https://sussexasylumsburialgrounds.org/the-people/The workhouses in the County of Sussex (and a few other workhouses from other counties) according to the Last Place of Abode entries in the burial registers, tell us that 22.51% of the people buried in the cemetery were admitted to St. Francis Hospital from a workhouse.
About 95% of the people in the cemetery had their Last Place of Abode listed in their burial record as being in somewhere in Sussex. Occasionally through the period in which St. Francis Hospital was functioning of people came into the hospital in groups from other hospitals or even Workhouses that were in other counties. An example of this was in the very early 20th century when 110 patients arrived in St. Francis Hospital from Cardiff in 1904 where the Cardiff City Asylum did not open until 1908 and mental health beds were badly needed because the Cardiff Workhouse and the Glamorgan Asylum were overcrowded in 1904, presumably with people with mental health difficulties. St. Francis Hospital had the space to take these patients as the new East Sussex Asylum at Hellingly near Eastbourne opened in 1903. As this Asylum opened it took East Sussex residents from St. Francis Hospital, which by chance released patient beds which came in very useful when beds were needed by the Cardiff patients, who were duly drafted in. Quite a few of these Cardiff people must have been in poor physical shape as by the end of March 1908 53 of the people, almost 50% in the 1904 draft, were dead and buried in St. Francis Hospital cemetery. But as stated earlier 95% of the people in St. Francis cemetery came from Sussex.
