Scandal of forgotten heroes

[MelPack]

This is another example of revisionism conducted 90years after the event. Why raise this again and apply today's views on the past - these men were what they were and I fail to see why they are 'heroes'. What's next another govt worthless 'apology'

Max

I have just had a look at the service papers of Walter Sutton.

He served in France from 16 August 1914 until 19 November 1917. He was diagnosed with '100% paralysis of the insane'.

His medical records state that his condition was 'aggravated by service during the present war'.

I suggest that you refrain from your provocative comments until you have read these and other service papers:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/view.a...Sutton&cr=1

Walter clearly fits all the criteria for commemoration by the CWGC.

Mel

[Guest]

I wonder how many men from other asylums are not commemorated?

There is Bangour Asylum, Edinburgh. Have found a pension record of Pte 3/4319 William Maroney Royal Munster Fusiliers.

I am not sure when he died, but on the record is stamped deceased. No date given. How would you find an Irish death certificate?

It's quite possible he died long after the cut off date, but just wondered why deceased would be stamped on the record, or how many other cases there might be?

Cheers Mike

[ralphjd]

Mel. Thank you !! could not have put it better, never read such drivel on these pages before. Ralph.

[chrisharley9]

Mike

sorry to be pedantic but you will be looking for Scottish DC - try Scotlands people - let me know what you find as I have a good contact in the Edinburgh cemeteries dept

Chris

[NigelS]

Like Skipman, I can't help wondering how many more cases like this there might be from the many other 'Victorian' type asylums that there used to be up and down the country. It shouldn't be forgotten that that was the way of things back then with the mentally ill: keep them secure and out of view, and I'm certain, in probably the majority of cases, institutionalized to be quietly forgotten by friends and family (as came to light a few years ago, this was even the case with members of the Royal Family). In today's more enlightened times many of the illnesses that these patients were then confined for are no longer even considered as mental illnesses - epilepsy is one of several that come to mind. I don't like the term 'scandal' as we shouldn't be judging what happened then by modern standards, but, that said, these men, provided they meet the usual criteria for commemoration, deserve to be remembered just as much as any other 'non-comm' and I don't see that 'revisionism' and apologies comes into it, merely remembrance which is their right.

NigelS

[Seadog]

Well said Nigel!!!!!

Regards

Norman

[Guest]

No problem Chris. Is it the case that if an Irish soldier, died in Scotland, he would be issued with a Scottish death cert?

I have checked Scotlands People, can only find 2 William Moroney's and they died in their 60's-ish

The chances are he didn't die within the period. On a pension record, what year would a man have to die, to get deceased stamped on the record?

Perhaps we should try come up with a list of Asylums.

Cheers Mike

[chrisharley9]

Mike

I see what you mean - I dont know about Irish DCs - the deceased could have been stamped on the record at any time

Chris

[keithmroberts]

This thread opens up so many sad possibilities. I have just quickly looked for any CWGC records for the cemetery at High Royds, Menston in the West Riding where a shell shocked veteran and 1918 POW that I knew as a child ended his days. It is recorded that many victims of shell shock at least were there after the war. There do not appear to be any commemorations however although the number of burials in the life of the institution was considerable as evidenced below.

1969 - Last burial in graveyard, 2,858 in unmarked graves

Seemingly the burial records are in the West Yorkshire Archives. Maybe one day I will seek to get a list of deaths recorded 1914 to 1921 unless someone else gets there first. At present a much smaller piece of work is as much as I can handle.

Keith

Edit

Just adding this from the timeline of th hospital from the National Archives site

1914 - Outbreak of the Great War – the hospital treated many shell shocked men

1915 - 2,601 patients

1918 - War over – flu epidemic – 89 patients and one nurse died

This one unit would definitely be a major exercise to investigate. Just excluding the 90 mentioned deaths caused by the flu would be challenging, unless other records listed them.

[chrisharley9]

Max

I have just had a look at the service papers of Walter Sutton.

He served in France from 16 August 1914 until 19 November 1917. He was diagnosed with '100% paralysis of the insane'.

His medical records state that his condition was 'aggravated by service during the present war'.

I suggest that you refrain from your provocative comments until you have read these and other service papers:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/view.a...Sutton&cr=1

Walter clearly fits all the criteria for commemoration by the CWGC.

