R. E. Wild
Service no. R/6573
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, “C” Coy. 9th Battalion
Died of wounds on 25 September 1915, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Herbert John and Annie Wild, of 24 Halstead Street, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA
Brother of 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
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.
E. F. Whiting
Service no. 25607
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born in Dover, Kent; enlisted in Dorking, Surrey; lived in Clapham
Died of wounds on 14 October 1917, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Edward Whiting, of 28 Durand Gardens, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Dozinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA
Information from the 1911 census
In 1911 Ernest Frank Whiting, 20, a law clerk, lived at 25 Durand Gardens, Stockwell. His parents, Edward Whiting, 60, a joiner, and Susannah Whiting (née Kingsford), 57, were both from Dover. They had 11 children, but by 1911 only five survived. All born in Lambeth. Ernest, Lilian Kate Whiting, 24, a typist, and Mabel Ellen Whtiing, 22, a book keeper. Their married sister Winifred Maud Riley, 28, lived with the family with her husband William Riley, 30, a restaurant waiter from Liverpool and daughter Winifred Lotty Whiting, 9. George William Canham, 22, a bank clerk born in Lambeth boarded.
F. Ward
Private, London Regiment, ‘B’ Coy. 2nd/19th Bn.
Service no. 614287
Died of wounds on 3 April 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza) and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA
Chris Burge writes:
Frederick Ward was born in Lambeth and baptised on 20 May 1894 at St Andrew’s, Stockwell, when his parents Edwin and Agnes Ward (née Woolsey) were living at 19 Stockwell Green, and his father worked as a decorator. In the 1901 census Frederick was the third eldest of five siblings living with their parents in four rooms at 8 Clark’s Row (between Ingleton and Robsart Streets, near Brixton Road; Ingleton Street was demolished after 1945 becoming Ingleton Street Open Space, then renamed The Slade Garden in 1958 and is known today as Slade Gardens). His father Edwin was then employed as a ‘laundry carman’. Hardship followed when Edwin died in 1902, aged 46. The family suffered further loss in 1903 when Frederick’s younger brothers Ernest and Christopher died.
When Frederick’s 51-year-old mother Agnes completed her 1911 census return, the household consisted of five other people: her children Agnes, 22, Edwin, 21, and Frederick , 16, and boarder Charles Ward, a widower aged 59. Agnes entered ‘no occupation’ for herself and Elsie, who was disabled. Edwin worked as a restaurant porter and Frederick as a milkman’s assistant. They lived in five rooms at 5 Ingleton Street, off Brixton Road.
Edwin was married with a young child when he volunteered in October 1915, serving as a motor driver in the Army Service Corps throughout the war. Frederick was conscripted late in 1916 and was first sent to Salonika, landing on 1 March 1917. Frederick spent three months there in miserable weather. Morale was low and the men were glad to leave in June 1917 when the battalion was moved to Egypt. The battalion took part in the campaign in Palestine in 1917 and 1918. They were present at the hugely symbolic capture and subsequent defence of Jerusalem in December 1917. ‘B’ company fought at ‘Talaat ed Dumm’ in February 1918. Late in March 1918 they were part of the forces that attacked Amman for the first time. Frederick Ward was wounded and evacuated to the 76th Casualty Clearing Station where he died on 3 April 1918.
Frederick’s brother Edwin returned to his family at 15 Medwin Street in April 1919. Agnes and Elsie lived at 5 Ingleton St until his mother passed away in 1932, aged 73. Elsie later lived with Edwin’s family in Sevenoaks, Kent.
W. C. Tidnam
Service no. 227258
Able Seaman, Royal Navy, H.M.S. “Vanguard”
Died on 9 July 1917, aged 30
CWGC: “Son of William Tidnam, of Harleston, Norfolk; husband of Kathleen Mary Tidnam, of 2 Burnley Road, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Chatham Naval Memorial and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA
Information from the parish register
On 11 December 1916, William Charles Tidnam married Kathleen Mary Roberts at St. Michael’s Church, Stockwell. Kathleen’s address was 15 St. Martin’s Road, Stockwell. She gave her father’s occupation as carpenter and joiner. William gave his father’s as coachman.
