The Medical Archives and Manuscripts Survey

The Medical Archives and Manuscripts Survey exists to gather information about all types of medical records from between 1600 and 1945.

The survey locates any papers with a bearing upon health and illness: in addition to the records of medical practice, broader issues such as nutrition, sewage disposal, water supply and the disposal of the dead. Researchers specifically interested in hospital records are advised to consult the Hospital Records Database maintained by the Wellcome Library and The National Archives first.

At present the project holds information on materials in repositories in Greater London: over 100 were surveyed during the course of the 1990s. The results can be examined on this website. Please note that no major updating has been undertaken since 2000 when the results were mounted on this website. In particular, contact details for repositories may have changed. Please consult the ARCHON database of up-to-date contact information for archive repositories in the United Kingdom. You are advised to check this before getting in touch with a repository about any material listed in this survey.

List of institutions surveyed

Readers should always contact a repository before visiting, in order to ascertain the access conditions that may apply to archive and manuscript material.

It was intended that the project should eventually be extended to cover material held in the rest of the UK. Some preliminary work was done on repositories outside London and although the data is still in a raw state, researchers wishing to find out if any data is held about medical records in a repository outside London should contact Archives and Manuscripts.