Stockwell War Memorial

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Frederick Walter Warman

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F.W. Warman
Lance Corporal, Royal Irish Rifles, 15th Bn.
Service no. 44903
Died on 22 November 1917, aged about 32
Remembered at Cambrai Memorial, Louverval, France

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick Walter Warman was born in Kent in 1885, the third child of John and Ellen Eva Warman. By 1891, John and Ellen lived with their five children close to the seafront at 2 Pleasant Villas, Victoria Road, St Lawrence, Ramsgate in Kent. John Warman, who worked in a public house as a barman and cellarman, died in 1894. By the time of the 1901 census widowed Ellen was running her home as a boarding house, with the assistance of her 21-year-old daughter Lilian. Frederick, 15, was employed in a local hotel, possibly the nearby Granville Hotel on Victoria Parade.

In the 1911 census, Ellen had moved a short distance to 1 Avenue Villa, Avenue Road. Her three-storey home, one of four in the terrace, was adjacent to Holy Trinity Church and the open space of Arklow Square. Ellen now lived with three of her five surviving children: Lillian, 31, John, 27, and Ernest, 23. Both of Frederick’s brothers worked as hotel porters. The six-room property was also home to two male boarders. Frederick Warman was living at 83 Carter Street, Walworth, south-east London, renting one of Annie Smith’s five rooms, and was working in London hotels.

He married Florence Agnes Rowland early in 1915, in Southwark. She was the daughter of confectionery maker James Rowland who had premises in Borough High Street, Southwark, and a family home in 247 South Lambeth Road, Stockwell. The couple’s son, John Metcalf Warman, was born on 21 July 1915. Frederick’s brothers Ernest and John had both volunteered by the end of 1915, but Frederick waited to be conscripted. 

He was called up in the second half of 1916 and sent to France in February 1917 as Lance Corporal 8838 Warman of the 1st/8th London Bn (The Post Office Rifles). At some stage in 1917, he was transferred to the 9th Royal Irish Rifles and renumbered L/Cpl. 9/44903. He received medical treatment for a bad case of trench fever, a lice-borne infection, in August 1917 at the 18th General Hospital in France, which was then run by the US Army. The 8th and 9th RIR were amalgamated at the end of August 1917. 

Late in 1917, Frederick Warman was with the 15th RIR who were part of a major offensive near Cambrai, when tanks were used en masse for the first time. Their assault on part of the Hindenburg line on 22 November was met with stiff resistance and the 15th RIR suffered many casualties. Soon after, Frederick’s wife Florence received news that her husband had been posted missing that day. Florence made enquiries through the Red Cross in the hope that Frederick was still alive. A search was made but the response was ‘négatif envoyé’, Frederick had not been found as a prisoner. 

Six months later, in July 1918, Frederick Warman was officially presumed to have died on or since 22 November 1917. Florence was awarded a weekly widow’s pension of 13 shillings and 9 pence on 27 July 1918. She was still at her Stockwell address in 1920 when she made the decision to emigrate to America with her young son John. 

Ernest Petley Warman

In 1915, Frederick’s brother Ernest Petley Warman volunteered in Ramsgate. Ernest landed in France on 14 November 1915, as private 53284 of the 18th Royal Fusiliers. Just a few weeks before, he had married Folkestone-born Annie Elizabeth Standing in central London. The couple had first met when Annie was working at the Granville Hotel, Ramsgate, before the outbreak of war. At the end of April 1917, Ernest’s wife Annie learnt that her husband had been posted missing. Not giving up hope, Annie made enquiries via the Red Cross in July 1917. A search was made but nothing was found, and in late 1917 Ernest Petley Warman was presumed to have died on 1 April 1917. Mrs Annie E Warman was awarded a widow’s pension on 29 December. 

Ernest Petley Warman is remembered on a grave of the Standing Family in Folkestone and on the Arras Memorial. His widow, married Charles Ernest Boddy in 1929 at St Luke, Berwick Street, Westminster. 

John Philip Warman 

In 1915, Frederick’s brother John Philip was working as head porter at the Royal Bath Hotel, Bournemouth and he married local-born Hilda Constance Hembury on 16 June. John decided to attest at Bournemouth under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme, under which men could enlist on the understanding that unmarried men would be called up first, in November 1915, hoping to defer his service. He would have been issued with a grey armband and have his National Registration card stamped, “ATTESTED 24 Nov 1915”. John was finally called up on 25 January 1917. At 5ft 10in and weighing 15 stone, John P Warman found himself posted to the 3rd Grenadier Guards for initial training. When medically examined, it was noted he was ‘not fit for marching’. John was sent to France in April 1918, after the death of his brother Ernest and fearing the worse for his missing brother Frederick. He survived the war and returned to his family in early 1919. 

