Hatton Asylum Orchestra

Hatton Asylum Orchestra. My Great Grandfather is on the end, left, with a violin. I am not sure of the date. My Great Grandfather was Henry William Johnson, a baker, who in 1890 married Miriam Boardman who was a nurse. He continued to work in asylums til he retired in the 1920s – he also worked in Liverpool where Miriam was from, but returned to Hatton.

There is a story where they used to take the shell shocked young men from the First World War out into the countryside in barred cage carriages like circus animal cages. This was so that they could get away from the four walls. They did that because some of the men if they heard a noise would run and run and run.