Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

SWM

Charles Bernard Farrell

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C. B. Farrell
Service no. 8272
Colour Serjeant, South Lancashire Regiment, 2nd Battalion
Died after a fall from his horse, age 26, on 15 April 1916
CWGC: “Son of Michael and Elizabeth Farrell, of 66, Dalyell Road, Brixton, London. Born at Warrington.”
Remembered at Streatham Park Cemetery

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

FARRELL, C. B., C.S.M., 2nd South Lancashire Regiment.
A serving soldier, he was mobilized at the outbreak of hostilities, and embarked for France in November 1914. He was in action in many engagements, including the first and second Battles of Ypres. Owing to a fall from his horse he broke his thigh and complications arising he was invalided to England but subsequently died at Edmonton Hospital on April 15th, 1916. He was entitled to the 1914 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
66, Dalyell Road, Landor Road, S.W.9.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 the Farrell family is found at 66 Dalyell Road, Brixton. Michael Farrell, 56, was an army pensioner (musician), born in St Mary’s, Cork, Ireland. Elizabeth Farrell, 40, an attendant in an art gallery, was born in Jersey, Channel Islands. They had 4 children (all surviving), 2 of them living at home: John Farrell, 19, a gunsmith, born in Warrington, Lancashire, and Mary A. Farrell, 10, born in Stockwell. Amelia Waters, sister to Elizabeth Farrell, a 42-year-old widowed housemaid born in Toronto, Canada, was visiting. Charles Bernard Farrell does not appear on this entry – presumably he was serving with his regiment.

Henry Joseph John Farrant

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H. J. J. Farrant
Service no. 254446
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 3rd Battalion
Killed in action, age 18, on 28 August 1918
Born in Stoke Newington, north London; lived and enlisted in Tottenham, north London
CWGC: “Son of Mr. H. J. Farrant, of 121, Peabody Cottages, Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London.”
Remembered at Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery, Bray-sur-Somme, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

FARRANT, H. J. J., Private, Royal Fusiliers.
He joined in November 1917 and after his training was drafted to France, where he took part in the Battle of the Somme. On 28th August 1918 he was killed in action at Albert.
He was entitled to the General Service and Victory Medals.
121, Peabody Cottages, Lordship Lane, N.17

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Henry J. J. Farrant was 11 and living with his family at 51 Abbotsford Avenue, South Tottenham, where the household occupied 8 rooms. Henry John Farrant, 54, a former ironmonger now working as a “commission agent”, was born in Limehouse, east London. His wife, Alice Jane Farrant, 52, was born in Kingsland, Hackney. They had 2 children: Alice M. S. Farrant, 16, and Henry J. J. Farrant. Both children were born in Stamford Hill. The household included 3 boarders: George Walker, 39, a warehouseman, born in London, his wife Florence J. Walker, 36, born in Brixton, and their son, Archibald Walker, 11, also born in Brixton.

A strong connection between Henry Joseph John Farrant and the Stockwell area of London is yet to become apparent. It is possible that he went to school at Stockwell Grammar or some other local establishment. There is only one H.J.J. Farrant in the military records.

Stockwell War Memorial committee

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The memorial houses a marble plaque commemorating the committee who raised – by public subscription – the considerable for the building of the memorial.

It reads:

This monument was erected by subscriptions raised by the following committee of Stockwell residents and presented together with the surrounding garden to the Lambeth Borough Council, as a gift to the people for ever.

and it lists the names.

Wallace M. Young, Chairman (1886-1958)
Young went to Mill Hill School in north London from 1897. The 1911 census records him as a 24-year-old surveyor living with his father, Douglas Young, a surveyor, auctioneer and estate agent, and mother and sister, a boarder and two servants at “Stathallen”, Croham Park Avenue, South Croydon. Both he and his sister were born in Lambeth. Posted as 2nd Lieutenant, then Captain Royal Engineers Inland Waterways & Docks Company to Salonika. Promoted to Captain. Awarded military MBE. In 1922 his address was 14 Stockwell Park Road, S.W.9. He was later a surveyor of the City of London.

Philip Bryman (1876-1931)
Philip Bryman, born in Whitechapel, east London, was the son of Woolf Bryman, a tailor, and his wife, Hannah, Jews who came to London from Prussia. The 1911 census records Philip Bryman as a 35-year-old merchant tailor living with his wife, two young sons and a live-in servant at 1 Studley Road, Stockwell. In 1919 the South London Press reported that a proposed design for the memorial by Norman Tyrrell could be viewed in Bryman’s shop window in Stockwell Road.

Lennard Charles (c 1871-1933)
Lennard Charles was born in Manchester. In 1901, aged 30, he was living with his wife Rosina at 225 Brixton Road and working as a house property dealer. Ten years later, listed as James Thomas Charles, he was at 33 Belle Vue Gardens, Clapham Road.

