Remembering the Lanfranc air crash
In August 1961
a plane crashed in Stavanger,
Norway.
Two teachers and 34 pupils
from Lanfranc Boys' School,
Mitcham Road,
lost their lives.
At the time,
it was the largest number of children
ever to be killed in a plane crash.
Croydon was shaken and hurt
by the scale of the disaster.
34 of the 36 Lanfranc dead
were buried in a communal grave
at Mitcham Road cemetery.
Within a week
over 100,000 mourners visited.