DARTMOOR TRAGEDY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 594, 27 July 1933, Page 7

DARTMOOR TRAGEDY

WARDER INJURED BY ROCK THROWN IN RIOT. CONFINED IN MENTAL HOSPITAL The British Treasury has made a grant of £50 to the wife of John Lewis, the Dartmoor warder who was seriously injured in the course of the mutiny in January,- 1932. She is to receive it at the rate of 18s a week. John Lewis, who is in a mental nursing home near Plymouth, was injured by a rock thrown by a. convict who took part in the riot. Thouigh desperately hurt, he remained on duty for three weeks and then collapsed from delayed concussion. Mrs. Lewis was alloWed 30s a week compensation for a while, hut this was stopped suddenly just before Christmas. Then, in January, her pension of 16s 6d a week was suspend'ed, leaving her penniless. Since then she has lived with her parents at Plymouth. The new 18s allowance is made from a "compassionate fund" at the disposal of the Treasury. Mrs. Lewis is bearing her troubles with great resignation, but the tragedy has turned her hair white. Recently she had to pay £16 for an opeI ration. She has paid more than £40 i in specialists' fees,- and it is costing her between two and three guineas a week to keep her husband at the hiental home. It had been hoped by Mrs. Lewis that the authorities would put her . husband in a Government hospital and allow her tfie pension to which he ' would have been entitled in a few years when he was due to retire. Bte had. 18 years' servifce. ,