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Featured

George Frederick Warwick

31 March 2018 by SWM

George Frederick Warwick

George Frederick Warwick
Corporal, Service No. 30468, formerly 77895 (Royal Engineers)
Killed in action on 5 October 1917, aged 23
1st Bn., Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Belgium

A substantial number of men from the Stockwell area were not listed on the Memorial. The Stockwell War Memorial committee invited families to submit names. Some may not have wanted their sons’ names to appear on it; others may have moved away and not been aware that the opportunity existed; others still had resided outside the official boundary of a half-mile radius from the building. It is clear that some families came forward after the unveiling of the monument: a few names were added, out of alphabetical order, on the final panel.

George Frederick Warwick is not listed on Stockwell War Memorial, despite the fact that his family home at 180 Stockwell Road was within half a mile of the memorial site. We do not know the reason for his omission. His name has not been discovered on any of the other local surviving memorials.

After he enlisted in the Royal Engineers in Lambeth in 1915, George served as a Dispatch Rider in various locations around Arras, in the region of Artois, northern France. In March 1917 he was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and took part in the Battle of Arras (First and Third Battle of Scarpe), after which his regiment was kept on the front line to consolidate the system of trenches dug on the ground retaken during the battle.

On 30 September George left for Ypres and was killed in action just over two weeks later at the Battle of Broodseinde, at 19 Meter Hill.

While he was serving he fell in love with a young French woman, Georgette Béthencourt, who gave birth to his daughter, Marie, on 26 August 1917. He was able to hold his child in his arms only twice before leaving for Ypres.

George, who was born in the parish of St Martin in the Fields, Westminster in 1896, was the eldest of seven children of George Edward Warwick, a Covent Garden master porter, and Julia Catherine Williams. In the 1911 census the Warwick family was recorded as living at 180 Stockwell Road, with a female servant and a male boarder. When George’s daughter was 11, her George Edward, her grandfather, sent her George’s medals (see letter below).

Information and all photos by kind permission of George’s grandson-in-law Pierre Rouvillois, and Elisabeth Rouvillois.

Filed Under: Featured, Not listed Tagged With: 1917, Belgium, KIA

Samuel Levy

20 August 2015 by SWM

Samuel Levy (later Ley)
Samuel Levy (later Ley)

A desperate wife tries to get her husband home from France

EIGHT CHILDREN

In 1917, when Samuel Levy was 44, he volunteered to fight Germany for King and country. He left his wife, Pauline (nee Neuberger), and their eight children to cope without him, presumably managing on a proportion of his army pay. His civilian occupation, tailor’s cutter, cannot have brought much in but now they were having to manage on less while Samuel was a private with the Royal West Kent Regiment and later when he was attached to the Royal Engineers and sent to France.

Still, it wasn’t money that worried Pauline. It was the lack of fatherly discipline for her boys.

In October 1917, five months after Samuel signed up, Pauline had had enough. “To the Officer in Commands,” she wrote in a beautiful hand, “…I am making an application to know if it is possible to have my husband transferred from France now on active service there.” Through her little mistakes in English and the way she frames her sentences you can hear the cadences of her Jewish background.

FIVE BOYS

She certainly had her hands full. “I have been left with eight children, five of which are boys, four going to school. They are getting over bearing and need a father’s hand.”

“My husband is 45 years old,” she stated. Her exasperation is audible – what was the man thinking, signing up at his age? “Do you think it possible for him to get some duty nearer home. I may also add that my husband joined voluntary.”

The answer, when it came a little over four weeks later, was blunt and stiffly expressed: “I am directed to inform you,” said the Colonel, “that if your husband is desirous, on account of age, of being posted to a Home Service unit, he must make an application to his Commanding Officer. I am afraid that he can not be brought home to look after his children.”

A SUPERIOR WOMAN

After I read this, I was quite surprised to see in the records that the Army took Pauline’s plea seriously. The Army Pay Office asked an “E. G. Potter” to investigate. Visitors judged Pauline’s home to be “nicely kept” and said the children were “well cared for”. Pauline was not forthcoming enough on why she found the children unmanageable, merely telling her visitors that “with as many boys, her husband ought to have a chance to work in England.” They talked to the headmaster of the boys’ school, who had no complaints and said the boys were not naughty. He had noticed no change in their behaviour when Samuel went to war. However, the general feeling was that Mrs Levy was a “superior woman and one who should have every consideration.”

