This study will be based on research of patients notes in Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and admission registers of London County Asylums, which are kept in the London Metropolitan Archives. The aim is to analyse the child population in Bethlem, as historians note that it admitted an unusually high number of youngsters, an earlier study found that 1069 patients under the age of twenty were taken in between 1815 and 1900. Since the hospital did not admit patients with chronic conditions, none o f its child inmates were idiot or epileptic, as was the case in most other hospitals. This makes the Bethlem cohort unique in its size and relative homogeneity. The group studied will be under the age of fifteen, therefore the numbers will be significantly lower than 1069 of the under twenty category. This will make feasible a thorough examination of the patients notes with the view of reconstructing the clinical picture that the admitted children presented. The findings from Bethlem will be compared with figures from London county asylums in order to see if Bethlem was altogether unique or if its number of children inmates reflected the situation in London.