Lennard Charles was the son of very well known and well travelled Music Hall singers. (Both Lennard Charles and his father were referred to by their stage names, Lennard, and not their given names.) Lennard Charles junior’s mother, Madame Lennard Charles, was both a classic and a novelty singer (soprano AND tenor). The couple even appeared onstage in Brooklyn, New York for six months. Lennard Charles senior became ill and stopped performing in 1885, and in 1886 and 1887 his son accompanied his mother on stage as Master Lennard Charles. The family appear to have stopped performing in about 1888.

Heaton C. Howard (1855-1923)
Born in Kirkham, Lancashire. In 1911 Dr Heaton Clark Howard, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. (London), lived with his wife and sister-in-law, a boarder and two servants at 281 Clapham Road. Howard wrote a book titled The Therapeutic Value of the Potato, published in 1914. An article published in the Kilmore Free Press on 14 August 1919, described Dr Howard’s theories: “He had discovered a substance capable of, giving ‘prompt relief from pain, acute or sub acute,’ and also able to bring about ‘rapid absorption of the fluid in cases of synovitus’ (e.g., water on the knee). ‘These results,’ he continues, ‘so unexpected when the investigation was commenced, have been so constant and so thoroughly tested in the many cases under my care that I now feel justified bringing them before the medical profession.” Clark was an Honorary Surgeon of the St Johns Ambulance. He is buried at Norwood Cemetery.

This 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.’

He is buried at Norwood Cemetery.

David H. Jones
Not identified

Henry King
Not identified

James Mayo (born c 1872)
This is probably James Mayo, a builder who in 1911 (aged 40) was living with his wife Emma and daughter Violet in five rooms at 2 Union Road Clapham.

Wm [William] May Morgan (born c 1880)
In 1911 31-year-old Bermondsey-born William May Morgan lived at 67 Upper Kennington Lane with his wife Ethel and two young children, Douglass and Gwendoline. He was an assistant manager of a “cinematograph department (stores)”.

Horace W. Norman (c. 1872 – probably 1947)
Builder. In 1911 was living with his wife Margaret at 329 Clapham Road and two-year-old son Alan. Until 1916 was in businesss with Hubert Payne as Payne and Norman, “Builders, Decorators,
Sanitary Engineers, and House Agents”, at 324 Clapham Road. There was another Horace W. Norman in Lambeth in 1911 – 10 years younger and a commercial traveller living at Shakespeare Road, Herne Hill, who is a less likely candidate.

Sidney H. Stanley

Sidney Streeter (born c 1875)
The only likely candidate I can find in the 1911 census is Southend-born Sydney Streeter, who was a fruiterer’s assistant, living at that time at 8 Kay Road with his wife Hettie and seven-year-old son Cyril.

Samuel Bowller, Hon Secretary (born c 1873)
In 1911 Samuel J. Bowller, a watchmaker, lived at 282 Clapham Road with his wife, two daughters and a live-in servant. One small snippet of information about him appeared in the Hawera & Normanby Star (New Zealand) on 17 June 1922, only six weeks after the Memorial was unveiled (it is irrelevant to the War Memorial but neverthless interesting).

DAYLIGHT JEWEL RAID
Escape by Motor-car
A gang of men stole diamond rings of the estimated value of £500 from the window of a South London jeweller recently, and made a thrilling escape by motor-car. The raid, which occurred at a time when there was considerable traffic, was made upon the shop of Mr. Samuel Bowller, 282 Clapham Road, Stockwell.A half-brick wrapped in newspaper was used to smash the plate-glass window and the thieves hurriedly scooped up the loose jewellery within reach. In their hurry the raiders dropped a diamond ring worth £98 on the pavement, and it was restored to Mr. Bowller by the finder. Two other diamond and platinum rings, each valued at more than £100, were knocked to the bottom of the window. The most valuable ring among those stolen was worth £50.One of them [the thieves] narrowly missed capture by Constable Stanton. “I was off duty,” the policeman said, “and was shopping a few doors away. As I came into the street carrying my little boy, I saw a man running. I sat the child down on the pavement, and but for the delay I should have caught the man. As it was, I got close to him, and he jumped on the motor-car, which was moving by this time, and climbed over the shut door into the back seat.

“I just touched the car; but he aimed a blow at me with a stick, and then, putting on speed, the car shot away. The car contained three men, besides a chauffeur in uniform.”

For a period variously calculated at an hour, the car stood at the corner, quite close to the shop, without attracting especial attention. Indeed, one of Mr. Bowller’s assistants joined the chauffeur in smiling at a funny incident which the two of them had witnessed.

