Stockwell War Memorial

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T names

Joseph Charles Terrett

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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).

Leonard Hastings Teakle

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L. H. Teakle
Service no. 157
Lance Corporal, London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade), “D” Coy. 1st/5th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 2 May 1915, aged 25
CWGC: “Son of Elizabeth Mary Ann Teakle, of 10 Rhodesia Road, Clapham, London, and the late Hastings Charles Teakle.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

Information from the censuses

Leonard Teakle, 21 in 1911, was a bank clerk. He lived with is widowed mother, Elizabeth Teakle, 47, from Hackney, and at 26 Finchley Road, Walworth. There were four siblings: Henry Teakle, 23, was an insurance clerk; Wilfrid Teakle, 19, was a bank clerk; John Teakle, 11, Ethel Teakle. Harry Collis, 48, a married printer’s warehouseman from Southwark, boarded with the family, who shared six rooms. Leonard’s deceased father Hastings C. Teakle was a wheelwright from Avening, Gloucestershire.

Oscar Albert Taylor

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Family group photographed in the garden of 41 Landor Road, Stockwell, where the family lived. Back row, left to right: Mabel, Oscar, Henry and Eric. Seated in front: Alf and Rose. Approximate date 1911. (Photo courtesy of Sarah Mackay)
Family group photographed in the garden of 41 Landor Road, Stockwell, where the family lived. Back row, left to right: Mabel, Oscar, Henry and Eric. Seated in front: Alf and Rose. Approximate date 1911. Photo courtesy of Sarah Mackay

O. A. Taylor
Service no 397794
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), 2nd/9th Battalion
Killed in action on 27 September 1917, aged about 28
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

Information from the censuses

In 1911, Lambeth-born 22-year-old clerk Oscar Albert Taylor lived at 41 Landor Road, Stockwell with his parents, Albert WIliam Taylor, 52, a joiner from Hockering, Norfolk, and Rose Taylor, 47, from Hackney. There were four surviving children (of six): Mabel Maud Taylor, 26, a milliner; Eric William Taylor, 24, a joiner; Oscar; Henry Oswald Taylor, 18, a clerical assistant. Albert’s father William Taylor, 79, a widowed retired gamekeeper from Hockering, lived with the family as did Maud Mary Gladman, 29, a single shop assistant from Brighton. The household had six rooms, and the family had lived at that address since at least 1901.

Sarah Mackay has kindly shared her information about her great-uncle.

Oscar Albert Taylor, born 21 September 1889, was the third child of Rose and Albert (known as Alfred) Taylor. At the time of his birth, his sister Mabel Maud was four years old and his brother Eric William was two. A fourth child, Henry Oswald, was born in 1893. Oscar’s father signed his name ‘Alfred W. Taylor, Atheist and Socialist.’ He was a cabinetmaker who made musical instruments and grew dahlias in his spare time. Rose had been in domestic service before her marriage to Alf.
 
In the 1911 census, Oscar’s occupation is given as Clerk and Turf Accountant Worker. Henry was working as a clerk for London County Council, Eric was a joiner and building worker and Mabel was a milliner. Also living with the family was Alf’s father, William Taylor, a retired head gamekeeper. There was also a boarder, Maud Mary Gladman who was a shop assistant and drapery worker. Oscar joined up in 1914 and married his sweetheart, Ethel Andrews, while on leave in 1915, returning to duty with no time for a honeymoon. In 1911, Ethel was living at 129 Blackshaw Road, Tooting with her older sister, Emily (Em) and Emily’s husband, Ernest Hargreaves. Emily and Ernest had a daughter, Doris. Ethel worked as a shop assistant in a laundry. In the earlier 1901 census, although Ethel was not then living with her sister, the Hargreaves were living at 41 Landor Road with the Taylors which is presumably how the families got to know each other.
 
Postscript: Oscar’s sister Mabel died in the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic. Alf encouraged Oscar’s widow Ethel and Mabel’s widower Harry to marry, which they did in 1920. I remember as a child asking Granny (Ethel) what Oscar was like – her face lit up with a smile and she said ‘Oh, he was lovely’. By Sarah Mackay, daughter of Hilda Mackay nee Archer, born 1915 (Oscar’s niece and the daughter of Harry and Mabel), with grateful thanks to Rosalind Gold for her invaluable assistance

John Tanner

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J. Tanner
Company Serjeant Major, East Surrey Regiment, 9th Bn.
Service no. 187 (previously 4056)
Died of wounds on 6 August 1917, aged about 41
Remembered Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium and at the London & South Western Railway Roll of Honour, Waterloo Station, London

Chris Burge writes:

John Tanner was born in 1876 and baptised at St Barnabas, South Lambeth on 16 June, the fourth child of house painter William Tanner and Jane Lightfoot who lived at 7 Wellington Terrace, Horace Street (now renamed Luscombe Street). 

John spent all his early life in Lambeth. By 1891, then aged 15, he worked as a cabinet-maker and lived with his parents and six of his 10 siblings at 13 Horace Street. Plans from 1889 to rename and renumber part of Horace Street show the Tanner family’s home to be close to the premises of George Boxall & Co. Ltd and the working man’s refuge, the Surrey Arms public house on the corner of Wilcox Road.

