Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Lambeth Cemetery Screen Wall

Arthur Worby

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A. Worby
Service no. G/61093
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
Died on 16 November 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of John and Mary Ann Worby, of 76 Crimsworth Road, Wandsworth, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Worby, 12 in 1911, lived at 76 Crimsworth Road, South Lambeth. His father widower John Worby, 53, was an Army pensioner from Cambridge. There were five siblings on the census return – their places of birth reflecting their father’s Army career. Emma Worby, 24, was born in Chatham, Kent; Jessie Worby, 20, a laundress, was born in Port Royal, Jamaica; John Worby, 15, an errand boy, was born in Dublin; Frank William Worby, 16, an errand boy, was born in Middlesbrough; Arthur Worby, 12, was born in South Lambeth. Arthur’s nephew, Arthur Worby Gridner, 1, lived with the family.

Information from Howard Anderson, great-nephew

“Arthur Worby came from a military family, his father John Worby was career soldier, leaving the Royal Engineers as a Quarter Master Serjeant (the old spelling) after 21 years service. Arthur was one of 11 children, most born in barracks around the world, one was my grandmother Jessie, born on a troop ship in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Arthur Worby’s sister Jessie married Albert Allen (a common Stockwell name) who was an Old Contemptible who survived the war. In the 1st Middlesex Regiment, he was Mentioned in Despatches 3 times for staying behind with the wounded. His son Ted repeated that at Arnhem in 1944, being awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross for gallantry, for staying with the wounded when the Germans overran the town.”

Arthur Worby was brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley, who married his sister Ethel Maude Worby.
Visit 1stmiddlesex.com for more information.

Arthur Frederick Victor Routledge

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St Leger British Cemetery, courtesy of Peter Bennett
St Leger British Cemetery, courtesy of Peter Bennett

A. F. V. Routledge
Service no. G/14788
Private, Leicestershire Regiment, 9th Battalion
Killed in action on 14 April 1917, aged 28
Born in Highgate; enlisted in Leicester
CWGC: “Son of Arthur and Selina Routledge, of 13 Tregothnan Road, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at St Leger British Cemetery, France
(Photo: courtesy of Peter Bennett)

Information from the censuses
In 1901 Arthur Frederick Victor Routledge lived at 116 Junction Road, Islington. His parents, Arthur Chapelhorn Routledge, 40, an upholsterer, and his wife, Selina, 34, had five children:
Lilian D. Routledge, 14
Arthur F. Routledge, 12
Edward H. Routledge, 10
Emily Routledge, 7
Leonard G. Routledge, 2
All the family are listed as having been born in Islington.

I have not been able to find Arthur Routledge on the 1911 census. However, his father, Arthur C. Routledge, now describing himself cabinet maker, is located at 10 Belvedere Road Bournemouth. He was out of work, and his wife, Selina Routledge, 44, made a living letting apartments. The couple lived with their youngest son, 12-year-old Leonard G. Routledge. The other members of the family were dispersed: one daughter to Boscombe, another to Wimbourne.

February 2010

Norman  (Arthur) Routledge has emailed with this additional information about Victor Routledge, who was his uncle:

“Vic’s fiancée, Maud Seaman, kept in touch with us. She did not marry for a great many years and worked as a cook in Huntingdon. In old age she married three times – no doubt the cookery had something to do with that! When I was at King’s College in Cambridge (c.1950) I used to bicycle over to see her at the Literary Institute in Huntingdon, which she and her husband cared for.

You might be interested that Vic’s younger brother, my father, Leonard George Routledge, also joined up (RAF) and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, which we have together with the citation signed by Pétain. Maud had the very handsome bronze commemorative plaque for Vic which the authorities sent to all the families of dead soldiers.”

Harry Frank Handel

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H. F. Handel
Service no. 16005
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery, 20th Reserve Bty.
Died age 34 on 9 March 1915
Handel died at home on 9 March 1915 from pneumonia, mitral disease (disease of the heart valves) and heart failure.
CWGC: “Husband of A. H. Handel, of 2 Arlington Mansions, 18A Morat Street, Brixton, London. Served in the South African Campaign.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

See also George Frederick Billingsley and Sydney Walter Billingsley (stepsons).
There is also a thread about Harry Frank Handel on The Great War Forum.

Information from the 1911 census

Harry Frank Handel, 29, had been married to Ada Harriet Billingsley, 42, for 1 year when he completed the 1911 census. The family was then living in 3 rooms at 101 Cornwallis Road, Upper Holloway, north London. The couple had one son, Robert Harry Handel, 11 months, born in Highgate, north London (their daughter, Ida Helen Handel, was born in in 1915). The household included Harry’s stepsons: Sydney and George Billingsley, both remembered on the Stockwell War Memorial, and a stepdaughter, Winifred Kate Billingsley, 9. Harry Handel was an army pensioner, now working as a cook.

