from time to time. Of course, this may not be the same David Ritchie who married Maude and gave birth to my grandfather but it seems highly likely that it is, given the sheer dearth of information about the middle son of William and Emma Eliza. I shall have to keep looking for evidence. And I shall have to learn all I can about the treatment of inmates of psychiatric hospitals in the first half of the 20th century.