Treasury searches for family of Facebook tramp who died leaving pension pot worth thousands of pounds

The tramp, who died last year after spending the last 30 years living in the middle of a ring road, left thousands of pounds in untouched pension money.

Yesterday an appeal was made to find relatives of Mr Stawinoga who was revered by some for shunning all worldly possessions and who became an internet phenomenon after a fan club was set up in his honour on social networking site Facebook.

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The Polish-born tramp - known as Fred to locals in Wolverhampton - was found dead in his tent in October at the age of 87 after contracting pneumonia.

His unclaimed pension cash was initially held in trust by the local council, with some used for his funeral.

Now the Treasury Solicitor's bona vacantia division - which administers the estates of those who die intestate without known kin - is looking for anyone related to Mr Stawinoga.

Any relatives have several years to come forward. If no one does his money will go to the Treasury.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's office said the exact value of the estate would only be released to "genuine claiming relatives".

Respondents are required to provide evidence of their blood relationship in the form of birth, marriage and death certificates.

If anyone does come forward they be able to shed more light on Mr Stawinoga's past.

He had lived on the grassy central reservation of St John's ring road in Wolverhampton since the early 1970s, but little is known about his life prior to his arrival in Britain after the war.

Some locals claimed he had been a lance corporal in the Polish Army Medical Corps and had developed a fear of confined spaces after being held as a prisoner of war by the Russians.

Others thought his tramp's life might be a self-imposed penance.

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After his death a "friend" claimed Mr Stawinoga had been in the SS, "and he was not one of the nicest chaps in the SS".

He went on to work as a hospital orderly in Wales before moving to the West Midlands and finding a job at the steelworks in Bilston.

In 1952 he married an Austrian but the relationship was stormy and Mr Stawinoga was said to have locked her up at home when he went to work.

Eventually, several years later, a neighbour heard her screams and rescued her. She fled, presumably to Austria.

During the late 1960s Mr Stawinoga became increasingly eccentric and was repeatedly evicted from lodging houses for not paying his rent before he settled for life in a tent.

Before his Facebook fame the tramp was already held in high regard by local Hindus and Sikhs as a holy man who had turned his back on material possessions.

They regularly visited him with blankets, food and clothing.