IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0100 IOP/PP4
Held at: King's College London College Archives
Title: LEWIS, Hilda North (1900-1966)
Date(s): 1921-2006
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 6 boxes
Name of creator(s): Lewis | Hilda North | 1900-1966 | née Stoessiger | child psychiatrist and wife of Aubrey Lewis
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Born in London, 1900; educated at Mary Datchelor School, Camberwell, and London School of Medicine for Women, 1921-1924; qualified as Doctor of Medicine and Member of the Royal College of Physicians, 1927; Clinical Assistant, the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, 1926-1930; First Assistant and Registrar, Children's Department, Royal Free Hospital, 1927-1929; Assistant and subsequently Physician, Prince Louise Hospital for Children, Kensington, 1929-1934; Fellow in Psychiatry, London Child Guidance Clinic, 1931; Temporary Assistant Medical Officer, Maudsley Hospital, 1932-1934; married Aubrey Lewis, 1934; Honorary Psychiatrist in charge of Children's' Psychiatric Department, St George's Hospital, 1938-1940; Physician, Ontario Hospital, Canada, 1940-1944; Psychiatric adviser to the National Council of Social Service Adoption Committee 1945-1947; Psychiatric adviser to Conference of Societies Registered for Adoption; Psychiatrist, Mersham Reception Centre, Kent, 1947-1952; Psychiatrist, Children's Society, 1948; published Deprived children: the Mersham experiment, a social and clinical study (Oxford University Press, 1954); Chairman of the Standing Conference of the Societies Registered for Adoption; Psychiatrist for the Children's Society Adoption Committee 1958; Company Director: Marie Stopes Memorial Foundation Ltd. 1960-, Society for Constructive Birth Control Ltd. 1960; elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1966; died, 1966.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers of Hilda Lewis, 1921-1966. Papers relating to her early career, including medical registration certificates, correspondence, job applications and press cuttings. Papers relating to scientists' tour of the USSR, 1931 (arranged by the Society for Cultural Relations between the British Commonwealth and the USSR, and comprising of thirty scientists and doctors from Britain), including notes, photographs, postcards, correspondence, articles and account of tour by Hilda Lewis's daughter Naomi Cream. Papers relating to the National Council of Social Service Adoption Committee, 1945-1947 (which produced recommendations for inclusion in the 1949 Adoption Act, and included representatives from the National Adoption Society, National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, National Council of Social Service, National Children Adoption Society and the Church of England Children's Society), including notes, correspondence, recommendations and guidelines for the assessment of children and adoptive parents, press cuttings and advice leaflets. Papers relating to the Caldecott Community (a children's home in Mersham-le-Hatch, near Ashford, Kent, and a pilot experimental children's reception centre opened under the direction of Hilda Lewis in 1947, as part of the Caldecott Community, and the basis for her book, Deprived children), including reports, press cuttings, correspondence and draft copies of the book Deprived children: the Mersham experiment, a social and clinical study. Articles by Hilda Lewis, 1956-1966. Papers relating to conferences attended and lectures given by Hilda Lewis, including lecture notes, reports and correspondence, 1952-1966. Personal correspondence, 1936-1966. Letters of condolence and obituaries, 1966-1967. Papers relating to Hilda Lewis memorial lectures and Hilda Lewis unit at Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1968-1995. Memoir by Naomi Cream, 2006.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Broadly chronological
Conditions governing access:
Almost all open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form. One file of papers relating to the work of the experimental reception centre for children at Mersham, Kent, 1947-1950, contains sensitive material, and is closed.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archive Services.
Finding aids:
Detailed Catalogue available online and in hard copy in the College Archives reading room.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The papers were placed in King's College London Archives by the family in 2007.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Related material:
King's College London Archives hold the papers of Hilda Lewis' husband, Sir Aubrey Julian Lewis.
Aubrey Lewis papers are also held by Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum Services.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Lianne Smith and Kate O'Brien. Sources: family memoir.
Date(s) of descriptions: April 2009