Shedding Light on the Life of the Sick Child: The Historic Hospital Admission Records Project

History funding bodies have recently encouraged projects that examine the lives of what is fashionably called 'the other': constituencies overlooked by traditional historical research. Prisoners, paupers, immigrants and women have their champions, and such projects have helped reshape historical enquiry and encouraged new communities of users.This paper examines a pioneering project which aims to unlock the world of arguably the most marginalised population in Victorian and Edwardian society - the children of the poor. Extensive research into the lives of the poor - is hampered by lack of useable data. HHARP (Historic Hospital Admission Registers Project) attempts to correct that for the hospitalised poor child, by delving into the records of children's hospitals. This ongoing project currently covers three such London hospitals: Great Ormond Street, the Evelina and the Alexandra Hip Hospital, and in 2009 will expand to include - Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow. The four hospitals will generate nearly 120,000 admission records, presented in database format via a free website. The suite of databases has a high level of accuracy, detail and comparability; this is no mere digitisation project, but incorporates mapping and World Health Organisation disease classification, as well as a unique disease categorisation reflecting the state of Victorian medical knowledge.HHARP has relied upon the expertise of archivists, conservators, health professionals, historians and volunteers. Everyone involved set aside prejudices, gave unstintingly of their time and expertise, and solved practical, technical and ideological problems. HHARP demonstrates how collaboration can facilitate a new resource - accessible and useful to enquirers of every level.