Stockwell War Memorial

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Stockwell War Memorial

Thomas James Woodley

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T. J. Woodley
Service no. 203597
Private, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, 1st/4th Battalion; formerly 2725, Royal Buckinghamshire Hussars
Born in Deptford; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 15 June 1918, aged 29
CWGC: “Husband of Mrs E. Woodley, of 14 Glenelg Road, Acre Lane, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Boscon British Cemetery, Italy and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

Brother-in-law to Arthur Worby

Information from the censuses

Printer’s labourer Thomas James Woodley, 23 in 1911, lived at 6 Edithna Street, Stockwell, where his family occupied six rooms. The other members of the household were his widowed mother, Rosa Ann Woodley, 55, from Southwark; siblings Susan Elizabeth Woodley, 28, a blouse hand, Beatrice Amelia Woodley, 27, a dressmaker, George Thomas Woodley, 25, a printer’s labourer, William Woodley, 19, a shop assistant, Henry Woodley, 17, a shop assistant. Two other siblings lived elsewhere, and three had died.

Ethel Maude Woodley
Ethel Maude Woodley

Information from Howard Anderson

Thomas James Woodley was a career soldier, formerly a regular in the Royal Bucks Hussars before being killed whilst serving with the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry during the Battle of Asiago fighting the Austrians. He was the brother-in-law of Arthur Worby, having married Worby’s sister Ethel Maude Worby.

Howard Anderson writes: “There is an added poignancy about the names on the memorial. T. J. Woodley is right next to A. Worby, close in stone and in life, they were brothers-in-law. Thomas married Arthur Worby’s sister Ethel Maude Worby but was killed just 18 months later. Although she married again, it ruined her life. I remember her as a sad old lady.”

Howard Anderson, great-nephew to Arthur
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Henry James Robert Woodcock

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H. J. R. Woodcock
Service no. 6951
Private, London Regiment (London Scottish), 1st/14th Battalion
Killed in action on 9 September 1916, aged 21
CWGC: “Son of Mrs Eliza Woodcock, of 15 Meadow Place, South Lambeth Road, London.”
Remembered at Serre Road Cemetery No 2, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

The Service history file for Henry James Robert Woodcock contains few details. Woodcock enlisted in the Territorial Force on 28 February 1916 and was posted on the same day.

1911 Census

Henry James Robert Woodcock, 16 in 1911, was one of eight children of Henry Woodcock, 44, from Gorleston, Norfolk, and Eliza Woodcock, 41, from Donhead St. Mary, Wiltshire. He lived with his family at 125 Lavender Hill, Battersea, and worked as a book assistant. Six of Henry’s siblings are on the census return: Gertrude Marion Woodcock, 18, a scullery maid; Godfrey Randall Woodcock, 13; Gordon Harold Woodcock, 10; Gwendoline Woodcock, 8, Walter Herbert Woodcock, 5; Marjorie Woodcock, 1. All but Gertrude, who was born in South Lambeth, were born in Battersea. Blanche Woodcock, 17, was a domestic servant in Mayfair. In 1901 the family lived at 26 Grayshott Road, Battersea.

William George Edwin Woodard

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W. G. E. Woodard
Service no. M2/079669
Lance Corporal, Army Service Corps, 364th Mechanical Transport Coy.
Died of wounds on 12 August 1918, aged 55
CWGC: “Son of William and Frances Woodard; husband of H. S. Woodard, of 65 Pulross Rd., Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Les Baraques Military Cemetery, Sangatte, France

Information from the censuses

William George Edwin Woodard, 47 in 1911, is the oldest of the men on the Memorial that I have been able to identify. He was born about 1864 and worked as a taxi driver. His address in 1911 was the 16 Canterbury Road, Brixton, which he shared with his wife, Helena Sylvia Woodard (née Robshaw), 49, born in Holborn, central London; sons William Woodard, 23, a taxi driver, born in Southwark, and Frederick Woodard, 21, an assistant in a grocer’s shop, born in Lambeth; mother-in-law Eliizabeth Robshaw, 78, from Witham, Essex; May Robshaw, 21, an assistant in a draper’s shop, born in St. Pancras; cousin Frederick Robshaw, 33, a single bookbinder’s assistant, born in Kennington; and Dorothy Sherry, 22, a single grocer’s shop assistant from Hampton Wick, west London. Another of William and Helena’s children lived elsewhere. The couple had lost two other children. The family occupied seven rooms. In 1901 the Woodard family lived at 39, Chester Street, north Lambeth.