On 13 February 1893, John joined the East Surrey Regiment at Kingston, Surrey. His Army career spanned over 12 years and included two years in Malta and nine years in India. He had extended his service twice while in India and by 1901 was promoted to full Corporal. John reluctantly left the Army at the termination of his period of service on 17 March 1905. 

In 1900, while he was in India, John learnt of the death of his father William. His mother Jane was obliged to earn money as a laundress and his married sister Mary Peagam and her husband Frederick, a railway carman, shared her Horace Street home. Following Frederick’s example John began work as a railway goods porter for the London & South Western Railway at the nearby Nine Elms complex. In 1906, John married 23-year-old Ellen Dunn, but he was widowed within a year. On 5 April 1908 he married Ellen May Taylor at St Stephen’s, South Lambeth. 

In the 1911 census, John and Ellen were living in three rooms at 57 Dashwood Road in Battersea with their two infant children, Ellen, aged two, and William, one. The property was also home to a family of four living in four rooms. Ellen was pregnant with their third child and John was still working as a railway goods porter. Lucy was born in May 1911, followed by Alice in August 1912 and Winifred in April 1914. By the outbreak of the war, John and family were living in a ‘two up, two down’ property at 11 Ely Place, off the Dorset Road in Stockwell. 

At the outbreak of war John Tanner put aside family responsibilities and on 20 August 1914, aged 40, volunteered to rejoin his old regiment. As an former NCO he was welcomed back. His medical was a formality – he was recorded as 5ft 4in tall and weighing 135lbs with a chest size of 37in. He was initially posted to the 3rd reserve battalion based at the Grand Shaft Barracks  in Dover, with service number 187. His soldierly qualities were soon recognised and by November 1914 he was promoted to Company Serjeant Major, WO Class 2. 

John was part of the effort to train the recruits of Kitchener’s New Army, an all-volunteer (at least initially) portion of the British Army. Only burnt fragments of his service papers have survived but his movements over the following 16 months between Dover, Purfleet, Shoreham and back to Dover indicate he was working with the 10th reserve battalion. When he was sent to France in April 1916, he joined the 9th East Surrey, who were manning trenches near Wulverghem, south of Ypres. The enemy was very active in April and May and casualties were sustained on an almost daily basis until the 9th East Surrey moved south in July and were on the Somme by early August. 

An attack on an enemy strongpoint near Guillemont on 16 August lacked effective artillery support and was repulsed with heavy losses. The battalion was to move to new positions on 21 August and while going forward John Tanner was with two ‘D’ company officers when the group was hit by shell-fire. The acting Company Commanding Officer and Second Lieutenant G.C. Rivers was killed, Second Lieutenant G. Lillywhite was wounded and John Tanner was wounded in the neck and hand. He was invalided back to England by 17 August 1916 and admitted to Eastbourne Central Military Hospital. It was his first chance to meet his three-month-old daughter Elsie Maud, who born in May. Nine months later, John was fit to return to active duty.

He rejoined the 9th East Surrey in early May 1917. The battalion had been moved north in anticipation of the coming offensive at Ypres. The ‘big push’ on 31 July would turn into ‘Passchendaele’. Constant rain and shelling had turned the battlefield into a quagmire. According to future playwright, Second Lieutenant R.C. Sherriff of  ‘C’ company ,’The shelling had destroyed everything. As far as you could see it was like an ocean of thick brown porridge’. Sherriff was wounded on 2 August as the battalion struggled to take up forward positions which were little better than waterlogged holes in the ground full of slime with rain-soaked sandbags that disintegrated when touched. Between 3 and 7 August constant shelling and an infantry attack on their line caused many casualties. The battalion Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel H.V.M. de la Fontane was hit by a sniper on 5 August after coming forward to encourage his men. The keeper of the battalion’s war diary set out the casualty list in painstaking detail. It stretched over four pages with the names of all ranks killed, wounded or missing arranged in neat columns as if still on parade. On the bottom of the first page, alongside the date of 5 August 1917, is written ‘6/8/17 187 C.S.M. Tanner (died of wounds)’. John Tanner had been evacuated to no. 32 Casualty Clearing Station at Brandhoek, which had been brought as near to the front line as possible. Despite being staffed with some of the best medical teams available, John Tanner succumbed to his wounds and was buried shortly after at Brandhoek.

John left a widow and six children, the eldest Ellen, then aged nine, later recalled hearing of her father’s death: ‘Father was well known in the community. I never cried in front of other people… you are taught that. I waited until I got to bed and then had a good cry, just as I’m sure Mum did when she was on her own.’ Ellen also remembered that for a long time after her mother couldn’t bear to see her husband’s photograph in the dining room and turned it to the wall. 

John’s family were living at 39 Hartington Road at the end of the war. His widow Ellen started a new life when she married Robert Carter in 1921. Ellen was living in Lambeth when she passed away in 1950, aged 63.