Stockwell War Memorial

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D names

Giles Vellacott Daunt

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Photo of Giles Daunt
Giles Daunt. Photo by kind permission of Will Daunt

G. V. Daunt
Second Lieutenant, South Lancashire Regiment, 10th Battalion, attd. 6th Battalion
Killed in action in Mesopotamia on 9 April 1916, aged 19
Brother of Conrad O’Neill Daunt
Remembered at Basra Cemetery, Iraq
Awarded the Victory, British and Star medals

On 20 August 1914 Giles Vellacott Daunt, aged 18 and working as a clerk, joined the Royal Fusiliers as a Signaller. He was almost immediately offered a commission in the South Lancashires (with whom his brother Conrad also served). Quite apart from his middle-class background – he was a son of the physician and surgeon Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt – he must have looked the part. Six feet tall, over 11 stone and with a 41-inch chest, blue eyes and fair hair.

In February 1916 Daunt embarked on the H.M.S. Ionic, headed for Port Said, Egypt and then Basra, Iraq. He was reported missing in action on 9 April 1916. His death was later confirmed. A memorandum of 6 August states that his body was buried at Sanniyat.

Conrad O’Neill Daunt

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Conrad O'Neill Daunt
Conrad O’Neill Daunt. Photo by kind permission of Will Daunt

C. O’N. Daunt
Lieutenant, Royal Air Force, South Lancashire Regiment, 8th Battalion
Died age 27 on 29 September 1918
Son of Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt, LRCP (Licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians of London), of 176 Clapham Road, Stockwell, London, and the late Annie Elizabeth Daunt (nee Vellacott).
Remembered at Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery, Bray-sur-Somme, France

Conrad Daunt appears to have been listed as Canadian – at least he is remembered as so on the Veterans Affairs Canada website. The RAF was established late in the war (1 April 1918).

Brother of Giles Vellacott Daunt

Conrad O’Neill Daunt, born in 1891, and his brother Giles Vellacott Daunt, born in 1895, were two of five children of Irish physician and surgeon Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt and Annie Elizabeth Daunt (née Vellacott) of 176 Clapham Road. Both boys were educated at City of London School.

Conrad returned to England from Canada to fight in the war and initially served as a Private with the Second Canadian contingent. He was offered a commission with the South Lancashires, and served with them through 1917. In 1918 he was transferred to the Royal Air Force (established in April) and promoted to Lieutenant.

Will Daunt, great-nephew to Giles and Conrad, writes: “Conrad and Giles Daunt were my great uncles, and, although we knew where they were buried (and have visited Conrad’s grave), we had not realised their names were on the memorial. My grandfather, Francis O’Neill Daunt, was their elder brother and, as a doctor (like his father), was probably a little safer (although he met mygrandmother on a hospital ship coming back from Gallipoli). Sadly, I never knew him because he died in the early 1950s. His two sisters, known as Dorothy and Peg, never married and, like him, spent most of their adult lives in Hastings/St. Leonards.”

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Conrad O’Neill Daunt was living with his uncle, Walter John Vellacott at his farm at Tunnel House, West Thurrock, Essex. Walter Vellacott, 32, was born in Barnstaple, Devon. His wife, Elizabeth, 27 was from High Bickington, Devon. They had 2 children: Margaret Annie Vellacott, 4, born in Homehurst, Esex, and William Walter Vellacott, 7 months, born at West Thurrock. Conrad was 20 and working as a farm pupil. There was a visitor on the night of the census: Moss T. Reick, 44 and married, an evangelist from Berlin, Germany. The servants were Annie Suckling, a single 21-year-old domestic servant from Essex, and governess Ruth Florence Reynolds, 32, single and born in Singapore.

Meanwhile, Conrad’s family lived at 118 Newington Causeway (convenient for Guy’s Hospital). Physician and surgeon Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt, 51, born in Kinsale, County Cork, and his wife, Annie Elizabeth Daunt, 46, from Tavistock, Devon, had five children, including Francis Eldon Daunt, 22, a medical student, Giles Daunt, 14, Helena Margaret Daunt, 11. Frances Willmore, 40, a general domestic servant born in Lambeth, lived in.

Christopher Dartnell

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world war 1 soldier christopher dartnell
Christopher Dartnell before and after returning from the front. Courtesy of the Dartnell family

C. Dartnell
Service no 19561
Lance Corporal, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 6th Battalion
Killed in action on 16 October 1917 age 21
Enlisted at Camberwell
Remembered at Hooge Crater Cemetery, Belgium

Chris Dartnell volunteered for military service shortly after the start of World War One. He was part of what was known as Kitchener’s volunteer army formed from the volunteers in 1914 and 1915.

The medal roll confirms that he was awarded the 1914/15 campaign Star together with the British War Medal and Victory Medal.

