Richard Carr-Gomm, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetRichard Carr-Gomm
British philanthropist, military
Date of Birth: 02-Jan-1922
Date of Death: 27-Oct-2008
Profession: military personnel
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Richard Carr-Gomm
- Major Richard Culling Carr-Gomm, OBE (2 January 1922 – 27 October 2008) was the founder of the Abbeyfield Society, the Morpeth Society and the Carr-Gomm Society, UK charities providing care and housing for disadvantaged and lonely people.His father was Mark Culling Carr-Gomm, and his grandfather was Francis Carr-Gomm who is known for befriending Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man" while serving as chairman of the London Hospital.
- Richard was educated at Stowe School and served in the Royal Berkshire Regiment and the Coldstream Guards from 1939 to 1955.
- He was amongst the first troops to enter Belsen in April 1945.
- He was awarded the Croix de guerre in 1944. Carr-Gomm was deeply affected during the Billy Graham crusade to London in 1954.
- In 1955 he left the Army and became a volunteer home-help.
- Perceiving the loneliness of the people whom he was helping to be a particular problem, he spent his Army gratuity on buying a house which he invited some of them to share with him.
- In his subsequent life he founded a number of charities which run care homes for the elderly, the disadvantaged, and those suffering from loneliness.
- For this work he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1985, and in 2004 received a Beacon Prize for lifetime achievement.He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1957 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre. The Carr-Gomm Society published his autobiography, Push on the Door in 1979.
- Loneliness: The Wider Scene was published in 1987.A blue plaque in Gomm Road, Bermondsey, London Borough of Southwark, commemorates Richard Carr-Gomm and the Abbeyfield and Carr-Gomm societies.
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