I cannot tell you what happened next, only that Samuel was demobbed on 3 March 1919 and given a conditional pension. He was described as 60% disabled (neurasthenia, aggravated by the war) and awarded 24 shillings for him, and 24 shillings and 11 pence for his wife and children.

Other details

  • Samuel Levy had two army service numbers: 404122 and 26076. He was enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment and was later attached to the Royal Engineers Labour Corp. He was Private.
  • Samuel Levy stood 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a 41inch chest (expandable by 3 and a half inches).
  • Samuel and Pauline married in Dalston Synagogue in 1899.
  • Their children were listed on his enlistment papers as: Lionel, Sarah, Leslie, Aubrey, Gladys, Gerald, Stanley and Mariella (some difficulty deciphering the handwriting). Their years of birth stretched from 1902 to 1913 – eight children in 11 years. Most were born in Highbury or Islington, but Mariella, the youngest, was born in Wandsworth (Clapham was at that time part of Wandsworth).
  • By 1919 the family had moved to 119 Park Lane, Clissold Park
  • Neurasthenia, a common diagnosis in First World War servicemen, is a psycho-pathological term. Symptoms include headache, fatigue, anxiety and depression. It sounds similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
  • Samuel Levy is not the S. Levy listed on the War Memorial.

Filed Under: Featured, Not listed

Arthur George Wright

20 August 2015 by SWM

A. G. Wright
Service no. 1633
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 2nd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Westminster; lived in Lambeth
Died of wounds on 9 August 1916, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Arthur John Wright, of 34 Thorncroft Street, Wandsworth Road, London.”
Remembered at Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery, Saulty, France

Arthur George Wright, with kind permission of the Wright family.

Arthur George Wright was born in South Lambeth on 8 November 1895 and baptised at St Anne’s, South Lambeth Road on 20 March the following year. He was the second child of Arthur John Wright, a carman born in Clapham, and Mary Ann (née Lanfear)  from Rockley, Wiltshire, who lived at 1 Wyvil Street. 

On 26 August 1901, when the family was living at 14 Kenchester Street, Arthur George and his older sister Beatrice were admitted to St Barnabas School. 

The couple had a total of eight children. Beatrice died at the age of ten in 1907 and another child, Ellen, died as an infant. On the 1911 census Arthur John listed all his children, alive and dead, but scored through the lines for Beatrice and Ellen. 

The census shows that Arthur George  was working as an errand boy and that the  family of eight lived in three rooms at 62 Goldsborough Road. Another household of seven lived in a further four rooms at the same address.

Arthur George enlisted in Westminster. After the war, his father gave his address as 34 Thorncroft Street, Wandsworth Road.

Filed Under: Featured, Stockwell War Memorial, W names Tagged With: 1916, age 20, DOW, France

Herbert William Wild

19 August 2015 by SWM

Herbert William Wild
Herbert William Wild

H. W. Wild
Service no. 4023
Rifleman, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), 21st Battalion
Killed in action on 15 September 1916, aged 27
CWGC: “Born at Brixton. Son of Herbert John and Annie Wild, of 24, Halstead Street, Brixton; husband of Polly Lily May Wild, of 64, Robsart Street, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Brother of Reuben Edward Wild (died 25 September 1915)

British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920, British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Herbert John Wild’s attempts to find out what happened to his two dead sons, Herbert William Wild and Reuben Edward Wild, and the whereabouts of their bodies have survived in the files. They are business-like and to the point, but they make difficult reading nonetheless. His sense of frustration with the dearth of information coming from the Army and his grief for his boys bubbles just below the surface.

The four eldest Wild boys, Herbert, John, Reuben and Edward, served in the war. Cicero, aged 8 in 1914, was too young. The first sign of trouble was in September 1915. “Could you give me any information concerning my son who I have not heard from for 3 weeks,” wrote Annie Wild, enquiring about Reuben, in October 1915. The Army, it appears, had not yet told her that her son was missing in action. The letter is annotated “No report on hand.”

