Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

P names

Ernest Albert Pyle

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E. A. Pyle
Service no. G/81351
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 23rd Battalion; formerly 5505, Middlesex Regiment
Killed in action on 19 March 1918, aged 31
Born in Tottenham; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Brixton
CWGC: “Husband of Ellen Pyle, of 11a Morat Street, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour 1914-1918

PYLE, ERNEST ALBERT, Private, No 81351, (–) Battn. The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regt.), 3rd s. of Richard Pyle, of 1, Henry Road, South Tottenham, N., by his wife, Sarah Jane; and brother to Private H. G. Pyle (q.v.); b. Tottenham, N.; educ. Bramar Road there ; enlisted in 1915; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, and was killed in action 19 March 1918.

Note: The De Ruvigny’s entry contains a number of inaccuracies. It refers to ‘… his wife Sarah Jane’. Sarah Jane Pyle was in fact his mother. He was educated at Bramar Road. This should be Braemar Road, Tottenham.

Further information

Ernest Albert Pyle was born in Henry Road, Tottenham on 21 January 1888. He married Ellen Edgar in Tottenham on 6 June 1908. He was killed at The Somme on 19/03/1918. One of his brothers Herbert George Pyle (aka Hubert) was also killed at The Somme a year earlier (08/03/1917) having emigrated to Australia in 1913 and joined the Australian Army in 1915.

Ernest had three sons: Ernest Richard Pyle (born 2 March 1909), Albert Edward Pyle (c1911 – c1986) and Arthur James Pyle (c1913 – c1916, aged 2 years 10 months.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Ernest Albert Pyle, aged 23, was a house painter working on the Holland Estate. Like his wife, Ellen Pyle, 25, he was born in South Tottenham. They had a son, Ernest Richard Pyle, 2, born in Islington, north London. The family lived at 59a Morat Street. Ernest’s father Richard Pyle, 47 in 1901, was a painter, born in Islington; his mother Sarah Pyle, 48, was from Bristol. Ernest had at least four siblings.

William Charles Purslow

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W. C. Purslow
Service no. S/12717
Corporal, Rifle Brigade, “B” Coy. 3rd Battalion
Born in Plymouth; enlisted in London; lived in Stockwell
Died of wounds on 29 May 1916, aged 26
CWGC: “Husband of Eleanor Annie Hillyer (formerly Purslow), of The Drill Hall, Richmond, Surrey.”
Remembered at Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Brother of Albert Edward Purlsow.

William Charles Purslow’s grave is in an extension of Bailleul town cemetery, where there are also graves of French and German soldiers from the Great War, as well as some WWII graves. Photo: Ray Gloster

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

William Charles Purlsow died on 29 May 1916 after the amputation of his right arm. Eight days earlier he had sustained a gunshot wound to his right arm. He had served just under a year, with only about three months in total at the front.

Purslow’s Army career was unremarkable, at least according to the service records. He had suffered from otitis media (inflamation or infection of the middle ear) in March and he was treated on an ambulance train. There is not much other than these details – and the list of his effects (disc, testament, diary, photos, cap badges, gold ring, letter) – to say. He was 25 when he joined up on 8 June 1915, with a fresh complexion, blue eyes and brown hair.

Purslow left a widow, Eleanor Annie nee Hutchinson, whom he married in late 1915 (the banns were read at St Michael’s church), who later remarried.

Albert Edward Purslow

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A. E. Purslow
Service no. 170
Corporal, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 7th Battalion
Born at Stonehouse, Devon; enlisted at Kingston Upon Thames; lived in Brighton
Died on 18 November 1916, aged 21
Remembered at Stump Road Cemetery, Grandcourt, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Brother of William Charles Purslow

Ray Gloster writes: ‘The Stump Road Cemetery is situated in a bleak windswept location, so on a cold February morning we could only imagine what it was like there in November 1916. Many of the graves were for men from the same regiment, The Queen’s, who died on the same day, 18 November, the last day of the battle of the Somme/Ancre.’

Information from the 1911 census

William Purslow, 21, and Albert Purslow, 15, were shop assistants, William for a hosier and Albert for an oilman. The household lived in four rooms at 15 Burnley Road, Stockwell. Charles Purslow, 50, from Lydford in Devon, was a music-hall musician; Alice Purslow, 46, was from Plymouth. They had four children, three of them living at home:
William Purslow, 21, born in Plymouth
Albert Purslow, 16, born in Stonehouse, Devon
George Purslow, 7, born in Fulham

Ray Gloster writes:

Albert Edward Purslow married Emma Caroline Ann Shed at Wandsworth in 1915. They had a daughter Phyllis Jeanette Elinor Purslow, who was born on 10 November 1916, just eight days before Albert was killed in action on the Somme at the battle of the Ancre.

He enlisted at Kingston upon Thames, which according to his pension records he did so before the war, at the age of 18. It is likely that he was transferred to the 7th Battalion as a Non Commissioned Officer after it was formed in September 1914.