The official War Diary of the 6th DCLI for the 16th October 1917 states the following:

“The Battalion was in Brigade Support (to the 10th Battalion Durham Light Infantry who were in the front line trenches) and were quartered in Sanctuary Wood in Dugouts and Shelters about J13 C.5.7.” During the night 15/16th the enemy shelled the portion of the wood the Battalion were occupying with Gas Shells and High Explosive shells. He also again shelled the Wood very heavily from about 9am to Dusk. A&C coy’s carried up rations to the 10th DLI and our B” coy, leaving the wood at 5.30pm in parties of 20 under an officer. Casualties other ranks 4 killed 7 wounded”.

Alongside Christopher’s grave are the headstones of 3 other NCOs, all having been killed on the night of 15/16 October 1917.

In 1980, shortly before she died, Ethel Florence Humphreys (born 1903), the youngest of the 12 Dartnell siblings, wrote his reminiscence of her brother Chris for her daughter in 1980:

…My next vivid memory was War being declared in August 1914. My brothers, Roger, Jim and Fred were called up and transported to France and India. My father was called to repair the Hospital ships and was often in France for a month at a time. His trade was plumbing. It was frightening when the Zeppelins came over and dropped bombs and you wondered if you might be killed when they came your way. We very often stayed and sheltered in the underground where the trains were stationary until All Clear was sounded.

Next to be called up was my brother Chris, when he was 18. He hated war and violence and often wished he was not in the Army. When he had leave from France he never wanted to go back after his leave and the last break he had from the trenches he didn’t go back until after another day had passed. That was in 1917 (May). We then had a telegram to say he was killed in action in October – he was just 21. We all were very shocked because of this and the news that my brother Bill had been wounded in German East Africa and was on his way home having been shot in his right hand and had lost a thumb and was also wounded in the right hip. So he was out of soldering for good. He became a Commissionaire for a firm in the City of London.

My last brother, Reg was called up when he was 18 in January 1918 and sent to France for the big push in May 1918. We had a couple of cards from him the first few weeks and then no more news until August that he was a prisoner of war.

Thank goodness they all arrived home except Chris, safe and well after the war ended in November 1918.

Then Armistice was declared in November 1918 and we were told to go home at lunchtime. I remember going to see the masses of people gathering in the Strand, London and felt lost in the crowd. People dancing and cheering and drinking. I had to walk home as there were no buses running. When I reached my house my Mother was crying because her son, Chris, had been killed and would not be returning and my other brother Reg was still a prisoner of war and we were still waiting to hear if he was still alive.

Chris Dartnell died at Sanctuary Wood during the third Battle of Ypres and is buried at Hooge Crater Cemetery not far from there. Chris Dartnell’s great-niece Sheila says, “It’s just one of many cemeteries across Europe which shows that they are highly maintained – not like some of the memorials here.”

Information from the censuses

According to the 1911 census, the Dartnell family were living at 24 Hartington Road (that side of the road was demolished many years ago). Frederick Dartnell (senior), was a 48-year-old plumber, who was born in Lambeth, as was his wife Jane, also 48. Of their 12 children, these were at home on the night of the census:

Frederick Dartnell, 28, a plumber’s mate
Albert Dartnell, 26, another plumber’s mate
James Dartnell (Jim in the memoir his sister wrote), 24, a stationer’s clerk
Ellen Dartnell, 18, a “driver maker”
Lydia Dartnell, 16
Chris Dartnell, 13 (who later died in the Great War and is listed on the Stockwell War Memorial)
Reginald Dartnell, 12
Florence Dartnell, 6 (who wrote the reminiscence of her brother Christopher)

The 1901 census gives the Dartnells’ address as 34 Hartington Road, so either they moved from No 24 or 34 is a transcription error.
Frederick Dartnell senior’s name is given as Christopher F. Dartnell. It also lists the other Dartnell children:
William Dartnell, 11, born 1890
Helen M. Dartnell, 10, born 1891
Sidney Dartnell, 4 months, born 1901

In 1891 the Dartnell family were living at 34 Hartington Road. Frederick and Jane Dartnell and their (then) four children lived with Frederick senior’s mother Eliza Dartnell, 62, who was born in Chelsea. In addition, there was a married couple lodging with them – Richard Chamberlain, 58, a general labourer, and his wife Martha, 57, both born in Lambeth.

1881 Before Frederick married Jane, he lived at 34 Hartington Road with his parents, Edward J Dartnell, a 56-year-old compositor born in Lambeth, and Eliza, 50, whose birthplace is given as “Westminster” (rather than Chelsea as in the 1891 census). Frederick, then 18, was working as a carpenter (he later became a plumber) and his sister, Harriet, 16, was a dress-maker.
1871: In 1871 the Dartnell family, Edward and Elizabeth (grandparents to Christopher Dartnell, who died in 1917 and is named on the Stockwell War Memorial) and four children,
Mary Dartnell, 14
Harry Dartnell, 11
Christopher (Frederick) Dartnell, 8 (later the father of ‘our’ Christopher)
Harriet Dartnell, 6
lived in Spring Grove, Lambeth.
1861: In 1861 Edward and Elizabeth Dartnell family were living at 71 Vauxhall Street, with four children
Edward George Dartnell, 9
Lizzie Dartnell, 7
Mary Ann H Dartnell, 4 (listed in the 1871 census)
Harry Dartnell, 1