History

Before looking at the photos of the Brockhall Hospital Cemetery it is useful to spend a little time thinking about the Cemetery's history; why it is where it is, who is buried there, and why 587 men women and children appear to have been hidden in an unremarkable field alongside the pristine and well cared-for cemetery of St Leonard's Church.

It is helpful to understand the society and the context in which the Cemetery was first established in 1939, within the grounds of what was then, in pre-NHS days, the Brockhall Asylum. Attitudes towards people with disabilities have been transformed over the last century but when the major institutions for people with disabilities were established across the country, they were the embodiment of what at the time, were seen as the innovative and humane  ideas of Mary Dendy. Britain was then a very different place, as an authoritarian but seemingly benevolent society grappled with intractable and endemic social problems and the inherent limitations of the workhouses . It was Mary Dendy's proposals which proved persuasive at a time when the ideas of Francis Galton and his School of Eugenics were being considered by policy makers. See copy of Dr Gill's report on what was then, the Brockhall Institution for inebriate women

Having been originally designed to provide for the segregated and secluded long term control of people with disabilities; as the decades passed, the huge institutions were to be increasingly constrained by the very designs, structures and practices which had been seen as fit for purpose in the early 20th Century. Set by design, in very large, rural and isolated sites, far from the communities they served, the institutions became self-contained and insular small villages where the staff with their families, lived along with the inmates/patients/people. Often ostracised, rejected and feared by the local communities, the institutions gradually perfected by need or preference or both, their ability to be self-reliant and accepted that they were IN rather than part of their local communities.

As evidence of their self-reliance, some institutions had their own farms, reservoirs, railways, generators, workshops, tradesmen, and perhaps inevitably their own cemetery. The neighbouring Calderstones Hospital Cemetery was established in 1915. Twenty four years later, the more recently built and extended Brockhall Hospital, established its own cemetery in a part of the Hospital alongside the St Leonard's Church of England Cemetery.

The 587 people who are buried in the Cemetery are all former long term or permanent patients of Brockhall Hospital. They came from communities across the North of England, and a few from farther afield. The Institution was only renamed a Hospital with the introduction of the NHS  in 1948, but it would be misleading to compare its function and operation as being in any way similar to a local general hospital or infirmary. Some of the people with intellectual disabilities who were admitted to Brockhall might have had additional physical disabilities, but few had physical health problems which needed specialist ongoing medical treatments. What they did need would today be regarded as social care, and it was often only those individuals with the most desperate of social problems  who would be admitted to what was expected to be lifetime care. In a "Hospital" of over 70 wards, Brockhall had two wards for its sick patients, a useful reflection of the true needs of the people who lived there. They were called Male General and Female General, and there were also Male Pavilion and Female Pavilion, which may originally have been TB wards, similar to those at Calderstones.  In the pavilions at Calderstones, patients would often be seen in the open, in beds on the verandha. These wards were eventually renamed Independent Living Units, a sort of half-way house to the community. 

71 of the people buried in the Cemetery were under 16 at death, 23 were aged 7 or under. These children were some of the hundreds who would have been admitted to Brockhall over the years, often because there was simply no other place which would accept them. "Normal" orphanages and local Children's services rejected and segregated those they regarded as being so "different," the officially labelled, idiots, imbeciles, and feeble-minded persons (Mental Deficiency Acts 1913) or subnormals.(Mental Health Act 1959) Where families were unable for whatever reason to care for a child who had a disability, these were the children who were most likely to be"put away" in places like Brockhall and Calderstones, and after admission, unless circumstances changed and the family was suddenly able to cope,  there was little or no chance of that child ever returning to those communities who had initially rejected them.

Once admitted, there was an acceptance that children and adults would be the responsibility of Bockhall, for an indefinite period of time, usually a lifetime. Brockhall did not have the option of rejecting these responsibilities and over the decades established systems and routines to look after the up to 2200 people with disabilities who might be living at the Hospital, at any one time. Whatever justified criticisms of institutions like Brockhall are made in today's totally transformed society, it should be remembered that it was the same local communities who had banded together to create, design, fund and manage the institutions, who had subsequently rejected and exiled the disabled, content to abdicate any civic or moral responsibility for their well-being, to the institutions..

