Researchers at Queen Mary University have revealed two men from Bromley and Gravesend were some of the few who cashed in on a failed loan scheme during the First World War.

The researchers analysed British government finance records that remained buried since WW1.

From 1914, the government tried and failed to raise capital for the war through a public loan scheme.

Norman Mayhew, a then 28-year old professor of music from Bromley and Wilmont Charles Haynes, a greengrocer from Gravesend who invested £500 were some of the few who did cash in on the scheme.

“Actuated beyond all question by motives of patriotism no less than by thought of securing a good investment,” the Times incorrectly stated in 1914, “the British public has offered the government every penny it was asked for – and more.”

In reality, the government was secretly collecting the shortfall from the Bank of England. Public funding totalled £91 million, which was “less than a third of the £350 million target”, according to the new research.

QMUL researcher Norma Cohen says: “The fundraising effort was such a failure that the establishment felt compelled to cover it up.

"The truth would have led to a collapse in the price of outstanding war loans which would have endangered future capital raising.

"Had it come to light, it would have been a propaganda coup for the Germans – the great patriotic project to pay for the war was mostly a myth.”