Since the Croydon Guardian launched its campaign two weeks ago to honour the borough’s forgotten soldiers, we have been overwhelmed by letters from our readers whose family members suffered the same fate.
The Croydon Guardian is campaigning to have soldiers who died during the First World War in the Cane Hill asylum included on the national Debt of Honour.
The bodies of 26 soldiers who died while being treated at Cane Hill lunatic asylum in Coulsdon lie hidden in an unmarked grave.
The names of these brave men do not appear on any official or state memorial despite the fact that they had full military funerals.
Local historian Adrian Falks uncovered the scandal.
This newspaper received an email from John Powis who said the articles reminded him of his uncle’s death in Cane Hill.
He said: “John Price, joined the newly formed RAF about 1918 as a boy entrant. I don’t know much about his career but my mother used to say that he “went off his head” and was admitted to the mental hospital where he died in 1930.”
Mr Powis’s grandfather was working for the diplomatic service in Germany when his son died and was not told about the death until his son had been buried in a common grave in Streatham Vale Cemetery.
He said: “My grandparents were furious and wanted him exhumed and moved to a proper grave.”
Mr Powis recently went there with his wife but there was no trace of the grave. The clerk told them Cane Hill had purchased plots from the cemetery on a 20-year lease and had been resold.
“My wife and I thought it was absolutely wicked, especially when my grandfather, as a senior civil servant, could have afforded, and wanted to have, a private grave.”
Tina Sinclair was reminded of her great grandfather Edward Callaghan who enlisted in Belfast despite fury from his Republican family who saw him as a traitor for fighting for the British.
She said: “I think that explains why when he had a breakdown after the war ended and was admitted to Cane Hill. None of the family ever went to visit him.
“I went up to Cane Hill as the family told me he had been buried in the Catholic plot, but the place was such a tip that you couldn’t tell whether graves were Catholic, Protestant or whatever.”
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