So, in 1939 the Brockhall Asylum (later Hospital) Authorities decided to establish their own private cemetery in a part of the Hospital  grounds which was duly consecrated by the Bishop of Blackburn on the 27th March 1939. Three days later, 47-year old, Florence Craig became the first person to be buried in the Cemetery, some of those who had died at Brockhall between 1933 and 1939 were buried in the Calderstones Cemetery. Not all the people who died at Brockhall, would be buried in its cemetery, a majority would have been returned to their families in their home areas. 

The Cemetery is divided by religious association into three distinct sections: the Church of England section with 399 burials, the Other faiths (inc Free Church, Non-conformist, Methodist, Congregationalist and Presbyterian) section with 55 burials, and the Roman Catholic section with 123 burials, a total of 587. There are some minor discrepancies in the actual totals, with two relatives who were not patients of the Hospital, subsequently being buried alongside their deceased children.

Unlike the Caldertones Hospital Cemetery, where there are many multiple graves with as many as 5 people sharing the same grave, at Brockhall each deceased individual has their own grave, with the exception of the two, who now share with their relatives.

We understand that in later years most deceased patients were cremated rather than buried. In some cases their ashes were placed in small wooden caskets with the individuals name inscribed on top. These caskets were then buried in individual plots on either side of the short access road leading to the Lych Gate. Unfortunately, no details of the numbers or details of those individuals' names have been discovered as yet, but the second photo shows the location of at least two such interments.

As Brockhall Hospital prepared to close during the late 80's the Regional Health Authority and representatives of the Brockhall Management Team, made informal contact with the Reverend Quentin Wilson at St Leonard's Church, to explore the possibility of transferring the ownership of the Cemetery to St Leonard's for continuing use and management. Reverend Wilson was not in a position to make such a decision but having consulted his diocesan superiors declined the offer.

In 1991, the whole hospital site was sold to a Mr Gerald Hitman, who, believing that the Cemetery was included in the sale, set about producing the prominent stone monument to the deceased which is the centrepiece of he Cemetery today. Unfortunately Mr Hitman's understanding proved to be incorrect, as the Cemetery along with the Calderstones Hospital Cemetery, were sold to a Mr Paul (Tony) Walsh prior to auction in October 2000.

After lengthy discussions and negotiations with the Regional Health Authority and Mr Walsh, Mr Hitman subsequently purchased the Brockhall Cemetery from Mr Walsh in January 2002.

CEMETERY INFORMATION

The Cemetery information has been compiled from the original burial records and maps which were available before Brockhall Hospital closed in the 1992. To make the records easier to access, they have been set out in the following separate sections.

1. The Alphabetical List of all the known and recorded burials into the Brockhall Hospital Cemetery. It provides the name, hospital number if known, age, trade if known, date of death, place of death, religion, grave number, name of the minister providing the committal service and the official responsible for the record.
2. The List of burials in Brockhall Cemetery in date order . This List provides details of name, age, date of death, religion and grave number.  As you will see, the graves at Brockhalll Hospital Cemetery have only one occupant, unlike Calderstones Hospital Cemetery, where many of the graves are shared
3. The Brockhall Hospital Cemetery burials by year, gender distribution and average age at death. This information will be especially useful to researchers, tracing the changing patterns of life and death within the major long-stay institutions. Details of year, number of male, female and total deaths, with the average age of the deaths which were subsequently buried in the Cemetery are provided.
4. Location of the graves in the C of E section of the Cemetery. Graves are shown by numbers and rows, with paths marked in red, and general compass points added to assist with identification. If you are not familiar with the Cemetery then it will be useful to compare this information with he photos in the following section 
5. Location of the graves in the RC section of the Cemetery. -see above
6. Location of the graves in the Free Church/Non-Conformist section of the Cemetery, - see above
7. The photographs of the Cemetery with explanatory notes attached