In 1916 Emma was living in Brighton, Sussex in 1916, and she stayed in Sussex until her death at Eastbourne in 1981. She did not remarry but brought up her daughter alone, and then her two grandsons. Phyllis died in Hailsham on 1 November 2008.

Albert was a 4th generation professional soldier. His father Charles, although working as a music-hall musician in 1911, had served for 15 years in the Royal Marine Light Infantry at Plymouth, until 1899, 13 years as a musician, having previously served for almost six years in the 1st Battalion 53rd Shropshire Regiment of Foot at Plymouth, the same regiment as his father William and also his grandfather William, who was from Shrewsbury, Shropshire but continued to live in Plymouth in retirement.

In 1908, Albert’s sister Ethel married a musician, Alfred George Manning, one of four brothers who had served in the Royal Marines Light Infantry band (a fifth brother was also a musician, whilst the sixth was a baker). In 1913 she emigrated to Canada with her husband and son George (b. 1909), their second son Alfred was born soon after arriving in Canada. The family settled in the United States a few years later.

Frederick Thomas George Pulsford

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Frederick Thomas George Pulsford
Frederick Thomas George Pulsford

F. T. G. Pulsford
Service no. 2338
Rifleman, London Regiment (The Rangers), 1st/12th Battalion
Died aged 17 on 21 April 1915
CWGC: “Son of Frederick Luke Pulsford and Blanche Bertha Pulsford, of 10, Tradescant Rd., Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour 1914-1918

PULSFORD, FREDERICK THOMAS GEORGE, Rifleman, No. 2338, 12 Battn. (The Rangers) The London Regt. (T.F.), only s. of Frederick Luke Pulsford, of 10, Tradescant Road, South Lambeth Road, S.W., by his wife Blanche Bertha, dau. of George Hawke; b. London, 26 June, 1897; educ. Westminster City School; volunteered and joined the Rangers after the outbreak of war, 8 Sept., 1914; went to France, 9 March, 1915. Buried at the back of the trenches there. 2nd Lieut. H. H. Bentley wrote: “On 21 April your son and his friend Elvin were in a dug-out at Zonnebeke tending to the pressing wants of a comrade who was dreadfully wounded. As they busied themselves with him, a German shrapnel fell into the dug-out and burst. The violence of the explosion and the deadly hail of shrapnel bullets annihilated all the occupants of the dug-out, and The Rangers lost two fine soldiers in the painless heroic deaths of your son and his friend Elvin. It gives me great pain to have to break this sad yet heroic news to you, because he was always a great friend of mine and one who always did the utmost of his duty.”

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Frederick Pulsford, 13, was living with his parents, Frederick Luke Pulsford, 40, a designer and heraldic engraver born in Brixton, and his wife Blanche B. Pulsford, 38, from Saltash, Cornwall at 10 Tradescant Road, South Lambeth where the family occupied five rooms. He an his sister, May I. Pulsford, 10, were born in Lambeth. Mary A. Pulsford (nee Blonner), 82, mother of Frederick senior, was from Leominster, Herefordshire, lived with the family. The family had lived at this address since at least 1901. The 1891 census shows the widowed Mary A. Pulsford as a “corndealer”; her son Thomas Pulsford, 23, is a carpenter; Frederick Pulsford, 24, is apprenticed to a heraldry engraver; Lewis J. Pulsford is a corndealer like his mother, and living in the house with his wife, Minnie J. Pulsford, 24, and son Jack Pulsford, 3. The family then lived at 62 Whitcomb Street, St Anne Soho, London. Mary’s deceased husband was a builder, born in Dulverton, Somerset.

Thomas Protheroe

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T. Protheroe
Service no. 39017
Private, East Lancashire Regiment, 2nd/5th Battalion, formerly 233832, Royal Field Artillery
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Stockwell
Died on 26 March 1918, aged 38
CWGC: “Husband of F. M. Protheroe, of 108, Grantham Rd., Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Etaples Military Cemetery, France and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

In 1911, Thomas Protheroe, 29, the son of Thomas James Protheroe and Ruth Carrington, newly married to Florence Maud Todd, 28, lived at 40 Honeybrook Road, Clapham Park, where they had four rooms. Thomas worked as a process engraver in the newspaper industry. They had no children. Both were from Newington, southeast London. Florence later moved to 108 Grantham Road, Stockwell. Thomas was born on 12 April 1881 and attended Harper Street School in Southwark. He was the eldest of six children. 

Henry John Preston

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H. J. Preston
Service no. 2462
Lance Corporal, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Killed in action on 26 May 1915, aged 24
CWGC: “Son of William and Ellen Preston, of 33, Stockwell Rd., Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, France

Information from the 1911 census

Henry John Preston was the son of William and Ellen Preston. The 1911 census lists William, aged 49, a soda water bottler, and Ellen Preston, 46, both from St Pancras, north London living in three rooms at 37 Stockwell Road. A married couple had a further four rooms in the house. They had seven children, three of them at that address. We have not identified Henry John Preston in the 1911 census.

In 1901 the Preston family lived at 20 Dorset Street, Littlehamton, West Sussex.