susan howard

Subject:              Susan Howard (b 1864 – d 1931)

Researcher:       Heather Turner

Three members of Woking family admitted to Brookwood Asylum

 Susan Howard, along with her sister Mary Ann and father George, all became patients of the Brookwood Asylum.  As children, both Susan and Mary Ann had physical and mental difficulties, with Susan an inmate for several years of the Guildford Union Workhouse before her violent behaviour saw her moved to Brookwood, not long after the deaths of her sister and father in the Asylum.  Susan remained a patient there for over 45 years.

Susan was born on 27^th April 1864 in Knaphill, Woking, the third of seven known children for labourer George and Mary Ann Howard ^{1, 2, 3}.  She was baptised a few weeks later at Woking’s St John the Baptist Church.

By the time of the 1871 Census, Susan was one of five children living with their parents in Hook Heath, Woking ⁴.   Susan, although aged six, was not noted as a scholar as would be expected, perhaps the first indication that Susan was experiencing difficulties.

Susan’s sister Mary Ann and father into Brookwood

Just over four years later in June 1875, Susan’s sister 13-year-old Mary Ann was admitted from the family home to the Brookwood Asylum ⁵.   Upon admission, Mary Ann was noted as being unable to answer questions coherently, was almost helpless and could hardly feed herself.  Her mother said that Mary Ann had been quite well and healthy until she was about four years old before gradually becoming bow-legged, weak and unable to support herself physically.  She had started having fits in the past two months and had become ‘destructive and dangerous’ to her siblings.

The Asylum admissions’ officer, using the blunt medical language of the time, classified Mary Ann as an ‘idiot’ meaning she had a mental age of a child not beyond the age of two ⁶.  She continued to suffer from fits with her health further declining until she passed away there in October 1881 with her mother by her side, aged just 19, from ‘organic disease of the brain with effusion’ (possibly hydrocephalus) and ‘congestion of the lungs’.

Just under a year after Mary Ann’s death, her father George also became a patient of the Brookwood Asylum ⁷.  Aged about 49, George was admitted suffering from ‘mania and general paralysis’.  His wife, Susan’s mother Mary Ann, said that George had ‘been without sleep for many nights; that he has been wandering about; that he has heard voices and music’. He had also ‘at times threatened the wife and children’.

George remained in the Asylum until his death just over a year later from ‘exhaustion from general paralysis’ in January 1884.

Just three months after her husband’s death, Susan’s mother Mary Ann also passed away, aged 45, having suffered from liver disease for eight years ⁸.

Susan also into Brookwood

On 4^th February 1886, 21-year-old Susan became the third member of the family to go into Brookwood ⁹.  She had been an inmate of the Workhouse since at least April 1881, the time of the Census, and when her three younger siblings and parents were at home in Wych Street, Woking ^{10, 11}.  There are no records to show when or why Susan had gone into the Workhouse, but her Brookwood admission record noted that she had her first ‘attack’ about five years earlier, so it could have been just before the 1881 Census that Susan’s mother had decided that caring for her was too much, especially if Susan’s father George’s mental issues had begun by then.

Susan’s overall condition was not unlike that of her late sister Mary Ann when she had been admitted to Brookwood eleven years earlier, Susan having ‘a congenital defect… a spinal curvature and partial paraplegia’.   Furthermore, she was noted to have ‘no coherent conversation… required considerable attention and was quite incapable of any useful employment’.  Prior to her admission to the Asylum, Susan had become troublesome and at times dangerous towards other Guildford Union Workhouse inmates.  Mr William Hardwick, Master of the Workhouse, commented that he had seen Susan as ‘very violent… throwing a knife or spoon or anything that could come to hand at other inmates’.

The Asylum, using the same forthright language as they had with her sister’s condition, assessed Susan to be an ‘imbecile’ (having an intelligence that did not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years) ⁶.  However, Susan’s general behaviour did improve in Brookwood as her violent tendencies shown in the Workhouse ceased.  The following year, Susan had successful treatment for an abscess on her neck, but over the coming years, she suffered many accidents – cutting her heel, face, head, forehead and, at one time, fracturing her fibula.

There are no records to show whether Susan’s four younger siblings Georgina, Eliza, Albert and Emily ever visited her in Brookwood, but the 1891 Census showed that her paternal aunt Mary Ann Howard was a nurse in the Asylum ¹².

Susan remained in much the same condition until, after more than 45 years in Brookwood, she passed away there from ‘senile decay’ on 26^th July 1931, aged 67 ¹³. She was buried in the Brookwood Cemetery four days later ¹⁴.

Susan’s siblings

Susan’s four younger siblings all went on to marry, with three of them raising families, although her brother Albert was to suffer a similar distressing fate as Susan and her older sister Mary Ann.

The first marriage was that of Eliza to carpenter Frank Charles Hills in July 1889 in Dover, Kent ¹⁵.  They emigrated to Australia later that year, raising a family in Melbourne ^{16, 17}.  Eliza passed away there in 1940, aged 71 ¹⁸.

The other three marriages all took place in a little over one year.  Georgina was the first, marrying labourer William Spiers at Woking’s St John’s Church in September 1895 ¹⁹.  Like Eliza’s marriage certificate, it stated their father George had been a prison warder/officer.  Although no other records have been traced to confirm this, George could have worked at Woking Invalid Convict Prison, close to where the family had lived in Wych Street.  The prison held inmates who suffered from physical and mental problems, something he would have been well used to with his daughters Susan and Mary Ann ²⁰.

Georgina and William settled in the Woking area, having four children before Georgina died in Pirbright in 1925, aged 59 ^{21, 22}.

Emily, the youngest of the siblings, married George Norris in Guildford in December 1895.  Like Georgina and her family, they remained local but did not raise a family ^{23, 24}. Emily passed away in Send in 1933, also aged 59 ²⁵.

The only boy of the six siblings was Albert who married Ruth New at Woking’s St John’s Church in October 1896 ²⁶.   After having one daughter in 1898, they emigrated to Winnipeg, Canada in March 1905 ^{27, 28}.

The 1911 Canadian Census showed the family living in Selkirk, Manitoba, just north of Winnipeg ²⁹.  However, the mental problems that had afflicted his sisters Susan and Mary Ann, and their father George, also struck Albert who became a patient of the Brandon Hospital for Mental Diseases sometime before the 1921 Census ³⁰. Albert never recovered, spending the rest of his life there, passing away in 1944, aged 73 ³¹.

December 2020, updated July 2026
Edited by Mike Brock

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Sources and References

Original Surrey parish records and Brookwood Hospital Case Books are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised parish records were sourced through Ancestry.co.uk.  A complete list of references is at Susan Howard references

Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 Census.  The Spike Heritage Museum in Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the Casual/Vagrant ward of a Workhouse. More information can be found here