The car used by the thieves was a Ford, and bore the identification plate XH7431. The police are in possession of good descriptions of the four men, who are believed to be experts at this particular form of robbery.

May 3rd 1922

Frederick Eversfield

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F. Eversfield
Service no. J/12826
Able Seaman, Royal Navy, H.M. S/M “D6.”
Died age 24 on June 1918
Husband of Kathleen Christina Eversfield, of 19, St. James Rd., Carshalton, Surrey.
Remembered at Chatham Naval Memorial

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Frederick Eversfield, a 16-year-old stores porter lived at 6 Emily Mansions, Landor Road, SW9 with his family: parents Harry Eversfield, 46, a stone maston born in Wrotham, Kent and Mary Eversfield, 45, from Dover; and siblings   Eliza Eversfield, 25, a restaurant counter hand, and Hilda Eversfield, 12. All three children were born in Dover.
In 1901 Frederick Eversfield was 6 and living at 1 Alexandra Cottages, Tower Street, in Dover, Kent, with his mother and siblings. Mary J. Eversfield was 34 and born in Dover. The children on the census were
Harry Eversfield, 16, foundry labourer
Elizabeth Eversfield, 12
Alfred Eversfield, 9
Frederick Eversfield, 6
Hilda Eversfield, 2
Winifred Eversfield, 1
Sarah A. Burbridge, 84, a widow living on her own means and born in Alkham, Kent, lived with the family.

Alfred Thomas Evans

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A. T. Evans
Rifleman, London Regiment (London Irish Rifles), 2nd/18th Bn.
Service no. 593075
Died 23 December 1917, aged 19
Remembered at Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel

Alfred Thomas Evans was born in 1898 and baptised at St Paul’s, Clapham on 1 May. He was the youngest of William Charles and Mary Evans’ four sons. The family lived in six rooms above their grocery shop at 270 Wandsworth Road.  

In the 1911 census, Alfred, then 13, lived at home with this parents and older brothers William Charles, Bertram Horace and Henry Edgar.  His father, a tea dealer and grocer, ran the family business with the assistance of his son William. Bertram worked as an engineer, and Henry was a leather worker. 

The shop lay between New Road and Howard Street, with a butcher and baker to either side. The Bell public house was two doors away and is still standing. The atmosphere of the area can be judged from this 1910 photograph.

October 1911 brought sadness for the family when Bertram, the second son, died aged 21. He was buried at Norwood Cemetery. Happier times followed when Alfred’s older brother William married Ada Florence Hall at St Philips, Balham, on 23 March 1913. Their first child was born in January 1914.  

William seems to have made a last-minute decision to attest on 9 December 1915, under Lord Derby’ scheme, two days before its closure. The scheme, devised because recruitment was not keeping pace with casualties, urged men aged 18 to 41 who were not in a reserved occupation to come forward, on the understanding that single men would be called up before married men or widowers with children. William was not called up until the beginning of 1917.

Alfred was conscripted in mid-1916, enlisting in London. His first destination was Salonika by ship across the Mediterranean, landing on 30 March 1917.  His battalion moved to Egypt on 12 June, landing at Alexandria, and entrained for Ismalia where they settled in at Moscar Camp the following day. 

The comforts of the camp were described by one soldier: ‘Moscar, itself, was a permanent camp of tents with ample accommodation for everyone and water to be had by merely turning on a tap. Melons and fruit in abundance and in great variety and ideal swimming in Lake Timsah only a short distance away…’

What followed was the Battle of Sheria in November and the assault to capture Jerusalem in December.  

News reached the Evans family that Alfred’s older brother William had been wounded in the head and was invalided to England on 16 December 1917.  A week later,  at Christmas time, William and Mary received the news that Alfred had been killed in action on Christmas Eve, near Jerusalem.  

Alfred’s brothers William and Henry ran the family business in the Wandsworth Road for many years after the war. His father died in 1931, aged 67,  Henry in 1940, aged 47, and William in 1963, aged 75.

Leonard George Henry Erdbeer

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L. G. H. Erdbeer
Service no. 30085
Private, Grenadier Guards, 4th Battalion
Died age 21 on 13 April 1918
Son of Henry and Helen Erdbeer, of 9 Stockwell Grove, Stockwell, London.
Remembered at Merville Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 the Erdbeer household of 9 Stockwell Grove consisted of Henry Erdbeer, 43, a “general tinsmith” born in Poplar; his wife Ellen Elizabeth Page Erdbeer, 34, born in Brighton; Charles Morris, 72, Helen’s father and a retired tram conductor from Guestling, Sussex; Leonard George Henry, 13 and still at school; Doris Jessie, 12; and Alec Charles, 10. All the children were born in Stockwell. The family occupied 6 rooms.

Erdbeer means strawberry in German.