Otto Albert HEINRICH, British soldier WW1

[BMoorhouse]

I know this is off topic, but is 'FatBob' anything to do with the Light Bob's? (ie Somerset Light Infantry).

Brendon.

[HERITAGE PLUS]

What was a man who had been comfortably off doing in a paupers' asylum?

Viv

By chance I was reading about a Somerset man from Camerton who won the VC and DCM tonight and found this reference;

'Clutton Poor Law records show that George's mother Harriet was admitted to Wells Asylum. John his father paid two shillings every week for his wifes maintenance'

His father was a coal miner and therefore not well off financially.

Perhaps your family paid more for Otto's care.

Dave

[VivP]

Dave

That is interesting. Thankyou for the information. I've seen the (stationary) old pit wheel at Radstock, and know there were pits - and great poverty - in Somerset. Actually, the financial status of the family from 1914 to 1928 is very uncertain.

You were certainly right about Somerset County Asylum ...

KES doesn't appear to have archives. From 1912-1914 Otto taught German at King Edward VI Camp Hill School, Camp Hill, in Birmingham, which has an Old Edwardians' society - for ex-pupils. However, as there's a very small photo of staff 1912 on the Old Boys' site, I shall be emailing them to see what they have in the way of staff archives. The piece you found in the Bath Chronicle says he joined up 'when War broke out', which suggests to me that he joined up quickly in Birmingham. But, one of my cousins-in-law has a photo of him which looks very much like a 'remember me when I'm away' photo, taken in Bath. Anyway I shall be contacting King Edward VI Camp Hill School - just in case they have any archives mentioning Otto.

I've searched the Long Long Trail endlessly, but can't find any idea of how long training took. Otto can't have been training from 1914 to 1916! Say he joined the 1/4th batttalion SLI in the Llr Bristol Road Bath in August 1914 - they were in Bombay by 9 November! Training must have been extremely basic.

There's no clue at all as to what regiment he joined. Am I hitting my head against a brick wall? Is there any way to find out which regiment he joined? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

Would Otto have been entitled to a pension, if he had finished training?

I'm sorry to keep pestering. This regiment business is totally confusing. Perhaps I should start a new thread. It seems completely impossible to trace his movements from 1914 to 1922.

I'm sorry to be so slow. My brother-in-law has just been killed in a crash. He was one of the last of the family to have gone through National Service.

Thanks again for your continued help,

VivP

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Viv

Your cousin's photo - is Otto in uniform? If so if you could get a copy and can it into the forum it is possible that his regiment could be identified.

It is entirely possible that Otto enlisted in the Birmingham Area and had his photo taken whilst on home leave.

Dave

[VivP]

Dave

No such luck! The photo is in ordinary clothes. Pity. Will investigate King Edward VI School.

thanks again for your ideas and help,

Viv

[boris]

What an amazing piece of history! Well done Viv and top marks for all the forum members that have helped you.........please keep us posted with any further developments.........this is so interesting!

Neil.

[VivP]

The only further developments are distinctly unhelpful. It's as if Otto had been wiped off the face of the earth.

I contacted the man in charge of the archives at King Edward VI school in Birmingham. He sent me the appropriate extract from the school's roll of service (Hanman to Ironmonger), and the list of masters and assistant masters in 1914, but Otto is not there.

Somerset County Asylum - I was hoping to work backwards - has loads of records - and a 100-year closure!

I have two more, very awkward, avenues to explore, and then that's it. Thankyou everybody.

VivP

[philary]

Dear Viv

Thank you for responding to my Great Uncle's problem in the thread Delusional Psychosis. I have found it fascinating to read about your family's account. I am hoping that a visit to the PRO to look up the medical records of WW1 soldiers might prove worthwhile, although I know approximately 20% were kept for interest.

Hilary

[VivP]

Hilary

It was interesting, and a relief of sorts, to find another case of madness, as opposed to chronic stress.

May I ask how you found out about your great uncle Leslie's diagnosis? 1925+100 = 2025, and you did say Bristol City Mental Hospital had a 100-year closure!

I don't know anything about delusional psychosis except what I've read, but it seems to me that your Leslie's must have been caused by a head injury. That's what war is about, hurting others, and that's why I don't approve of it. PEAT seems to be a modern acronym. I can't find anything about it online that has come from the 1920s.

Good luck at the PRO. I'm certain our relatives would definitely not approve of what we're doing!

Viv

[philary]

Viv

I found out about the Delusional Psychosis from Leslie's soldier's record at the PRO, that gave me all the information posted on my topic, including the PEAT Assessment. It was recorded at the time the war office gave him his pension. They recorded that the illness was 100% and that it had been aggravaed by his war service, but not attributed to it! More bad news about the closure is that the records are closed for 100 years from the date of the last entry. I shall definitely not be around in 2078!!

