400 ORPHANS BURIED IN UNMARKED GRAVE
Relatives call for radar check of cemetery to find lost children
ABOUT 400 children died at a Scottish orphanage run by nuns and were buried in an unmarked grave, research has revealed.
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, who ran the Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanarkshire, had previously acknowledged that 158 children were buried there.
But research, including a trawl of more than 15,000 official records, has revealed 402 babies, toddlers and children died there between 1864 and when it closed in 1981.
Children who died after being sent to live at the orphanage were buried in an unmarked mass grave a mile away at St Mary’s Cemetery in Lanark.
Headstones mark the graves of the nuns and staff members buried nearby but no stone or memorial has ever recorded the names of the dead children.
Former first minister Jack McConnell, who apologised to victims of care home abuse on behalf of the then Scottish Executive in 2004, said: “It is heartbreaking to discover so many children may have been buried in these unmarked graves.
“After so many years of silence, we must now know the truth of what happened here.”
The order of nuns who ran Smyllum, where orphans and children of desperate Catholic families were placed, previously claimed they had records of 120 children who died there and were buried in 158 lairs at a cemetery.
On average, one child died every three months, with many believed to be buried in unmarked graves at St Mary’s Cemetery.
Former residents of the orphanage have accused the nuns and staff who ran the home of beating and neglecting some of the children.
Their allegations formed part of the campaign that inspired the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
The charity who ran Smyllum gave evidence to the inquiry earlier this year in which they claimed that abuse allegations were a “mystery” with “no evidence” of mistreatment.
The care given at Smyllum will be scrutinised during the second phase of the inquiry starting in November. Relatives of children who died at the orphanage are also calling for an investigation at St Mary’s using groundpenetrating radar to establish how many bodies are buried there.
The probe, carried out by the BBC Radio’s File on Four programme and the Sunday Post, involved scrutiny of death certificates.
In 2003, burial records given to campaigners by Smyllum bosses suggested 120 children had been buried at St Mary’s but relatives believed the figure was too low.
Research by Janet Bishop, of the Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives, found 402 certificates listing Smyllum as the place of death or normal residence.
No details are recorded apart from their names, date of birth and when they died. Causes of death included accidents and diseases of the time such as tuberculosis, flu and scarlet fever. Some died of malnutrition.
Janet Docherty, the widow of former resident Frank, said: “He always feared there were more kids buried there and this is proof of that. He would have been content that it has come out now.”
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul said: “We are core participants in the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and are co-operating fully with that inquiry.
“We remain of the view that this inquiry is the most appropriate forum for such investigations.
“Our values are totally against any form of abuse and thus we offer our most sincere and heartfelt apology to anyone who suffered any form of abuse whilst in our care.”
The Scottish Government said it would be inappropriate to comment because Smyllum is part of the ongoing inquiry.