A. G. Wellings
Service no. 10167
Private, Coldstream Guards, 3rd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Wandsworth
Killed in action on 2 August 1917, aged about 23
Remembered at Artillery Wood Cemetery, Belgium
Brother of Thomas Henry Wellings
The 1901 census shows seven-year-old Alfred George Wellings as one of three children of Alfred Wellings, a 32-year-old horse keeper born in Vauxhall, and Elizabeth Martha (née McGoun), 33, a cardboard box maker from Blackfriars in the City of London, living at 29 Mansion House Street, Kennington.
Alfred was born on 27 January 1894 and attended Walnut Tree Walk School in Kennington. His family lived at 3 Hotspur Street, off Black Price Road.
In 1911 Alfred was working as a page at the Junior Athenaeum Club at 116 Piccadilly, London, a gentleman’s club whose members were MPs and peers, members of the universities, fellows of the learned and scientific Societies, and gentlemen connected with literature, science, and art. Thirty-five servants lived in at the club.
His widowed mother Martha and brothers Thomas and George lived in two rooms at 35 Camellia Street, South Lambeth. Martha was still working as a cardboard box maker.
From Dickens’s Dictionary of London, published 1879, by Charles Dickens, Jr.: The Junior Athenaeum Club “occupies the house once inhabited by the late Duke of Newcastle, and built at extraordinary cost by his father-in-law, the late Mr. Adrian Hope. Members of both Houses of Parliament, members of the universities, fellows of the learned and scientific Societies, and gentlemen connected with literature, science, and art are eligible for election. The members elect by ballot. “No ballot shall be valid unless at least twenty members actually vote. One black ball shall annul ten votes, a tie shall exclude.” Entrance fee, £31 10s.; annual subscription, £10 10s.”