Stockwell War Memorial

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Stockwell War Memorial

Henry Williams

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H. Williams
Lance Corporal, London Regiment, 23rd Bn.
Service no. 4180
Killed in action on 18 July 1916, aged about 39
Remembered at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez, France

Henry Williams was born in Lambeth in about 1879. There are no clues to his early life apart from the fact he was named after his father, who was a soldier. Henry Williams was 19 when he married Frances Matilda Oliffe, a domestic servant of the same age, at St John the Evangelist, Walworth, on 10 Apr 1898. The marriage was not witnessed by relatives of either Henry or Frances, who was only able to make her mark at the time of the wedding. By the time of the 1901 census, Henry and Matilda had two young children, Frances 3 and Harry 1. They lived in a single room at 5 Northall Street, Stockwell. A property that housed ten other people in four rooms. ( https://booth.lse.ac.uk/map/18/-0.1235/51.4700/100/1 )

There were two more children in the Williams family when Henry completed his 1911 census return. Neatly listed by age, they were Elizabeth Franc [sic] Williams 13, Harry Williams 11, Ada Williams 8 and Thomas Williams just 10 months old. Henry appears to have misjudged the space on the form, shortening the middle name of both his daughter and his wife whose name was written as “Matilda Franc Williams”. Henry was now 32 and working as a “coal porter” and Matilda was 31. The family lived in just two rooms at 35 Lingham Street, Stockwell, a property which also housed an elderly couple living in one room and a family of six living in three rooms. Their youngest son was baptised “Thomas Edward George” at St Andrew, Stockwell Green, on 2 September 1914 when the family had moved to 7 Stockwell Cottages.

Henry Williams made the critical decision to volunteer in May 1915, a time when renewed recruitment campaigns across London were attempting to boost the dwindling numbers of volunteers. The campaigns often emphasised the pay and allowances for married men which may have swayed Henry. He went to 27, St John’s Hill, Clapham Junction on Wednesday 19 May 1915 to join the 23rd Battalion of the London Regiment, part of the Territorial Force. Henry was 38 years old, 5ft 6 inches tall with a 37 inch chest and physically fit. He signed the agreement to serve overseas which all TF soldiers were asked to make there and then at Clapham Junction and was posted to the 3rdreserve of the 23rdLondon as private 4180, Williams H. Henry was not drafted to France until October 1915, embarking from Southampton on Saturday 9th October andjoined his unit by 14 October 1915. Henry was one of 78 men noted to have joined the battalion on a day when they were in billets in the Loos sector. The battalion stayed in the Loos sector until they moved to the Souchez sector in May 1916. In July they were south of Lens near Vimy. The keeper of the battalion’s war dairy simply noted that 7 men were killed and 8 wounded when in the front line on 18 July 1916. Henry Williams had been promoted to unpaid Lance Corporal on 16.7.16, just two days before he was killed in action.

Henry’s pocket book with letters, cards and photos was returned to his wife in October 1916, a year after her husband had first gone to France. Frances Matilda Williams was now living at 4 Bricknell Place, an alley off the south-west side of Stockwell Road, close to the Plough Public house on the corner of Stockwell Road and Stockwell Green. Henry’s widow Frances Matilda was subsequently informed she had been awarded a weekly pension of 21 shillings for herself and her two youngest children with effect from 29 January 1917.

Matilda Frances and her son Thomas were still living at 4 Bricknell Place in the 1930s.

John Wilkin

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J. Wilkin
Service no. 17677
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 12th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Southwark
Killed in action on 16 August 1916, aged 24
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

WILKIN, J., Private, Royal Fusiliers.
He volunteered in June 1915, and in September of that year proceeding to the Western Front, was in action in the Battle of Loos, and in various other important engagements. He gave his life for King and Country in August 1916, during the first Battle of the Somme, and was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the General Service and Victory Medals.
“His life for his Country.”
26 Wyvil Road, South Lambeth Road, S.W.8.

ohn Wilkin enlisted in Southwark in June 1915, and in September was sent to the front. He saw action in the Battle of Loos and died in August 1916, during the first Battle of the Somme. He lived at
26 Wyvil Road, off South Lambeth Road.

The 1911 census shows John Wilkin in Lambeth, a 19-year-old flour mill labourer who was one of 13 children of flour mill worker Robert Wilkin, 45, and Annie Amelia (née Ellis), 46, who at that time lived at 48 Commercial Road, Waterloo.

On 19 June 1915 John Wilkin married Violet Edith Baker,  at St Barnabas, South Kennington, who was awarded a weekly pension of 10s after John’s death.

Reuben Edward Wild

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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

Herbert William Wild

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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.

