Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

SWM

William Charles Ray

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W.C. Ray
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 8th Bn.
Service no. 39290.
Killed in action on 23 October 1918, aged 23.
Remembered at Forest Communal Cemetery, Nord, France

In 1911 William Charles Ray lived with his parents, William, a 37-year-old carman, and 32-year-old Louisa Esther (née Rainbow), and four siblings at 10 Broomgrove Road, Stockwell Green, where they occupied three rooms. Louisa’s mother Caroline Rainbow lived in the other half of the house with a son, adopted daughter and a lodger.

William was almost 21 and working as an engine driver when he was called up 30 May 1918. He stood 5ft 5in, with brown hair and hazel eyes. His chest measured 33in. His physical development was judged to be ‘Good’. 

Ray had two misdemeanours on his Service record: failure to wash before breakfast, for which he was confined to barracks for three days, and overstaying his pass when on active service, for which six days’ pay was withheld. 

Ray married Annie Florence Judd in 1917. She lived at 44 Tregenna Street, Brixton Hill with their two daughters, Annie Edith, born in 1916, and Florence Violet, born posthumously in May 1919. She received his identity disc and a weekly widows’ pension of 20s and 6d.

Leonard Eldridge

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E. Eldridge

Service no. 304022
Rifleman, London Regiment, 1/5th Batallion (London Rifle Brigade)
Killed in action on 9 October 1916, aged about 19
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

In 1911, Leonard Eldridge worked as a messenger for the General Post Office. He lived with his parents and five of his eight siblings at 14 Aldebert Terrace, South Lambeth where the family occupied five rooms. Leonard’s father Harry Eldridge, 51, was a carman, transporting milk for a dairy. He was originally from New Cross, south-east London. His mother, Martha Eldridge, 50, was from Norfolk. 

John Frederick King

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J. F. King

Service no. 231178
Private, London Regiment, 2nd Bn. (Royal Fusiliers)
Died 21 March 1918, aged 39
Remembered at Chauny Communal Cemetery British Extension, Aisne, France

John Frederick King, a carman, joined the Army twice. First he volunteered for the Army Service Corps (Horse Transport) on 5 January 1915. His medical description paints a picture of someone short and stocky: 5 feet 2¼ inches tall with a 40-inch chest. He had a mole on the back of his neck and scars on the left side of his back and left leg. At the top of his form he has signed a note: “I am willing to allot from date of enlistment 6d. [sixpence] per day of my pay to support my wife and family.” He had left behind Jenny (née Hawkins), Frederick Ernest, 9, and Agnes Louise, 8.

This period of service lasted a mere three days. On 7 January he was discharged as “not likely to become an efficient soldier.” As the war progressed, however, this opinion may have been revised or King may have been subject to the compulsory draft. Whatever happened, he later joined the London Regiment and died near Aisne in March 1918.

Heaton Clark Howard

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Heaton Clark Howard, who sat on the Stockwell Memorial committee, lived at 27 Stockwell Road.

was appointed an Honorary Associate of the Order on 31 July 1906, as an Honorary Surgeon. This was not actually a grade in the Order of St John and did not confer membership but was a favoured and usual way of rewarding people of a certain social standing such as doctors who performed good service for the Order. In 1926 this Honorary award ended with a Royal Charter and living holders of the Badge were offered the privilege of becoming Officers of the Order.

Dr Heaton Howard died in 1923 and the following obituary notice appeared in First Aid in April 1923:

Dr Howard was born in Lancashire in 1855 and took his medical degree in 1880. The cyclist division of the old Metropolitan Corps was founded in 1889 by Mr Alan Palmer in conjunction with Dr Howard, who was appointed its Hon. Surgeon.

The late Dr Howard carried on practice in Stockwell, where he was known as the friend of the poor. His surgeries in Clapham-road and Wandsworth-road have been for years the refuges of the sick, the outcast, and the distressed, while the pauper and the orphan knew that the brave old man would respond to their call at any hour of the night. Dr Howard fell victim to blood poisoning and died in St George’s Hospital where he had been a student 43 years before.