Mel

Mel

one thing to remember is that say if he died of TB or influenza whilst in the hospital he would not qualify for CWGC commemoration - it all hangs on what the DC says - however I would spend £7 on his DC just to be sure

Chris

[MelPack]

Chris

Point accepted. I was becoming rather carried away because of the qualifying period and the attribution of Walter's mental illness to his service.

Mel

[chrisharley9]

One of my local cases Harry Thimbleby died of pneumonia connected with the chest injuries - thats what his pension docs said his cause of discharge was - until the DC arrived how was I too know that he had not been knocked down by a bus on Station Road - sometimes with post discharge cases we have to make educated guesses & be prepared to lose a few quid when we get it wrong - which fortunately has not been to many times for me - touch wood

Chris

[John_Hartley]

Mel

It's the link between reason for discharge and cause of death that is the key factor for the MoD (it's the MoD makes the decision, not CWGC).

So, man discharged with TB and dies of TB is likely to be commemorated. Man discharged with TB, gets hit by bus, probably not.

I imagine more difficult to make the link when discharge is related to a mental illness. The MoD isnt going anywhere with these Croyden cases unless there are death certificates provided.

John

[chrisharley9]

John

you got a thing about buses too - spooky

Chris

[liverpool annie]

Just as an aside ..... I was surprised to find this when I was looking for one of my soldiers who was "shell shocked " thats probably why it didn't appear on his records !

In no circumstances whatever will the expression 'shell-shock' be used verbally or be recorded in any regimental or other casualty report,or in any hospital or other medical document

British Army General Routine Order No. 2384 issued on 7 June 1917 issued in France

Annie

[max7474]

These men are dead, their parents are dead, any one who ever met them is probably dead. You cannot say what any of them were like as no one alive ever knew them. A comrade of my great grandfather won the MM for trying rescue an officer under fire. A hero. Mt grandfather's recollectionwas something differnt and that the man was removing a pair of silver spurs from a corpse when chanced upon by another officer who could not get past his gum limber which was blocking the road. So a looter of dead corpses instead. Not quite so heroic. By all means add they to what ever register you like but it will not change the price of fish.

These sort of campaigns say more about the campainer than the issue. Perhaps their own lives are so unfulfilling that they seek to bathe in the reflected glory of the dead, perhaps they wish that they could have experienced being under fire - the exhileration but also the fear of hearing the crack and thump of rounds around you, seeing the burst of a mortar bomb landing but I hope that they do not have to experience being a pall bearer with a coffin draped in a Union Flag. This campaign wil do nothing for the WW1 men as they are dead and the families with them. Perhaps there are a lot of better causes for living soldiers that people could spend their time on ; raising money for the Rpyal Britsh Legion so they can support 19year triple-amputees for example.

[Steve Gullick]

Well Max, I'm new here and really don't want to speak out of turn, but I think you are just about as wrong as it is possible to be.

These men suffered, of that there can be little doubt, apart from the trauma that brought on their condition in the first place, I would imagine a victorian lunatic assylum was not a pleasant place to spend your last days and the stigma that the relatives had must have been pretty awful.

Of course these men should be commemorated, the fact that they are dead and may well have no living relatives is completely irrelavent. These men gave all they had for us, and you seem reluctant to have a few words chiseled onto a memorial in rememberance of them? Come on.

You aso speak of the casualties of the current conflicts. Well, firstly there is no 'either /or' here, you can support both causes without detracting from the other, but most importantly, the men who died eighty years ago need commemorating because of what our guys are doing now.

They are all soldiers cleaning up the mess that politicians leave behind, and their deaths all those years ago are as relaventy as the deaths we hear about every week on the radio.

We need to commemorate them, not for them, but for us, and for the guys that are following in their footsteps in Afghanistan and Iraq and everywhere else.

[Seadog]

Max, these men are as much “Casualties of War” as any other member of the services. They deserve our respect and remembrance, not to do so would be to break faith with all those who suffered both physically and mentally for us. I find your comments completely out of order for neither you nor I know what the catalyst for their mental disorders was and we may never know. The blunt fact is that the majority of the men were serving when the illness became that serious for them to be discharged and to end their lives in a charmingly called “Lunatic Asylum” then to be buried in a common grave with no reminder that they had even existed. This is not something that I feel comfortable about and if a wrong has been done it is never to late to right it.

Regards

Norman

[eltoro1960]

Regarding death certificates with "General paralysis of the insane", this was a term used for the tertiary stages of Syphilis and it was common that people suffering from this dreadful condition ended up in 'lunatic asylums'.