The mystery of what happened to soldiers reported as missing or whose effects were not located caused deep distress to the bereaved families. For the most part they could not know or comprehend the conditions their sons were fighting in or imagine the scale of the slaughter; they could not appreciate how, amid the mud and chaos, their sons’ bodies could seem to simply disappear.

The Wild family, however, persisted in trying to find answers. Herbert John Wild wrote pressing for more details on his son Reuben’s fate. Reuben died in the Battle of Loos.

The first letter in the file is from 10 September 1916, nearly a year after Reuben died. “In answer to your letter regarding my son’s death on 25/9/15, will you kindly inform me of how he met his death and also the name of the place ,” he wrote. He was anxious also about proving that his son was dead for the insurance company.

In fact, there was in the file two reports on the circumstances of Reuben’s death. Form B 104-53 (Inside Sheet) includes a transcription of a statement given by Rifleman McMeahon:

“Wild is another chum of mine and he [went] missing 25/9/15. I asked a man called Pte. C. Taylor whose number I forget but he is in C Coy. [Company] 11 Platoon and he told me he saw Pte. Wild wounded in the shoulder in the second line of German trenches at the Railway at Ypres and he asked him to go back with him but he would not. The Capt. called one of them to go back with him so Taylor went on to the third line with the Capt. and left Wild in the trench. I understand they were driven back to the 2nd, line where Pte. Wild was wounded but he has been missing ever since.”

There was another report, from Pte. J. Taylor:

“Wild was a short fair [man] about 19. He had no moustache. I saw him dead in the trench killed by a bomb. There was no time to bury him.”

The files do not record whether this information was passed on to the family. On 3 April 1920, however, after receiving Reuben’s medals, Herbert John Wild, wrote” I had four sons serving in the Great War. Two of them sacrificed their lives and I have never received any good information as to where they were killed or buried.” This letter is very badly damaged and therefore difficult to read. However, I can make out the words “I intend to go to Belgium or France … If you would kindly … the name of the place …son R. Wild was last seen alive I shall be grateful to you. … My other son was killed in the Battle of the Somme 1916 …several times by the Graves Commission but up to now I have not received any.” Herbert’s words indicate that the family remained in ignorance.

The “other son” was Herbert William Wild, who was killed in action on 15 September 1916, nearly a year after Reuben’s death. He was married to Polly Lily May Wild and had a baby daughter, Ivy May Wild, born 6 February 1916. A note in William’s file says that his personal effects were posted in 1917 but in November 1917 his grieving father wrote:

“My daughter in law [Polly] informs me that she has received no effects of her Husband the late Rifleman H. W. Wild … who has been dead 14 months. All she has received is his identification disc. I myself have the official information of where he was buried… If he was buried [illegible] possible to recover his identication disc it must also be possible to recover any other personal effects. I have lost two sons in this war and have two others serving. … I have nothing at all to prove the other son’s death [Reuben] as he was reported missing after the Battle of Loos.”

Additional information – Herbert William Wild

  • Civilian occupation: oil and calorman
  • Served 1 year 109 days
  • Live at 34 Crawshay Road; wife (later widow) moved ot 64 Robsart Street, Brixton
  • 5 feet 2½ inches tall
  • Chest 36½ inches (plus 2½ inches expansion)
  • “Good” physical development
  • Widow awarded 18s 9d for herself and child (Ivy)

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Herbert William Wild, 22, a shop assistant, and his brother Reuben Edward Wild, 15, an errand boy, lived at 24 Halstead Street, Brixton. Their father, Herbert John Wild, 42, was a gas slot meter collector from Lambeth; their mother, Annie Wild, 42, was from Southwark. There were three other sons: John L. Wild (he is not on the 1911 census return, but he does appear on the 1901), Edward A. Wild, 11, and Cicero C. Wild, 5. The family shared four rooms. The family was found at this address in 1901. Reuben was born in Battersea, his siblings in Lambeth.

Filed Under: Featured, St Michael's War Shrine, Stockwell War Memorial, W names Tagged With: 1916, age 27, Brothers, France, KIA

George Robert Henry Wedderburn

19 August 2015 by SWM

G. Wedderburn
Private, London Regiment, 19th Bn.
Service no. 611750
Died of illness in early 1919, after discharge, aged 26
Buried in Southwark 6 March 1919

Chris Burge writes:

George Wedderburn (left) and a friend. Courtesy of Elaine Collins.

