St Lawrence’s Hospital War Memorial

LHR Vol. 63 May 2010

Liz Bonsall writes—

SOMEONE recently mentioned to me that a memorial tablet from St Lawrence’s Hospital was in the churchyard at St Mary’s, Caterham. I had a walk around, expecting to find a heap of stones against the wall. After several circuits and diversions I almost gave up, but fortunately some gardeners emerged from their hut and were able to point me straightaway to the right place.

The memorial is in The Garden of Remembrance in Caterham Cemetery. It has quite a prominent place alongside the path. The WWI tablet is resting on the ground, and clearly shows the names of the 18 members of staff who were killed while on war service. This tablet rests on a larger stone which has a horizontal bar of stone commemorating WWII casualties, but with no names.

On p.56 of Robert Malster’s St Lawrence’s – The story of a Hospital there is a photograph of the unveiling of the 1939-45 war memorial at the hospital chapel. This memorial is resting on a support below the mounted WWI tablet. I have since found out that the original photograph is held at East Surrey Museum. This picture certainly shows the tablet that is in the cemetery.

Perhaps someone knows what happened to that WWII tablet listing the seven people killed?