Broadmoor's Archives Are Now Available to the Public

Broadmoor Hospital at Crowthorne in Berkshire, England has housed thousands of mental patients, including a Jack the Ripper suspect, the artist Richard Dadd, a would-be assassin of Queen Victoria, one of the contributors to the first Oxford English Dictionary, and thousands of every-day citizens. Now the hospital has opened its Victorian archives to the public for the first time, having spent the last two years listing and repairing the hospital's records with a £200,000 grant from the Wellcome Trust.

Previously known as the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane, the hospital was built in 1863 to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb. Broadmoor has also served as a research center for the development of new treatment methods.

The new archives are not available online; you must visit in person to use the available resources.  You can read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2008/11/20/broadmoor_feature.shtml.