Stockwell War Memorial

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Stockwell War Memorial

Norman Cairns

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N. Cairns
Service no. 76551
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery, 279th Siege Bty.
Killed in action in the field age 22 on 26 June 1917
Husband of Florence Cairns (nee Penton), of 47 Courland Grove, Larkhall Lane, Clapham, London.
Remembered at Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, Belgium

British Army WWI Service Records, 1914-1919

When he enlisted on 26 April 1916, Norman Cairns was a butcher, living at 38 Bromfelde Road.

He was 5 feet 10 and a half inches tall.

He married Florence Penton on 26 December 1914 at the Wesleyan Chapel on Clapham Road.
Service record

25 December 1916 Posted to British Expeditionary Force

14 April 1917 Hospitalised with gunshot wound to the shoulder
25 April 1917 Invalided to England

He was returned to the field (date illegible).

On 19 December 1917 the Officer in Charge of Records wrote to Norman Cairns’ widow enclosing her husband’s personal belongings: a coin disc, a pocket book, a religious book, penknife, cigarette holder and cigarette case. The British War and Victory medals were sent on 8 September 1921.

In his service declaration Norman claimed he had no siblings. However, the 1901 census shows that he had both a brother and a sister. (The 1911 census shows that Norman’s mother Mary had 8 children, 6 of whom survived in 1911.) In 1901 Norman was 7 and living at 34 Thorparch Road. His father, John D. Cairns, 54, was an engine fitter born in Newcastle. His wife, Mary, 51, was born in Stratford, Essex. Norman’s brother Frank J. Cairns, 18, was a grocer’s assistant born in Fulham; his sister, Florence Blebta, 31, was born in India. Her two children, Franz Blebta, 7, born in Clapham and Wenzl Blebta, 5, born in South Lambeth, lived with her.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission database shows that a W. Blebta (William Blebta according to the Soldiers Died in the Great War database) died on 21 March 1916. His details are as follows:
Service no. 2137
Private, London Regiment, 1st/23rd Battalion
Son of Henry and Florence Blebta, of 63 Lynette Avenue, Clapham, London.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Norman Cairns, 17 and working as a butcher’s apprentice was living at 9 Gaskill Street, Larkhall Lane, London SW4, where the family occupied 3 rooms. His father, John Dickinson Cairns, 64, was an engine fitter and night watchman for the London and South West Railways. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. Mary Cairns, 61, was born in Stratford, east London. Franz Blebta, 17,a butcher’s apprentice, and Wenzl Blebta,  15, unemployed, grandsons of John and Mary, also lived in the household.

Florence Blebta, 36, mother to Franz and Wenzl, was working for the Shillington family as a live-in housemaid at 31 Spencer Park, Wandsworth. She married Henri Wenzl Blebta in 1895 in Lambeth. He does not appear on the 1911 census, although he is named in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database.

Sidney Caiger

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S. Caiger
Service no. P.S.1743
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 16th Battalion
Killed in action 1 July 1916, aged about 23
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Sidney Caiger lived at 1 Bolney Street, Dorset Road. He enlisted at Battersea on the 20 March 1915 at the age of 21, and previously worked as a general labourer. He stood 5 feet 5½ inches tall, and his chest measurement was 35½ inches. He weighed just over 8½ stone. There were scars across his back. Caiger gave his father, Emery Caiger, as his next of kin. He was posted on 23 March 1915 and was listed as missing on 8 July 1916 and on 15 September he was registered as killed in action “in the field”. His war had lasted 1 year and 104 days.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Sidney Caiger, 17, was living with his parents Emery Edmund Caiger, 61, and Alice Caiger, 59, at home. He worked as a labourer in the mineral water trade. The family occupied 2 rooms at 48 St Marks Road, Kennington. Emery, a stonemason, was born in Westminster (1901 census) and Alice, a chair weaver, in Godalming, Surrey. Sidney was born in Battersea. Emery and Alice had 10 children, 8 of whom survived.
Information from the 1901 census
In 1901 the Caiger family was living at 9 Kellino Street, Tooting Graveney. The children on the census were
Rose Caiger, 16, an ironer born in Westminster
Alfred Caiger, 13, born in Kennington
Henry Caiger, 11, born in Battersea
Sidney Caiger, 7, also born in Battersea

Frederick H. S. Caiger

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frederick howard stewart caiger
Frederick Howard Stewart Caiger, from The War Illustrated Album De Luxe: The Story of the Great European War told by camera, pen and pencil (1915)

F. H. S. Caiger
Second Lieutenant, Royal Field Artillery, 92nd Bty. 17th Bde.
Killed in action on 11 November 1916, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of Frederick Foord Caiger, M.D., and Madeline Caiger, of South Western Hospital [now Lambeth Hospital, Landor Road], Stockwell”
Remembered at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, Somme, France

Frederick Howard Stewart Caiger was born on 23 September 1896, the only child of Dr Foord Caiger and his wife Madeline Orr Caiger. He was educated at Winchester and went up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge on 1 October 1915 where he resided for one term. His father, superintendent at South Western Hospital for 39 years, died on 5 September 1929. His obituary is available at the BMJ Archives. There is at least one branch of the Caiger family still living in Stockwell.

