The Suicide of Lawrence Sanderson - Sheffield 1922

 The following press cutting appeared in the Gloucester Chronicle dated Saturday 4th November 1922

There is a distinct lack of Information in the cutting apart from the fact that the inquest took place in Sheffield on Wednesday 3rd November 1922 and that the father was called Charles Sanderson.

But the report in the People (6th November 1922) the following day certainly was an eye-opener. It appears that Lawrence has shot himself by the roadside and that the first thing the parents knew was when it was flashed up on a cinema screen at the cinema they were visiting.

It is unbelievable that this could happen but happen it did.

Unusually I have been unable to find any information on the family. I do not know what an "asylum pensioner" was but I can only guess that the father Charles Sanderson was suffering from a long-term disability that restricted his ability to find work. This may have been as a result of injuries sustained in the Great War - why else would Charles Sanderson still have a revolver in his possession.