A. E. Upton
Service no. L/17507
Private, London Regiment, 7th Battalion, formerly Middlesex Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 21 March 1918, aged about 23
Remembered at Chauny Communal Cemetery British Extension, Aisne, France

Information from the censuses

Albert Edward Upton, 16 in 1911, was described by his father Edward Upton as “youth – not settled” on the 1911 census. Edward repeated the word “unsettled’ in the next column (which is meant for information on the type of business a person is employed in) and added “butcher”, confusingly, to the next column (designed to record whether the business took place at home or outside the home). Edward Upton’s mistakes have given us a lot more information than most census returns. For instance, he tells us that he was born “between Brixton and Clapham Roads” and that he and his wife, Mary Ann Upton, at 54 the same age as her literal-minded husband and from Beaulieu, Hampshire, had been married 21 years last September. We also know that he worked as a goods guard for the London & South West Railway.  The couple had two children (one had died): Albert and Ada Mary Ellen Upton, 19, a service housemaid. Both were born, Edward tells us, were born at 7 Dawlish Street, South Lambeth, where the family still lived.