I know about his death from the lady he went to live with in Wales. In the late '60's early 70's mental hospitals started discharging patients to live in sheltered accomodation if it was felt there was not going to be a problem. Hence Leslie going to live in Wales.

I do hope you manage to unravel Otto's life, I shall certainly keep up to date with your thread.

Hilary

[Robert Dunlop]

Viv

I am sorry that I have not had a chance to read this thread before now. You asked about the death certificate. As you know, the cause of death was not suicide. It was given as pulmonary tuberculosis, which had been present for 2 months. Of note, the qualification of the person who certificated the cause of death is FRCP. The doctor was a specialist physician ie Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Although a post-mortem was not carried out, the involvement of a physician suggests that the diagnosis is likely to be valid. Obviously, the full hospital records may offer more help but I would suggest the following from all that you have mentioned:

Your uncle was well and capable of holding down a job prior to the accident. The obituary speaks to the esteem in which he was held.

He sustained a head injury during training and was invalided out of the army. A simple concussion would not do this. He must have had a significant head injury, probably involving some loss of consciousness and problems in the immediate period. This may explain why your grandmother had trouble in getting him back from Brighton - he may not have been well enough.

If the head injury was severe, there would have been residual brain damage. It is possible that the head injury was relatively mild but he stopped breathing for a short while and sustained brain damage from lack of oxygen. The latter will selectively affect short-term memory and render a person incapable of employment if severe enough.

As a result of the injury, your uncle was unable to return to any form of employment. He seems to have remained at home for some time. This would suggest that he was not suffering from any significant behavioural disturbance - families cannot sustain the care of someone who is very agressive, awake all night, verbally abusive, etc for any length of time.

The onset of tuberculosis might well have precipitated a deterioration in your uncle's mental condition. This would be something like a delirium perhaps, a confusional state often associated with disturbed behaviour. If there was pre-existing brain damage, then this would be more likely to happen.

The admittance to an asylum does not necessarily mean that this was a pauper's choice. Someone may know if the asylum had private facilities. It is quite possible that the prior history of being unable to work with some form of chronic brain problem would have meant that the family could not get him admitted to a conventional hospital, particularly if the TB was not immediately apparent. Hospitals could be (and often were) more selective in the pre-NHS era; even now, I do not think your uncle would have got the best medical care because of his past history.

The physician who certified cause of death may have been called in by the family or the hospital while he was still alive, or he may have been the physician employed by the asylum.

I hope this is helpful. If any further medical information comes to light, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Best wishes

Robert

[VivP]

Hilary

I couldn't find any reference to Otto during the one day I was able to get to the PRO. The whole purpose of posting here was to find his regiment, so that I had a start, at least . It does seem strange that the PRO will provide what you'd think would be very personal information, but Bristol and Somerset ROs won't. You were very lucky!

Robert

Dr JEP Shera, FRCP, had been Senior Assistant and was appointed Physician

Superintendent to Somerset County Asylum on his return from war service. He

was in the post for the years 1919 - 1924 (source: http://www.lyatt.freeserve.co.uk/Lecture2.html) So, I would hope his diagnosis as to Otto's cause of death was correct!

Although Otto was found in nominal rolls in Birmingham, he is not in the King Edward VI school roll of service, which I find odd. It suggests to me, though, that he never 'got to the war', because it looks as if he never served anywhere. But he must have enlisted in a regiment. There is no doubt in my mind at all that he received serious and permanent brain damage during his training. I'm grateful to you for explaining that TB can affect a damaged brain for the worse - I didn't know that.

It would be nice to imagine Otto and Dr Shera having long talks, but of course that wouldn't have been possible.

If anything new should turn up I will post it on this thread, to keep things organised.

Thankyou,

Viv

[Robert Dunlop]

Thank you, Viv

The reference to Dr Shera contains another important clue. In the previous section on Dr Laing, there is mention of '(a) long- needed isolation hospital (being) built to the north of the main hospital, separated by a considerable distance from other buildings'. It is quite possible that this is referring to an infectious diseases isolation hospital, perhaps for TB patients.

As to the diagnosis, pulmonary TB was often a straightforward diagnosis, even in the absence of chest x-rays and analysis of the sputum. The combination of physical wasting, coughing blood and fever, associated with the characteristic noises in the upper lungs from cavities, would have been more than enough to make a clinical diagnosis. The timeframe of the illness would fit as well.