George Wedderburn was born on 30 August 1892, the first child of George Wedderburn and Clara Wilmott  of 5 Chapel Street (since renamed Mowll Street), Stockwell. George was baptised on 18 October 1892 at Christ Church, North Brixton, with the given names George Robert Henry. George Snr, originally from Newcastle, worked as a stable groom for the Waine furnishing company at 131-139 Newington Butts, close to the Elephant and Castle. Clara was born and raised in Lambeth. When George’s younger brother Joseph Alfred was born in 1896, the family were still in Chapel Street and George’s father was described as a ‘comedian’, a hint of another side to the lives of the Wedderburn family. 

By 1901, eight-year-old George was one of four children and the Wedderburn family were living at 14 Buff Place, Camberwell. George’s father was described as a horse dealer. Three families making a total of 17 people were living at the same address. Although close to Camberwell Green and the surrounding amenities, Buff Place was one of a group of side alleys described by the social surveyor Charles Booth in 1899 as comprising ‘shoddy three storey buildings’.

In the 1911 census, George was now one of eight children. His parents were both 37 and the children’s details were set out in the clear hand of their father: George, 18; Joseph, 15; Robert, 13; Clara, 10; James nine; Isabella, seven; Samuel, four; and Gladys, two. Their father was still working as a domestic groom, while Joseph was a newsboy and George Jnr was a labourer. Large families were the norm, but in this case the family of ten were crammed into just four rooms at 21 Ely Place, South Lambeth, was one of a group of turnings off Dorset Road that were all marked as a poor area when visited ten years earlier by Booth. 

Towards the end of 1915 with conscription looming, it was clear that both George and his brothers Joseph and Robert would not escape service. In the case of George, only his discharge papers have survived. They tell the story of a man broken in mind and body, revealing that before the war George had wholly, or in part, earned his living as a variety artist, performing for around five years in various Moss Empire theatres. His family later said he was known to perform comical songs and dances in a double act with his father.  

George’s Army life began at the end of November 1915 when he chose to attest under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme in which men enlisted under the promise that unmarried men in their group would be called up first. He joined the reserve of 19th London Regiment, a Territorial Force unit whose administrative base was in Camden Town, near St Pancras Station. George was given the service number 5116. Perhaps it was no coincidence that music-hall artists brother Henry Arthur and Ronald Gladstone Moon joined 19th London Regiment at the same time. Brixton and the surrounding area was popular with variety artists for its good transport links. Henry Moon gave a Brixton Road address when he attested in Lambeth on 30 November 1915. His service number was 5100, and his brother Ronald’s was 5121. 

George was given compassionate leave to marry Mabel Jane Wright on 28 May 1916 at St Paul’s, Lorrimore Square, Southwark, which was close to Mabel’s home in Lorrimore Road. After this, George returned to his unit and within four months was sent to France.

He landed at Le Havre on 13 August, spent nearly a month at the infantry base and finally reached the 1/19th London on 23 September 1916. It was the height of the Somme offensive and his battalion, which had already suffered heavy casualties attacking High Wood, were briefly out of the front line. Back in the Line, intense shelling buried men alive or dead. In October the battalion withdrawn from the Somme only to be sent north to the Ypres sector. Trench conditions were always at their worst in winter and sporadic shelling invariably added to the casualty lists. George was admitted to a Field Ambulance on 14 January 1917 with a high fever and was in hospital in Boulogne a week later before being transferred to England on 30 January.

George’s health deteriorated to the point that on 8 June he was sent to convalesce at Summerdown Camp near Eastbourne. His condition worsened and by August 1917 he was transferred to the 1st London General Hospital after displaying the classic symptoms of neurasthenia, an illness now renamed dysautonomia, an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. It may have been what is commonly known as shell shock. After 32 days George was moved to the Tooting Grove Military Hospital where he stayed for 148 days and was described as ‘nervous and excited at the least thing’. In February 1918, George was moved again, this time to the 4th General Hospital at Denmark Hill were he stayed for 51 days, still suffering from neurasthenia. Finally on 29 March 1918 George was transferred to the Maudsley Neurological Clearing Hospital, Denmark Hill and appeared before a medical board on 19 April 1918. The board found him to be permanently unfit for service and awarded him a pension, but only for six months. He was discharged on 10 May 1918 after spending 41 days at the Maudsley, free to return home to Mabel at 81 Lorrimore Road, Kennington. When completing his discharge papers, George wrote ‘Variety Artiste (if possible) Gardening or Farming’ in the section asking about what kind of work he desired.