Sidney Charles Withey

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S. C. Withey
Service no. 490673
Serjeant, London Regiment, 2nd/13th Kensington Battalion
Enlisted in Kensington; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 8 December 1917, aged about 22
Remembered at Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

Information from the censuses

Insurance clerk Sidney Charles Withey lived at 14 Dalyell Road, Brixton with his parents and six siblings. His father, William Henry Withey, 46, was a travelling salesman for grocery products, born in Yeovil, Somerset. His mother, Louisa Emily (née Hutchings), 45, was from Camden Town, north London. Seven of their 10 children survived. Ethel Louisa Withey, 24, a dressmaker, and William James Withey, 24, a commercial clerk, were born in Kennington. Leonard Robert, 14, an accountant’s clerk, Ernest George Withey, 12, Mary Victoria, 10, Maud Alexandra, 9, and Sidney Charles were born in Stockwell. The family lived in six rooms and had lived at this address since at least 1901.

William Henry Wilson

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W. H. Wilson
Service no.66127
Bombardier, Royal Field Artillery, “A” Bty. 109th Bde.
Died 28 August 1916, aged 24
Remembered at Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’Abbe, France
Husband of A. F. Wilson, of 17, Chantrey Rd., Brixton, London.

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

William Henry Wilson has born on 25 June 1892, one of the five children of parents Thomas Reeves and Ellen Agnes Wilson. William was baptised on 21 August 1892 at St John, Hoxton, when the family lived in Wenlock Street, where they remained for twenty years.

By the time of the 1911 census, William’s mother had died and he shared the home with his father Thomas, sister Florence Agnes and younger brother George Albert. They had just three rooms at 65 Wenlock Street. William worked as a ‘carman contractor’.

William volunteered around the end of 1914 at Holloway, joining the Royal Field Artillery and was eventually posted to the 109th Brigade who were equipped with howitzers. He was married while a soldier on 4 April 1915 to Alice Florence Edwards, a local girl, at St Matthew’s Church, Islington, giving their address as 21 Morton Road. Just four months later, 66127 Wilson was sent to France, disembarking on 29 August 1915.

Almost a year later to the day, William was in action on the Somme as his ‘A’ Battery shot to support British advances. The batteries of the 109th Brigade were under constant shelling themselves, losing eight men in the week before 25 August. When they moved to new positions north of Montauban, on the 25 August, three more men were wounded and another killed. On 28 August, in bad weather, another man was killed and three others wounded. William Henry Wilson died of wounds on this day.

By the end of the war, William’s widow Alice was living at 17 Chantrey Road, Brixton, were she remained until 1934 when she married Frederick Muspratt who had been a ASC lorry driver in the war. She was widowed for a second time when Frederick died in 1946.

Alice Florence was living at 34 Kemerton Road, Camberwell, when she passed away on 21 July 1981, aged 86.

Edward Ernest Winter

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E. E. Winter
Service no. R/14491
Lance Corporal, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 8th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Died of wounds on 24 August 1916, aged 34
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

WINTER, E.E., L/Cpl., King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Having volunteered in August 1914, he was drafted to France in January of the following year and took part in the fighting at Neuve Chapelle, Hill 60, Ypres, Festubert, Vermeiles, Vimy Ridge and the Somme. He was reported missing on the Somme on August 24th, 1916, and was presumed to have been killed in action on that date. He was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
“Great deeds cannot die.”

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920 and information from the censuses

Traces of the Schmidt bakery
Traces of the Schmidt bakery on South Island Place, Stockwell

It was easy to find Edward Ernest Winter in the Soldiers Died in the Great War database, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database and the National Roll of the Great War.

However, he did not seem to exist in the 1911 census. I thought he was probably not related to Bertram Horace Winter, as I had not seen the name Edward in any of the censuses for his family. Before I gave up, as sometimes you have to, I searched the 1911 census for 49 Kimberley Road, the address quoted in the National Roll of the Great War, to see if he was living at that address before the war, but there was no trace: the house was occupied by the Gibsons and the Weingartners.