Information from the censuses and other sources
In 1911 William Charles Tidnam, 23, was staying at the Union Jack club in Waterloo Road, Lambeth. He was listed as a “Navy able seaman” from Reddenham, Norfolk. In 1901 he was a 14-year-old errand boy, living at “Mendham Lane, Redenhall With Harleston” in Norfolk. His 45-year-old father, also called William, was a “groom (domestic)”; his mother, Emma Tidnam, 44, was born at Reddenham. Besides William the couple’s children included
Ellen Tidnam, 11
Alice Tidnam, 10
Percy Tidnam, 7
Fred Tidnam and Herbert Tidnam, 5
Winifred Tidnam, 11 months
Ernest Singleton, a 22-year-old Irish-born “motor car driver”, boarded with the family.
J. C. Terrett
Service no. 2746
Private, London Regiment, “C” Coy. 1st/23rd Battalion
Killed in action on 26 May 1915, aged 40
Enlisted at Clapham Junction; lived in Brixton
CWGC: “Son of Mrs C. Terrett, of 58 Dalyell Road, Stockwell, London; husband of Mary Anne Terrett, of 187 Arthur Street, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.”
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA (which gives the name as Joseph Terratt)
British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920
When Joseph Charles Terrett joined enlisted on 8 September 1914 at St John’s Hill, Clapham Junction he left behind a wife, Mary Ann, and three boys: 14-year-old Joseph, 10-year-old Reginald, and Geoffrey, who was 2.
The Service Record file for Joseph Terrett does not contain much information about him. We know that he was 39 and that had previously served in the 4th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, but the file includes no physical description of him or his medical state, his behaviour or his movements other than that he joined his “service battalion” on 12 November 1914.
There is a torn scrap of paper listing some of his effects: photo, knife, torch, mineral (a lump of unusual rock, I am supposing).
Most of the file is taken up with letters concerning the whereabouts of Joseph’s widow Mary Ann Terrett in order that the authorities could forward her husband’s medals. Efforts to find her via her solicitors, the rather wonderfully named Balderston, Warren and Pothecary of Bedford Row, W.C.1, drew a blank, as they were not even sure who Terrett was. On 3 April 1922 they wrote to the Infantry Record Office: “Shall be glad if you will give us any further information re the identify of Private Terrett. We do not appear to know him but our address may have been give on..” and here the letter ends – the bottom has been torn off. Another small mystery.
It appears that back in 1920 Mrs. Terrett’s neighbour at Knowle Road (that letter is torn too, so we cannot be sure of her name but it looks like she may have been a Mrs Lawrence) put the authorities right: “Mrs. Terrett has sailed with the children for Canada June 18th 1920,” she told them. She had given Mrs Lawrence permission to open her letters. “I know that she will be glad to receive any decoration that may be awarded to her late husband. … I have also written to her.”
These small scraps (literally) of documents do not together tell much of a narrative. Perhaps, however, they illustrate in a personal way how the war caused, not just loss of life on an unprecedented scale, but disruption and and dispersal. Would Mary Ann Terrett have taken her three sons to Canada at her time of life (she was nearly 50) if Joseph had not died and options for her in London been limited? We may never find out.
Mary Ann died in Canada in 1948.
Joseph Charles Terrett was one of seven of Joseph Benjamin Dobell Terrett , a cabinet-maker, and Louisa (née Butler), both from Newington, southeast London.
Information from the censuses
Joseph Charles Terrett, who was 36 in 1911, was a school attendance officer working for London County Council. He lived with his wife, Mary Ann Terrett, 38, at 65 Knowle Road (now gone but Knowle Close, at the back of Wynne Road, remains), Brixton, where they had four rooms. There were two sons: Joseph St. John Terrett, 10, born in Wandsworth and Reginald St. John Terrett, 6, born in Clapham. Another child born to the couple had died, and a son was born shortly after the 1911 census. Ten years previously, Joseph Charles Terrett was described as a “gas meter index taker”. He was born in Bermondsey. At that time he, Mary Ann and son Joseph lived at 122 New Kent Road, Newington. In 1891 he worked as a printer’s assistant. His father, also called Joseph, was an envelope cutter, from Newington (married to Caroline Terrett, from Southwark, the Mrs. C. Terrett on the War Graves database).