Ernest Alfred Wickes

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E.A. Wickes (listed on the Memorial as A.E. Wickes)
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 1st Bn.
Service no. 4154
Died on 15 July 1916, aged 39
Remembered at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, France

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Ernest Wickes was born in Aldershot, Hampshire in 1877, the first child of Alfred Henry and Amelia Wickes (née Wetton). Alfred was baptised on 13 May 1877 at St Michael the Archangel, Aldershot, when his father was still in the Army Service Corps.

Alfred’s parents were from London: Alfred Snr was born in Brixton and Amelia in Hammersmith. By the time Alfred’s sister Amelia Maud was born in 1879, Alfred Henry Wickes had left the Army and brought his family to Lambeth, where he found work as a railway porter. By 1881 the family were living at 26 Camellia Street in the shadow of the Nine Elms Railway works. William was  born in February 1881 and the Wickes family of five shared a property that housed two other families, a total of 14 people .

At the time of the 1901 census, the Wickes family were living at 16 Paradise Road. Thirteen-year-old Alfred had left school and was working as a newspaper boy. He was now the oldest of eight children. The family lived in four rooms of the property which also housed a family of three living in one other room. 

Alfred married Kate Letitia Thomas on 24 February 1906 in the parish church of Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire. By this time, Alfred was calling himself Ernest Alfred Wickes and working as a printer. He gave his address as 16 Paradise Road, Clapham. Kate gave her address as ‘The Barracks, Weedon’. (Weedon had a historical connection to the Royal Ordnance dating from the Napoleonic Wars.)

The marriage was witnessed by her half-brother Benjamin Robert Smith. (Kate’s mother Catherine Thomas had married Robert Smith in 1887 after her own father Edward Thomas had died when Kate was four.) Ernest and Kate’s first child was born in Lambeth on 18 December 1906 and baptised Edward Ernest Robert Wickes at the parish church of Weedon on 31 March 1907, when the family’s home address was 13 Dawlish Street, [location]. 

At the time of the 1911 census Ernest and Kate were living in Camberwell. The household consisted of Ernest, 33; Kate Letitia, 28; Edward, four; and Ernest’s parents-in-law Robert, a self-employed coal dealer, and Catherine Smith, 66 and 58. Ernest was now working as a shopkeeper of a general store with the assistance of his wife. The family of five were living in four rooms at 205 Cator Street, Peckham, southeast London. 

Ernest and Kate’s second child, Benjamin Joseph, was born on 19 March 1912 and baptised at St Anne’s, South Lambeth on 2 June 1912 by which time the family had moved to 36 Heyford Avenue, close to the Beaufoy Vinegar Factory. Their third child, Thomas Alfred, was born on 5 May 1914 and baptised at St Anne’s on 11 October 1914.

What motivated grocer Ernest Alfred Wickes to volunteer at the age of 37 years and 8 months is an open question, but he decided to leave his wife and three young children to join the Army, becoming Private 4145 Wickes E.A., having attested on 11 January 1915, and was recruited to the Royal West Surrey Regiment. The Regimental Medal Roll shows Private 4145 Wickes entering France on ‘9.2.15’ and joining the 1st Battalion, implying he had volunteered some months earlier in 1914. A date of ‘2.9.15’ seems more likely. A draft of 18 other ranks had reached the 1 RWS on 15 September 1915 near Bethune, just ten days before the Battle of Loos.

The Battalion remained in the Loos sector during the winter of 1915 into the following spring. They only started to move south to the Somme on 8 July 1916 and were close to Fricourt by the 13 July. They moved to positions close to High Wood in preparation for an attack on 15 July 1916. No significant gains were made and the 1 RWS withdrew after three-quarters of the officers in action that day were either killed or wounded; of other ranks 28 were killed, 52 were wounded and 207 were missing. Ernest Alfred Wickes was killed in action on that day.

The death of Ernest Alfred Wickes had tragic consequences for his family. His widow Kate Letitia suffered a breakdown in health and in 1917 her three young sons were taken into the care of the Lambeth authorities. In September that year, they passed from the Renfrew Road receiving ward to the Norwood School and nursery at Elder Road West Norwood. It was probably Ernest Wickes’ family who arranged for the name of the son and brother they had always known as Alfred Ernest to appear on the Stockwell War Memorial as A.E. Wickes. 

Kate Letitia Wickes was recorded as the anonymous female patient ‘K L W’ at Banstead Hospital in 1921 and again 18 years later in 1939 as the widow ‘Kate L Wicks’ born 1884, a female patient at London County Council Banstead Hospital, Sutton. She died at the hospital in 1946, aged 62. 

Edward Ernest Robert Wickes passed away in the district of Shepway, Kent in 1994, aged 87. Benjamin Joseph Wickes married in Islington in 1937 and was living in Essex when he died in 1992, aged 82. Thomas Alfred Wickes sought new a life in Australia, where he died in Hobart City on 4 September 1967, aged 53.