Mental illness has always been carefully hidden from public gaze.

The 1911 census shows there were 91 patients confined at Lancaster's County Lunatic Asylum from what is now South Cumbrian.

That included 34 from Barrow, 32 from Ulverston and 15 from Dalton - plus others from Askam, Windermere, Cark, Coniston, Backbarrow and Broughton.

Some had been there for a year - some for most of their lives.

The institution was later known as the Lancaster County Mental Hopsital and the Lancaster Moor Hospital and could hold up to 3,000 patients.

It closed in 2000 and much of the sprawling site, near the M6, has been converted into apartments.

The site opened in 1816, was extended in 1824 and then saw the building of a major new "annexe" designed by Arnold W. Kershaw.

A chapel was designed by Edward Paley, the Lancaster architect involved in the building of many schools, churches, railway stations and public buidings in Furness and Millom.

Patients in 1911, the most recent census we have details from, were identified only by initials and were almost all classified simply as "lunatic" - likely to include everything from dementia to mental illnesses which can now be controlled by drugs outside forbidding Victorian institutions.

In many cases it was not known where the patients were born but where that information is available it reveals a wide geographic coverage from anywhere in the old Lancashire to Cornwall, London, the Isle of Man, Worcester, Sheerness, Finland, Ireland and even Melbourne in Australia.

For South Cumbrian patients at Lancaster we have divided them by place of birth and given age, occupation (where applicable) and marital status

Askam:

Labourer, aged 30, single man

Backbarrow:

Waitress, aged 35, single woman

Barrow:

Joiner, aged 45, single man

Fish hawker, aged 47, widowed woman

Engine fitter, aged 29, single man

Gardener, aged 43, single man

Machineman, aged 40, single man

Railway clerk, aged 54, single man

Farm servant, aged 40, single man

Stonemason, aged 34, single man

Labourers, aged 31, 34, 34 and 52, all single man

Steelworks plater, aged 33, married man

Boilermaker, aged 46, married man

Clerk, aged 27, single man

Gunner in the Royal Horse Artillery, aged 37, single man

Dressmaker, aged 23, single woman

Charwoman, aged 65, widowed woman

Domestic servants, aged 26, 34, 41 and 51, all single woman

Cabinet maker, aged 49, married man

Mill operative, aged 45, single woman

Steelworks labourer, aged 47, single man

Married women, aged 35, 49, 58 and 63

Single men, aged 31, 33, 41, 47

Single woman, aged 45

Broughton:

Single man, aged 30

Single woman, aged 43

Cark:

Single woman, aged 57

Coniston:

General labourer, aged 40, single man

Married woman, aged 68

Dalton:

Domestic servants, aged 51, 66, all single woman

Married woman, aged 42 and 69

Post messenger, aged 28, single man

Private soldier, third Battalion, Grenadier Guards, aged 39, single man

Cook, aged 66, widowed woman

Joiner, aged 39, single man

Iron miners, aged 42, 52, both single men and aged 53, married man

Widowed woman, aged 74

Dressmaker, aged 41, single woman

Shoemaker, aged 35, single man

Pork butcher, aged 44, single man

Ulverston:

Dressmaker, aged 55, single woman

Married woman, aged, 36

Single men, aged 29, 37, 43 and 74

Married women, aged 37, 39, 41, 47, 63 and 68

Single women, aged 38 and 62

Labourer, aged 25, single man

Housekeeper, aged 75, single woman

General labourer, aged 69, single man

Domestic servant, aged 38, single woman

Domestic servants, aged 28, 34, 36, 45, 52, all single woman

Charwoman, aged 59, single woman

Shoemaker, aged 47, single man

Patent knitter fitter, aged 42, single man

Paper mill hand, aged 41, single man

Steelworks labourer, aged 54, married man

Labourers, aged 34 and 50, both single men and aged 74, widowed man

Iron ore miner, aged 38, single man

Windermere:

Accountant, aged 41, single man

Married woman, aged 54

Sorting clerk for the Post Office, aged 29, single man