I gave that up and searched for Winter in the National Archives British Army WWI Service Records. I was lucky – his file had survived the Luftwaffe attack on the building where the records were housed in the Second World War and the subsequent dowsing from the Fire Brigade. And they contained a surprise. Edward Ernest Winter, a single man, was required to supply his next of kin. He named his brother Charles Winter but could not give an address for him. Form 5080, on which the next of kin was required to list all family members, included only two: Sarah Ellen Winter, his 78-year-old mother, and Vera Winter, his sister, with no address for either of them. A signature, usually of a minister of religion, was required but the form was unsigned. I wondered what kind of disconnected life Edward Winter had led.

The next record had a clue. The Effects Form – 118A showed that Edward Ernest Winter was previously known as Weingartner. They had lived at 49 Kimberley Road since at least 1901.

Many families with German names changed their names at this time. Between 1850 and 1910 over 4 million Germans had left their country, many of them headed for America but a sizeable proportion settling in England, primarily in London. In 1911 Lambeth had a population of over 1,000 Germans, and that was not including second generation. Edward’s father, Charles Weingartner, an assistant in a grill room who had emigrated from Vienna, had died some time between the 1891 and 1901 censuses. Mary Ellen and her children bore his name and feared the hostility it would attract. They were, perhaps, sensible to take action.

By the time Edward enlisted on 12 July 1915, South London had experienced bitter anti-German riots, with a wave in October 1914 against businesses and buildings believed to be German-owned, and followed by widespread aggression after 1 May 1915, when the passenger ship “Lusitania” was attacked without warning and sank within minutes. The 1911 census shows widow Amelia Schmidt, 48, and her son William Henry, 24, living at their bakery shop at 66a Brixton Road. They changed their name to Willson, but the traces of their business can still be seen in South Island Place.

The government, fearing the volatility of the population who were suffering hardship and food shortages, not to mention the slaughter of their men, did not want insurrection of any kind and the courts came down hard on rioters. In addition, some with German-sounding names must have felt confident enough to keep them, There are several on Stockwell War Memorial: for example Leonard George Henry Erdbeer, Bertie Hoft, and Ernest Frederick Oehring.

We cannot know whether anxiety about the discovery of his brother Charles’s Germanic surname stopped him from giving details to the recruitment officer. Perhaps Charles had not yet changed his name. In 1911 he was working as a restaurant cook and living with his wife and children at 84 Coverton Road, Tooting. Edward’s sister Vera appears to have changed her name from Lina, who is found on the 1911 census described as a private nurse. Her card (“Miss V. Winter, C.M.B. – Trained nurse, midwife and masseuse (by exam)”)  is included in Edward’s service file.

Despite my fears that Edward’s ties to his family were tenuous, they were deeply concerned about his welfare. On 29 September 1916, just over a month after he died, his sister Vera wrote pleading for news of him. “The last I heard from him was the 11th of August, then about [illegible] Sept. I heard through a friend [illegible] he had been wounded,” he wrote. On the day he wrote, the Army issued a form letter stating that Edward was missing. Vera wrote again in October. “Can you give me any news respecting L/Cpl. E. Winter …I may mention he has been wounded and missing since August 21st 16. Anxiously awaiting any news.” Finally, there is a short and resigned note. By now the family can have had no expectations that he would be found: “I suppose there is still no further news of L/Cpl E. Winter.”

Additional information

  • Edward was 5 feet 4½ inches tall with a 36½ inch chest (2½ inches expansion)
  • He had a small mole in the middle of his back
  • His civilian job was “gas meter tester”
  • In 1911 Edward Ernest Weingartner was a boarder at 54 Penton Place, Newington, where he lived with Henry Burnett, 69, a jewel case maker, and his wife Martha Ann Burnett, 65, and Martha’s daughter Florence Emily Bousted, 39. He worked as a clerk.
  • The 1911 census shows Sarah Ellen Weingartner, 68, from Marcham, Berkshire, living with three of her children, (Lina Weingartner, 36, a private nurse; Edith Weingartner, 23, a hotel receptionist’s clerk; and Claude Henry Weingartner, 30, an electrician) at 49 Kimberley Road, Stockwell, where they had five rooms. Edward was one of seven children.