Dr Foord Caiger donated the clock to the Stockwell War Memorial fund.

Caiger was born in 1896 and educated at Winchester (he was in the Officer Training Corps); he later went up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge on 1 October 1915 where he resided for one term.

He was gazetted in December 1915 (meaning that his Army commission was announced in the Gazette), embarked for France on 23 April the following year and was attached to the 36q Battery. Caiger was admitted to the 87th Field Ambulance with a hydrocele (fluid in the scrotum) and later to the General Hospital suffering from scabies. This highly infectious skin disease was caused by infection by the mange mite. He was discharged on 24 June and posted to the 92th Battery in September.

Caiger was killed by a high explosive shell near Flers on 11 November 1916 and was buried at McCormick’s Post. In 1920 the War Office wrote to his father: “I am to inform you that … it has been found necessary to exhume the bodies buried in certain areas. The body of Second Lieutenant F.H.S. Caiger has therefore been removed from McCormick’s Post Cemetery and re-buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval.”

caiger headstoneIn 1922 Dr Foord Caiger donated the four-faced clock to the Stockwell War Memorial fund in memory of his son. “I… shall be very pleased to give it as a tribute to the memory of my only son, who fell in the battle of the Somme at the early age of 19.” he wrote to Samuel Bowller, secretary of the Memorial Committee. “The idea of placing a clock … struck me as such a ‘live’ and appropriate tribute to one who was born and always lived in Stockwell, and who entertained a warm affection for his home.”

University of London Officers Training Corps, Roll of War Service 1914-1919 (published 1921)

Frederick Howard Stewart Caiger
Second Lieutenant Royal Field Artillery – St. Thomas’s Hospital – Son of Dr. and Mrs. Foord Caiger of Stockwell – killed by a high explosive shell near Flers on 11th November 1916 – buried at McCormick’s Post.

Frederick Howard Stewart Caiger, a medical student at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, was born on 23 September 1896, the only child of Dr. Frederick Foord Caiger and his wife Madeline Orr Caiger. The family lived on the premises of South Western Hospital (now Lambeth Hospital) on Landor Road, where Dr. Caiger was Superintendent for 39 years.

Auguste Cadot

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A. L. C. Cadot
Service no. 127954
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery

A. L. C. Cadot’s name is not in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database, nor is he listed in the Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919 database. Although there was an Auguste Cadot listed in Streatham and an Adolphe Cadot in Lambeth, I could not be sure which one was on the war memorial and was inclined to accept that Cadot was likely to remain a mystery to us.

Quite a few names on the memorial are difficult to trace, but this is usually because their names are so common and a connection with Lambeth or Wandsworth cannot be proved. Generally, the more unusual the name, the easier it is to identify the man.

The National Archives hold a medal card for an Auguste Cadot (he was given the Victory Medal) as well as service and pension records.

British Army service record shows that on 11 December 1915 Auguste Cadot, then living at 17 Tregothnan Road, Stockwell SW9, enlisted at Clapham. He was 34, married to a Marion (nee King), to whom he agreed to send 6 shillings of his army pay.

Cadot was just over 5ft 6inches (1.68m) tall and his chest measured 37 and a half inches (90cm), with an additional 4 inches when expanded.

Auguste and Marion married at St Stephen’s Church, South Lambeth on 1 August 1912. There was one child, Dennis Auguste Cadot, born 30 April 1915.

The 1901 census showed that Auguste was one of three children of Laure Erzberger, a Frenchwoman. When Auguste was 20 and she was 51, she was married to Charles Erzberger, a 47-year-old German, a banker’s clerk. The family lived at 63 Gleneldon Road in Streatham. Both Auguste and his 27-year-old brother Henry Cadot were employed as manufacturer’s clerks. The household included a 15-year-old sister, Florence, born like her brothers in Kennington, and Alice Miller, 20, a general domestic servant who was born in Poulton, Gloucestershire.

The 1911 census shows Auguste was living alone in one room at 261 Clapham Road. The census describes him as a “cashier, book keeper, patentee and manufacturer” but by the time Cadot enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery in December 1915, he was describing himself as an accountant and book-keeper.

Cadot served in a Seige Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery (these were batteries equipped with heavy howitzers, sending massive shells to neutralise the enemy artillery and destroy dumps, stores, roads and railways behind enemy lines). He was a signalman but there are two parts to the abbreviation and I cannot tell what the first part is (Senior? Leading?). In any case, the records show that he passed 1st class in telephony, that his character was “good” and that he spent time in France and in Italy.

Cadot was hospitalised several times and sent home for leave, but after a 16-week stay in hospital, he was discharged on 12 February 1919, three months after the end of the war. He had served his king and country for three years and 64 days and his health was ruined. His record was stamped “No longer physically fit for war service” because was suffering from chronic nephritis “caused by service”.