It is not known if George had found employment by the time his pension expired, but there was a new beginning when he became a father in 1918. Following family tradition, George and Mabel named their son George Bruce Wedderburn. 

George Wedderburn died in early 1919, he was laid to rest in Southwark [where?] on 6 March 1919. The authorities refused Mabel’s claim for a war pension.

Mabel was still living at 81 Lorrimore Road in 1945 when her son George Bruce Wedderburn was a ‘service voter’ at the same address in the 1945 election. He had been in the Army since 1939. Mabel was living in Norwich when she passed away in 1984, aged 89. George Bruce Wedderburn died in Norwich in 1998, aged 79. 

Filed Under: Featured, Stockwell War Memorial, W names Tagged With: 1919, age 26, Chris Burge, Home, illness

William Evan Turpin

19 August 2015 by SWM

william-evan-turpin2
Wiliam Evan Turpin. Photo courtesy of George Cody.

W. E. Turpin
Service no. 140311
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery, 172nd Siege Bty.
Born in Clapham; enlisted in Clapham
Killed in action on 31 May 1918, aged 32
Remembered at Montecchio Precalcino Communal Cemetery Extension, Italy

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

TURPIN, W. E., Gunner, R.G.A.
He joined in January 1917, and in the following May was sent to France, where he took part in the fighting at Bullecourt and Messines. Later he was transferred to Italy, where he was unfortunately killed in action on May 30th, 1918, and was buried at Montechiaro. He was entitled to the General Service and Victory Medals.
“Great deeds cannot die.”
15, Elwell Road, Clapham, S.W.4.

William Turpin (centre) at Young's on Larkhall Lane, at the corner of Gaskell Street
William Turpin (centre) at Young’s on Larkhall Lane, at the corner of Gaskell Street. Courtesy of George Cody.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 William Evan Turpin was a 25-year-old grocer’s assistant, living in three rooms at 15 Elwell Road, Clapham, with his wife Emma Turpin (née Guy), 25, from Wolverhampton, and their young son William Joseph Turpin, 11 months, born in Clapham.Meanwhile, his parents, Jesse Turpin, a 48-year-old bricklayer’s labourer from Little London, Essex, and Mary A. Turpin, 48, from Averayon, Cardiganshire, were living at 62 Paradise Road, Stockwell.

William attested on 8 December 1915. He was 5ft 11in tall, with a 43in chest. His Service record states that he died of shell injuries to the right side of body, particularly his stomach and hand. After an Enquiry in the Field, these injuries were judged to be   ‘negligently self-inflicted’, ‘an accident due to disobedience to orders’.Lieutenant Colonel W.D. Alexandia came to the conclusion that Turpin died after ‘scraping the nose of an old Austrian fuze and having done that he walked away and the explosion took place in his hand.’ Alexandia stated that ‘all  men in the battery have been warned repeatedly not to tamper with enemy duds, fuzes etc.’

Emma was awarded a widow’s pension of 27s 7d a week for herself and her three children.

George Cody (Emma’s great nephew) adds: “Sadly William and Emma’s son Ernest Walter was also killed in action, in WW2, and is interred in a military cemetery also in Italy.”

William Evan Turpins Memorial Plaque, issued to his widow Emma. The plaques were made of bronze and popularly known as the Dead Man’s Penny because of their similarity to penny coins. Courtesy of George Cody.
william-and-emma-with-bill-and-ernie
William Evan Turpin with Emma and their sons William and Ernest. Courtesy of George Cody.

Filed Under: Featured, Stockwell War Memorial, T names Tagged With: 1918, age 32, Italy, KIA

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  • All the men
  • Died on 1 July 1916
  • Brothers
  • Listed on St Mark’s War Memorial
  • Listed on St Andrew’s War Memorial
  • Listed on St John’s War Memorial