The problem with having these men commemorated , and in my opinion they should be, is that the disease can takes several years to come to this stage. So it is difficult to prove that the disease was caused by active service, this is what happened when a friend of mine tried to have a local serviceman who died just after the war in Rosslynlee mental hospital commemorated on CWGC, his death certificate stated GPI (see above) but there was no evidence that he had contracted the disease on active service, it was received sympathetically but not entered, being regarded as a post war death from disease.

There is also the social stigma attached with mental illness and sexually transmitted diseases, still present today, but far greater in post WW1 Britain, the perceived shame that this would bring on the family would put many off putting the man's name forward.

John

[MelPack]

John

That is an interesting piece of information.

Do you know if the designation of 'general paralysis of the insane' was used exclsively for tertiary syphillis?

Mel

[dfaulder]

Possibly part of what Max says may have something underlying it; and that is the possible over-use of the word "hero".

But we do not know if these men were (or were not) "heroes"; they may have been men who chose to do deeds that put them in a position of risk and put others before them (to try and grope towards a definition for hero); they may have been terrified conscripts, filled with booze by their mates so that they could be got on the train to go to war, topped up with rum so that they might do something whilst out there, but then collapsed in a quivering pile because they did not have it in them to climb up into machine gun fire.

But does that disqualify them from being remembered - their state was not entirely of their making - the government (elected by our ancestors) had a lot to do with it?

So they are dead and so might be their relatives and descendants. Some may choose to honour them because of a belief that "something" continues after death. Others may do so, because to not do so requires them to exclude part of their own character - honour, compassion.

When I recently visited St Georges at Ypres, Canon Jones mentioned that they were regularly visited by squaddies nearing the end of their training. One, clearly moved by the eight o'clock ceremony, had asked him whether he would be remembered like that if he should die. It mattered to him. I did not like the Iraq war, I have my doubts about the Afghan war, I detest our government, but they are sending people like that squaddie to face death in my name. If he should die, it matters not to me whether he bravely (yes, heroically) chose to go up the steps of that Tristar to be taken to war, or whether he had to be helped by his mates. He would have died in my name and even if he has no relatives, I would be diminished if he and his predecessors were not remembered - and Canon Jones would struggle to answer concerned squaddies.

David

[andalucia]

A very interesting thread and I really hope these men get the recognition that they deserve.

In WW2 my friends Grandfather joined the Army and was sent for training. He was riding a cycle in a country lane outside of his camp when he fell and suffered a serious head wound that claimed his life a few days later. He never went abroad to fight but he was willing too. His body was brought back home to Liverpool and his grave has a CWGC headstone. I think he fully deserves that headstone and I also think that these men deserve to be remembered.

Ant

[MelPack]

Possibly part of what Max says may have something underlying it; and that is the possible over-use of the word "hero".

David

David

I would have no problem with Max's propositions if they were directed at the sloppy use of cliches by journalists. If this were the case then he would be tilting at windmills because nobody on this thread has used the term hero or heroes.

Mel

[eltoro1960]

John

That is an interesting piece of information.

Do you know if the designation of 'general paralysis of the insane' was used exclsively for tertiary syphillis?

Mel

Mel, being honest I don't know for sure, but it appears to be. The treatment for GPI first used in 1917 was to treat the patient (mostly men) with malaria, the subsequent high fever halted the onset of the symptoms. The problem is though that severe shell shock can also present a lot of similar symptoms as well, however normally there would be some corroborating evidence to suggest syphilis. This was one of the main reasons (amongst others) that the BEF wanted brothels off limits to their men.

The man I mentioned was a pre war regular who had served in India, before deploying to France, he showed sudden and unexplained onset of violent mood and tendencies, recorded on his service record, he was then sent via various hospitals before being diagnosed with GPI. I read an article which I don't have to hand unfortunately that up to 20% of admissions to asylums at this time were GPI related. The discovery of penicillin meant that GPI was treatable and is rarely seen in developed countries now.

A sad end for anyone contracting the disease.

John

[Chris_Baker]

A question from my own ignorance of these things. As far as CWGC commemoration is concerned, does the cause of death have any bearing on it? For example Fray's papers above suggest that his dementia was not caused or aggravated by his military service. Without sight of a death certificate we can only guess at the cause of death. If for example he died of pneumonia, well after his army discharge and unconnected to his mental condition, why would he be entitled to a CWGC war grave?