William George Ware

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W. G. Ware
Service no. 1187
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 2nd Battalion
Born in Brixton; enlisted in Westminster; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 27 March 1915
CWGC: “Son of Mr W. H. Ware, of 34 Bessborough Gardens, Westminster, London.”
Remembered at Ferme Buterne Military Cemetery, Houplines, Nord, France and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

Information from the 1911 census

William George Ware, 16, was a junior clerk at the Army & Navy Stores. He lived at 16 Dalyell Road, Stockwell, with his parents, William Henry Ware, 45, a foreman for a timber merchant, born in Battersea, and Edith Annie Ware (née Etheridge), 39, from Chelsea, and elder sister Edith Annie Ware, 17, a “lady clerk” at a coal office. The family had eight rooms. WIlliam Henry Ware has written “householder” proudly in the space for “Number of rooms in this dwelling.”

Frederick Ward

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F. Ward
Private, London Regiment, ‘B’ Coy. 2nd/19th Bn.
Service no. 614287
Died of wounds on 3 April 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza) and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick Ward was born in Lambeth and baptised on 20 May 1894 at St Andrew’s, Stockwell, when his parents Edwin and Agnes Ward (née Woolsey) were living at 19 Stockwell Green, and his father worked as a decorator. In the 1901 census Frederick was the third eldest of five siblings living with their parents in four rooms at 8 Clark’s Row (between Ingleton and Robsart Streets, near Brixton Road; Ingleton Street was demolished after 1945 becoming Ingleton Street Open Space, then renamed The Slade Garden in 1958 and is known today as Slade Gardens). His father Edwin was then employed as a ‘laundry carman’. Hardship followed when Edwin died in 1902, aged 46. The family suffered further loss in 1903 when Frederick’s younger brothers Ernest and Christopher died. 

When Frederick’s 51-year-old mother Agnes completed her 1911 census return, the household consisted of five other people: her children Agnes, 22, Edwin, 21, and Frederick , 16, and boarder Charles Ward, a widower aged 59. Agnes entered ‘no occupation’ for herself and Elsie, who was disabled. Edwin worked as a restaurant porter and Frederick as a milkman’s assistant. They lived in five rooms at 5 Ingleton Street, off Brixton Road.

Edwin was married with a young child when he volunteered in October 1915, serving as a motor driver in the Army Service Corps throughout the war. Frederick was conscripted late in 1916 and was first sent to Salonika, landing on 1 March 1917. Frederick spent three months there in miserable weather. Morale was low and the men were glad to leave in June 1917 when the battalion was moved to Egypt. The battalion took part in the campaign in Palestine in 1917 and 1918. They were present at the hugely symbolic capture and subsequent defence of Jerusalem in December 1917. ‘B’ company fought at ‘Talaat ed Dumm’ in February 1918. Late in March 1918 they were part of the forces that attacked Amman for the first time. Frederick Ward was wounded and evacuated to the 76th Casualty Clearing Station where he died on 3 April 1918. 

Frederick’s brother Edwin returned to his family at 15 Medwin Street in April 1919. Agnes and Elsie lived at 5 Ingleton St until his mother passed away in 1932, aged 73. Elsie later lived with Edwin’s family in Sevenoaks, Kent. 

Walter Percy Wallis

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W. P. Wallis
Service no. 153407
Private, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 200th Battalion
Died on 3 February 1919, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of Percy William and Sarah Naomi Wallis, of 9, The Mount, Bidborough, Kent.”
Remembered at Lapugnoy Military Cemetery, France

Information from the 1911 census

Only child Walter Percy Wallis, a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911, lived at 11 Glendall Street, Stockwell with his parents, Percy William Wallis, 38, a railway riveter from West Malling, Kent, and Sarah Naomi Wallis, 40, from Rye, Sussex. Walter was born in Ashford, Kent. They shared their four-roomed home with John James Seckert, a single 44-year-old restaurant waiter from Mayence, Germany.

Arthur Ambrose Wallis

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A. A. Wallis
Service no. 30098
Private, Welsh Regiment, 2nd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 8 September 1916, aged 18
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Arthur Ambrose Wallis was a 13-year-old schoolboy living in three rooms at 29 Fountain Street (off Wandsworth Road, south of Hemans Street) with his parents and seven siblings. His father, Herbert Wallis, 38, was a railway porter from Tunbridge Wells, Kent; his mother, Louisa Wallis, 34, was from Westminster. The siblings were James Wallis, 14; Louie Wallis, 11; Kate Wallis, 9; Rose Wallis, 6; Minnie Wallis, 4; George Wallis, 1; Herbert Wallis, 2 months.

When Arthur was baptised at All Saints, South Lambeth, his parents lived at 9 Lansdowne Gardens, Stockwell.