Royal Hospital Donnybrook The Royal Hospital Donnybrook collection is a large collection of administrative, financial, patient, staff and property records ranging in date from 1771 until 2001. There is also a smaller selection of records related to the hospital’s history, ephemera and some objects including the hospital’s seal matrix. Unfortunately, records do not exist from its foundation in 1743; the earliest record is a minute book of the board of governors dating from 1771. The collection contains a substantive set of administrative records spanning over 220 years of the hospital’s existence between 1771 and 1993. These records include: - a complete run of board of governors’ minute books from 1771 until 1972; - a complete run of managing committee’ minute books 1897 until 1986; - annual reports from 1858 until 1887 (with the exception of years 1861 and 1862); - a complete run of visiting committee’ minute books from 1876 until 1983; - the minutes of various sub committees including an income and expenditure committee, building committee, patient welfare and a ‘Friends of the hospital’ committee. The administrative section also includes a large run of rough minute books which cover both meetings of the board of governors and the managing committee from 1853 until 1936. These books are also accompanied by detailed agenda books beginning in 1872 and continuing until 1975. These records, together with the formal minutes of the board of governors, the managing committee and others in existence in the collection, are a rich resource in terms of understanding the day-to-day work of the hospital and moreover, how it survived and flourished over such extended periods of time. This section also includes various legal records documenting the evolution of the hospital’s governance structures such as its governing charters, bye-laws and regulations. It includes the original supplemental charter granted to the hospital by Queen Victoria in 1886 together with its wax seal. A comprehensive range of reports from visiting governors, medical officers, the housekeeper, and the lady superintendent are also extant. The section is complemented by a myriad of administrative correspondence from and to a range of parties relating to the running of the hospital. It includes letter books from the hospital registrar from 1883 until 1943 (with a gap of five years from 1932 until 1937). The finance section contains a large amount of typical financial records such as a run of minute books of the finance committee from 1881 until 1997, as well as accounting records spanning a period from 1799 until 1974. This section also contains a large amount of records documenting subscriptions and bequests made to the hospital in the form of register books of subscribers and testators. In addition to these books, this section contains a large amount of individual testator files recording bequests made to the hospital. The section also contains a run of order books of hospital supplies, as well as records relating to pay and employment, fundraising and the hospital’s stock investments. Surviving patient records include candidate (people seeking admission to the hospital) and admission registers from 1797 until 1986. The admission registers differ in format and coherency, however between the oldest surviving register of patients admitted between 1797 and 1928, and a second register, a record of patients admitted exists until 1964. Additional notebooks record patients admitted until 1986. In addition to these records, an eclectic mix of records have survived reflecting both how patients were cared for in the hospital in the form of diet and clothing order books, as well as how discipline was upheld, most evident in a ‘defaulters book’ which records patient ‘misbehaviour’ and the consequences agreed by the board. Of note in this section is a large collection of hospital application forms from individuals seeking admission to the hospital dating from the mid 1800s. Records contained in the staff section of the collection are less coherent in terms of providing a concise set of employment records for any one period in the hospital’s history. A mix of records across different time periods have survived, including job application forms, appointment, and resignation letters from the late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries. There is also a small amount of nursing employment and enrolment registers from 1958 until 1986. The smallest portion of records in the collection, the hospital history and culture section, contains newspaper clippings, ephemera including hospital newsletters, hospital notices, and a small number of photographs. Notable is a collection of nearly 100 years of newspaper clippings stored in four scrapbooks, some of which include reports on key milestones in the hospital’s history and photographs. The latter, together with a disparate mix of surviving files relating to historical events at the hospital, enrich the collection and provide an insight in to the hospital’s perception in wider society. The final section contains a large collection of property records relating to the hospital campus itself and the many properties and/or property rights the hospital inherited from bequests or via purchase. Records include deeds of assignment, lease agreements, property valuations, building specifications, estimates and maps. Records relating to properties bequeathed to the hospital contain many historical deeds of assignment, the earliest dating from 1768. These property transactions are complemented by a large amount of legal correspondence from the hospital’s legal representatives. 1771-2001