Dr Shera comes across as an enlightened physician:

'With Dr. Shera we see the beginning of more modern ways. A system of parole was started. Some trusted' patients were allowed to attend afternoon performances at the cinema in Wells. The early success of that arrangement soon led to its expansion: in 1924 "nurses, artisans and farmhands began to take patients on whole day excursions to the seaside, to football matches and to flower shows. The New Hospital became an open' ward and the patients were allowed to sit up until 9.30 p.m.! '

Even if Dr Shera and your uncle could not have conversed (I suspect your uncle would have been very unwell physically, somewhat like a person with advanced cancer), Dr Shera may well have treated your uncle with great respect.

Robert

[VivP]

Robert

A reply is necessary - but there's nothing to say, except thankyou.

All I set out to do is find out which regiment Otto enlisted in, and how he came to have an injury to his head that was so severe that is caused organic madness.

Anyway, thankyou for your input. It is really unpleasant to think of Otto, mad and alone, as mad people are, and coughing up his insides until he died. Is it possible for TB to kill in only two months? (I'm thinking of Katherine Mansfield, who contracted TB in 1916 and died in 1923).

Viv

[VivP]

Well, I plucked up my courage, and wrote to my oldest cousin, now in his 70s. To my amazement, he was researching Otto six years ago. This is what he was sent from the MOD archives in Hayes in 1998:

6234 Private Otto Albert HEINRICH

Middlesex Regiment

Deemed to have been enlisted for General Service 7th Mar 1916

Posted to 3/8 Battalion Middlesex Regiment 8th Mar 1916

Medically discharged from D Company 3/8 Battalion Middlesex Regiment 1st July 1916

Service with the colours 07.03.16 - 01.07.16

No overseas service

The above-named's file shows that he was suffering from dementia praecox

Personal details:

Age on joining: 23 years 5 months

Height: 5' 11"

Occupation: schoolteacher

Address: 5 Victoria Terrace, East Twertin [sic], Bath

Next of kin: Mother, Mrs F Heinrich, same address

Grandpa must have got Otto's date of discharge and enlistment confused - hardly surprising in the circumstances.

I choose not to believe this diagnosis. Why would Otto's parents have put 'His military career was however short for he was invalided home owing to a disablement sustained during military training from which he never recovered' in the Bath Chronicle if it wasn't true? They had to be more than law-abiding, because Grandpa was an enemy alien. Otto had gone mad, but I believe he had an organic madness caused by brain injury from the cricket ball incident.

Still, I've found his regiment. And at least he wasn't killed by one of his cousins who stayed in Saxony ...

Would anyone care to add any comments, please?

Viv

[VivP]

PS This has really upset me. Now I understand why so many of you here collect men you knew nothing about, and who were not your flesh and blood.

Viv

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Viv

Glad that you now know Otto's Regiment I can understand your feelings. I will now look at the Bath Chronicle for dates given in your post to see if there is any mention of him.

Dave

[VivP]

Dave

Thankyou very much. I'll look forward to that, though I think it will be a thankless task. You haven't moved to Portsmouth yet? Good luck for your move.

My cousin, David, sent all sorts of anecdotal information as well, mostly from Otto's six sisters, but I'm not certain that that sort of information belongs here.

Viv

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Viv

D-Day for the move is 6 July.

This is from the mothersite:

Middlesex Regiment

3/8th Battalion

Formed at Hounslow in February 1915. Attached to 2/Middlesex Brigade (201st), 2/Home Counties Division (67th). Renamed 2/8th when original Bn was disbanded, 15 June 1916. Remained in England until being disbanded October 1917.

Dave

[VivP]

Hope your personal D Day goes smoothly, Dave!

I always read though the Long Long Trail site before posting. Don't think the Bath Chronicle will have anything useful in it. Men being posted weren't put in the papers, or at least that's what I've gathered from this site. They only seemed to reach the papers if they died (or won a medal).

David wrote that Otto and Arthur had been very patriotically motivated in 1914, and had argued with their father, who thought that as Anglo-German 'children', they and the family should stay out of the internecine strife. Perhaps their surname was the very reason they survived the war - Arthur was put on stretcher bearing duties in Flanders, but that's another story.

Anyway, many thanks for all your past help.

Viv

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Viv

The Bath Chronicle does actually give details of local men joining up with a weekly page of photos. I will look at 1916 anyway as I would not like to miss anything. If I find nothing then I find nothing.

Dave

[VivP]

Dave

'If you need help, ask a busy man'. There are other people here who actually live in Bath!

I'm just crossing my fingers that you'll find something - anything! There's all the time in the world for me, but please don't let this interfere with your move.

Viv

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Viv

I have checked the Bath Chronicle but sadly there is no mention of Otto.

Dave

[VivP]

Dave

Thankyou very much for looking. I don't know where he was before he joined up, anyway.

Thanks for helping so much, Dave. Do hope your move was plain sailing!

regards,

Viv