Rumble Museum Warneford Exhibition Project Begins

Year Eight Museum Council students had a fascinating visit to the Museum of Oxford on Tuesday afternoon to start a new project exploring the history of the Warneford Hospital. 

The Warneford Hospital is celebrating its 200th year this year, and as part of this, an exhibition has been created to display the long and interesting history of the hospital, which includes patient and staff stories, artefacts of medical treatments used, and panels detailing the story of its development. 

Year Eights were greeted by Zaiba Patel, Sally Frampton, both University of Oxford historians, and Molly, a researcher in psychiatry. They were asked about what they knew about the Warneford already, and explored some of the language used historically around mental illness. 

They then looked at four different sources: a poem, and two letters by patients, all expressing very different perspectives and experiences, and a document with instructions to the "keepers" dating to the 1800s. 

The students were also able to spend some time looking closely at the exhibition itself, and listening to the stories using headphones.

The group will be creating a new locker display with some of the sources they've encountered, which will also be used to create a new panel for the Warneford Exhibition, which will be touring the county later next month.