Incoming Correspondence Volumes

This group of volumes was designated as 'organised correspondence'
As with the loose correspondence, the bulk of these bound letters are about patients. However, by the 1890s, far more letters (eventually the majority) are about business (including patients financial affairs)
It is not clear why some correspondence was bound up into volumes since there is no apparent distinction between these letters and the files of loose correspondence. Indeed, series of letters on the same topic or about the same individual can often be found in both places. One explanation could be that the bound and the unbound correspondence result from letters being kept physically in two different places - some in the Medical Superintendent's office and some in the Secretary's office. This however is conjecture. What is clear is that both sets of incoming letters should be checked for details of individual patients
Copies of outgoing letters are sometimes included. Occasionally a sequence of letters on the same topic has been bound together, which means that the chronological sequence can sometimes be erratic.
The volumes are indexed by person
There is a volume missing from the series between RET1/5/2/27 and RET1/5/2/28, which would have covered August 1894 to September 1895.

Much of the Retreat Archive has been digitised with funding from the Wellcome Collection. Copies of digitised records can be viewed online where available by following links provided within the catalogue.

Published