Samuel Alderman Lomas (1838–1901) the man with two gravestones, his brother MuscotAtkin Lomas (1840–1907) and their lives in Victorian asylums

Abstract

Samuel Alderman Lomas died in the Hertfordshire County Asylum, Hill End, St Albans in 1901. He was buried in the asylum cemetery where two gravestones bear his name. This paper traces his life history and that of his brother Muscot Atkin Lomas. Both were classed as idiots in Victorian society and spent most of their lives -- from childhood until death -- in asylums.

Troubled proximities: asylums and cemeteries in nineteenth-century England

“…Using local burial-grounds was an option, as at the Denbigh Asylum discussed by Michael and Hirst (in this issue), but another solution – perhaps cheaper, more convenient and minimizing dealings with external agencies – was to provide a burial-ground placed somewhere on an asylum’s own estate. In consequence, ‘[i]t was not uncommon for nineteenth-century asylums to have their own cemetery’ (Hilton and Hilton, 2009: 104; see also Andrews, in this issue). The phenomenon of the asylum cemetery is little-researched, and hence the mistaken presumption that ‘ultimately more of [the asylum’s] charges left the asylum in coffins each year than were restored to society in the possession of their senses’ (Scull, 1979: 194; my emphasis).…”