Information from the 1891 census

In 1891 Harry Handel was 9, living with his 6 siblings and parents in Camberwell (111 Crofton Road). His father, Harry Robert Handel, 36, was a pipe importer, born in Lambeth. His mother, Elizabeth Ann Handel, also 36, was born in Heytesbury, Wiltshire. The children on the 1891 census were
Elizabeth Kate Handel, 12, born in Lambeth
Nellie Eliza Handel, 10, born in Newington
Harry Frank Handel, 9, born in Newington
Amy Louise Handel, 7, born in Newington
Arthur E. L. Handel, 6, born in Newington
Ida Gertrude Handel, 1, born in Camberwell
Robert William Handel, 1 month, born in Camberwell
Annie Harriet Lawrence, 13 and born in Heytesbury, Wiltshire lived in as a general servant.

Victor Leslie Corben

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V. L. Corben
Second Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers
Secondary Regiment: Rifle Brigade, attd. 52nd Battalion
Died age 23 on 22 July 1918
Son of Fred and Esther Margaret Corben, of “Stonehaven”, 55 St Albans Avenue, Bournemouth. Born in London.
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London SW17

In July 1918 Victor Leslie Corben, a Second Lieutenant attached to the Rifle Brigade, was on leave in London when he started to suffer headaches and fever. He was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital (this building, now known as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, sits opposite Wandsworth Prison). A few days later, appendicitis was diagnosed and on 7 July he was operated on by an Army surgeon. He had further surgery to drain a pelvic abscess but died the next day at 10.40am.

Corben’s personal effects, a suitcase and a small parcel of personal property, were sent to his father, Fred Corben, a stone merchant of “Hillside”, 51 Union Road, Clapham.

The will was proved by his father, who undertook to settle any debts left by his son. “The loss of the boy is indeed a severe blow to us,” Fred wrote to Major Bright of the Rifle Brigade at Colchester in August, thanking him for his sympathy and for the settlement of Victor’s accounts.

However, when Fred applied to the Army for funds to cover his son’s funeral expenses, he was turned down. Your son died in England, of an illness not related to his service, they said. Fred was outraged, barely concealing his anger in a note written on 10 December 1918. For him, the appendicitis was clearly connected with the wounds Victor had sustained the previous year, and also with a bout of trench fever. “I was never consulted in reference to the operations which were performed on him at the hospital,” he complained. “[Yet] as soon as he had passed away in his country’s service I was called upon to pay for the coffin in which he was to be buried. … This seems to me a gross injustice.”  The Army was intransigent: “No grant for Army funds is admissable,” it stated.

Victor Corben was born in Clapham on 23 February 1895, and after boarding at Cranleigh School, Surrey, worked in mechanical engineering. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed just over 10 stone. The 1911 census shows the Corben family living in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther Margaret, 48, was from Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was “assisting in the business,” as was Leslie’s brother Frank H. Corben, 20. A servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, had been with the family for at least 10 years (she appears on both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). Later Fred and Esther moved to “Stonehaven,” 55 St. Albans Avenue, Bournemouth.

Information from the 1911 and 1901 censuses
In 1911 the Corben family lived in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was a stone merchant, born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther, 48, was born in Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was described as “assisting in the business”, as was Frank H. Corben, 20. Victor Leslie Corben, 16, meanwhile, was a pupil at Cranleigh School at Cranleigh, Surrey.

Victor is on the 1901 census as a six-year-old, although Florence is not. In 1901 there was a second son, Fred N. Corben, then aged three. He is not on the 1911 census, and may have died in the intervening years (the 1911 census shows that the Corbens had lost one child by that date). The household kept a live-in servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, who had been with them for at least 10 years (she appears on the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). In 1901 the family kept two servants, the other being Florence Dawson, aged 20, who was born in Battersea.

Albert Tom William Cook

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A. T. W. Cook
Service no. Z/447
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion
Died on 11 July 1916
Remembered at Lambeth (Tooting) Cemetery, London SW17

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

COOK, A. T. W., Rifleman, Rifle Brigade.
He volunteered in 1914 and was drafted to the Western Front the following year. During his service in France he fought at Ypres and was severely wounded in the Battle of the Somme. He was invalided home to hospital and subsequently succumbed to his injuries in July 1916. He was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
“Whilst we remember, the sacrifice is not in vain.”
23, Brooklands Road, South Lambeth, S.W.8.

William George Callen

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W. G. Callen
Service no. 12089
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps
Died age 24 on 29 August 1920
Son of Mr W. H. Callen, 100 Dorset Road, Clapham Road, London.
Remembered at Lambeth (Tooting) Cemetery

Information from the censuses

In 1911 William Henry Callen, then 45, born in Eastleigh, Hampshire, was living with his wife Ada Elizabeth, 47, born in Woolwich, at 100 Dorset Road, where the family occupied 4 rooms. Callen was a railway porter. His children, all born in South Lambeth, were Jessie Marion, 17, no occupation listed; William George, then 15, who was to die in 1920, presumably of wounds sustained in the war; and Florence Elizabeth, 13. The 1901 includes a third daughter, Margaret, born in 1900. At that time the family was living at 12 Walberswick Street.

The 1911 census shows that William Henry and Ada Elizabeth had had 5 children, 3 of them surviving to 1911.