The medical problems Cadot complained of included loss of sight (retinitis) and headaches. Nephritis, diagnosed by the doctors, is an inflammation of the kidneys. However, many soldiers suffered a specific type of the disease known as “trench nephritis” or glomerulonephritis, which was caused by living conditions in the trenches. The symptoms included breathlessness, swelling of the face or legs, headache, sore throat, and the presence of albumin and renal casts in urine. It affected 15,837 (1.8%) First World War pensioners.

The doctors examining Cadot noted the loss of sight and headaches, albumin traces, high blood pressure and cardiovascular changes. Nevertheless, when assessing Cadot for pension one doctor judged that “he will get work”, he was 80% disabled and that his symptoms were likely to last one year.

Alas, this prediction proved to be true, as Cadot died in Lambeth just under a year later, on 25 January 1920. He was 39.

The mystery of his absence from the standard databases of the First World War is solved. He died of the war, but too late to be included. Not too late to be memorialised in Stockwell, which he had called home and where he had started to raise a family.

Harry Robert Burvill

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H. R. Burvill
Service no. PS/1794
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 16th Battalion
Manchester Regiment, attd. 22nd Battalion
Died age 24 on 2 September 1916
Son of Harry and Eliza Burvill, of 15 Hubert Grove, Stockwell, London. Born in Kilburn, north London.
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Harry Burvill was a 22-year-old storekeeper, living at 15 Hubert Grove, Stockwell. He attested on 27 March 1915 in London (the record is not specific about where). His physical development was judged to be “v. good” – 5 feet 9½ inches, with a 37 inch chest (which he could expand by an impressive 4 inches).

He was posted on 30 March 1915, and again on 18 January 1916. But despite his evident good health, he was admitted to the Countess of Lytton Hospital, London some time after that. His illness or condition is not recorded. On 1 February 1916 he was sent to Summerdown Convalescent Hospital, Eastbourne. Summerdown, which opened in April 1915, held 3,500 convalescing soldiers. Three weeks later, Burvill was granted furlough (leave) until 3 March, when he was declared fit.

Burvill was killed in action in France on 2 September 1916. He had served 1 year and 160 days.

Information from the 1911 census

Harry Burvill is on the 1911 census as a 19-year-old  “wharf scaleman” living with his parents and brother at 35 Walpole Road, Deptford. His father, Harry, 67, was a “butcher scaleman”, born at Ramsgate, Kent and his mother, 68, was born in Walworth. Charlie Burvill, 17, was a draper’s assistant. Both boys were born in Kilburn.

John Henry Burns

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J. Burns (listed on the Memorial as J. Burns)
Corporal, Royal Army Medical Corps, 15th Field Ambulance
Service no. 6003.
Died on 20 April 1918, aged 28
Remembered at Tannay British Cemetery, Thiennes, France

Chris Burge writes:

John Henry Burn was born in 1890 and baptised on 15 January at St Mary the Less, Lambeth, the first child of Henry Thompson Burn and Elizabeth (née Castle) who had married on 11 May 1886 at St Paul, Walworth.  By 1901 there were five children and the family lived at 39 Neptune Street (Seaham Street in 1912) along with two other families, totalling 16 people. 

In the 1911 census, John, then 21, is shown living in three rooms at 35 Dashwood Road with his parents and six younger siblings. John’s father Henry worked as a bill poster,  while John worked as a cellarman. By then Elizabeth had given birth to 13 children, seven surviving. 

Dashwood Road, sandwiched between the Longhedge and Nine Elms locomotive works and criss-crossed by the lines of the competing railway companies, was an area of social deprivation.  John’s home was a few yards from both St Andrews Church and the Bolingbroke Public House. It  was never silent and always grimy. 

John’s service number is within the range of men who joined the RAMC early in 1912, when initial training took place at Aldershot.  To the Army he was 6003 Burns.

John was sent to France on 20 August 1914, one of four men attached to the Regimental Medical Officer’s team for the 5th Divisional Ammunition Column. At some later date he was transferred to the Division’s 15th Field Ambulance, a mobile medical unit with orderlies, bearers, horse and motor transport.  It had been a long war and on 14  April 1918 the 15th  FA moved near Boeseghem.  Five days later, a party of 20 men was sent to assist the 13th  FA, based at Thiennes, who were hurriedly moving their advanced dressing station to the safety of a cellar, after their farmhouse location was shelled.  The keeper of the 15th  FA war diary noted on 20 April that ‘1 man Cpl. Burns killed by shell at CROIX MORRAISE ref map 36A 1/40000 J.21.C.10.2’ (50°38’49.5”N 2°32’03.4”E Rue de Tannay France).          

John’s parents wanted an inscription for their son’s headstone at Tannay British Cemetery, making sure his name was correct.  It seems possible the evidence they provided to those dealing with the Stockwell War Memorial led to his name being spelt as he was known to the Army. 

Henry Thompson and Elizabeth Burn were living at 55 Gaskell Street by 1918, remaining there for several years after the war.