Adrian Falks, 64, a minister from the Church of England and ex-grave digger, discovered the scandal after a friend found out her father had been admitted to an asylum.
He said: “My friend Miss K was born just before the outbreak of the First World War.
“Her father had enlisted immediately, but in 1917, suffered a mental breakdown and was admitted to a lunatic asylum.
“She was cared for by an aunt, who said her father had been killed in action, and that her mother had died of grief.”
After her aunt's death, Miss K began looking into her past, and discovered her aunt had actually been her mother and her father had died in the asylum, and been buried in a public grave at the hospital. Her mother was so ashamed about this that she had fabricated another life for her daughter.
Mr Falks said: “There was a terrible sense of stigma about being a pauper lunatic and the family often did not want to be involved. If the widow or mother would not admit they had someone in the asylum, the families often did not look for the headstones and that could also be why they were forgotten.”
Mr Falks stumbled across the issue with the invaluable help of Pam Buttrey, retired psychiatric social worker, who has done a lot of work with the Cane Hill documents at Croydon’s Local Studies Library.
Mr Falks said during his research he read historian Peter Barnham’s Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War.
“Peter Barnham says after the War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission began to re-bury casualties from the various Battlefields and create War Cemeteries.
“The Commission did not permit the names of those who died in lunatic asylums to be recorded on headstones, or inscribed on these war memorials. My theory is that by the time the Imperial War Graves Commission began to erect permanent headstones in asylum cemeteries, official attitudes towards the ‘insane poor’ had hardened and it was decided to ignore the graves of lunatic soldiers.”
He is so passionate about his campaign he has added a codicil to his will to ensure the names of the soldiers do not slip into oblivion.
He said: “I intend making a bequest for the setting-up of a trust fund, which would at least ensure that having progressed this far, the names do not rapidly slip into oblivion again.
“I firmly believe that all the servicemen of the First World War have that unique right.”
CASE STUDIES GEORGE LAMMIE George John Lammie lived with his parents, George and Sarah Lammie, his brother and sister in an appallingly squalid tenement block in Vine Lane, close to Tooley Street fire station in Bermondsey.
He enlisted in the Royal Artillery in 1914 seeking to escape grinding poverty. It is not known how long he fought on the front.
He was admitted to Cane Hill on July 4, 1918 and was buried in the hospital cemetery on January 12, 1920 at the age of 33.
George’s younger brother also enlisted in the army. 9832 Private William Lammie, was killed on June 16, 1916 at the age of 21, during the Battle of the Somme.
He served in the Dorsetshire Regiment. He is buried in Authuile Military Cemetery and commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Mr Falks said: “The only possible consolation to the grieving parents might have been that, in view of their poverty, the emergent Imperial War Graves Commission provided William’s inscription – and only his – in the war cemetery in France, without charge.
His name appears on the debt of honour.”
George Lammie’s name cannot be found on any roll of honour, unlike his brother, he lies forgotten in his final resting place in Croydon Cemetery JAMES CHARMONT James Charmont was serving in the navy on a ship in Malta when he was admitted to Cane Hill on May 10, 1919.
He died on July 19, 1920.
He too grew up in the slums of Bermondsey on Emba Street.
At the age of 11 he was in an asylum for the sub normal at Darent Asylum and school Kent.
Mr Falks said: “From an early age he was maladjusted.
He was probably engaged as a ships boy in the Royal Navy and then when the war broke out he enlisted in the navy.
“They were not too choosy in those days; they were desperate for men and so they took on anyone.
“It seems such a terrible shame Mr Charmont spent much of his early life in an asylum and then died in one.”
Forgotten hero
John Groombridge was admitted to Cane Hill on February 2, 1916.
He seems to be the first soldier admitted to the asylum. He died at the age of 36, on June 20, 1918.
At the time he enlisted in the army, he was working as a barrel-washer and cellar man and living at 17 Ormside Street.
His mother was a washer-woman. She seems to have had some part in honouring his memory.
His name appears on a local roll of honour in the Chapel of the Christ the King in Bermondsey.
His name does not appear on the Debt of Honour.
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