Stockwell War Memorial

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U names

Frederick Charles Vincent Upton

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F. C. V. Upton
Service no. 189301
Air Mechanic 2nd Class, Royal Air Force, 116th Squadron
Died on 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), aged 18
CWGC: “Only son of Frederick William and Annie Upton, of 2 Portland Place South, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Aylesbury Cemetery, Buckinghamshire

Information from the 1911 census

The Frederick Charles Vincent Upton who is in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database appears as Frederick William Upton on the 1911 census. This is somewhat confusing especially given that the census return was completed by his father. It is possible that the CWGC has made an error over the identity of this casualty as some details do match.

Frederick William Upton in the 1911 census was an 11-year-old schoolboy born in Farnham, Surrey, the only son (as corroborated in the CWGC database) of Frederick William Upton, 39, a coffee shop keeper from Betsham, Kent, and Annie Upton, 37, from Farnham, Surrey (she is described as “assisting in the business” on the census). They had three daughters: Ivy Blanche Upton, 14, born in Aldershot, Hampshire; Edith Gertrude Upton, 8; born in Farnham, Surrey: Hilda Annie Upton, 6, born in Farnham. The family lived in 5 rooms at 2 Portland Place South, near Clapham Road. This street has now disappeared (apart from a few houses) and has been replaced by Portland Grove. The area sits within the Mursell Estate.

Albert Edward Upton

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A. E. Upton
Service no. L/17507
Private, London Regiment, 7th Battalion, formerly Middlesex Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 21 March 1918, aged about 23
Remembered at Chauny Communal Cemetery British Extension, Aisne, France

Information from the censuses

Albert Edward Upton, 16 in 1911, was described by his father Edward Upton as “youth – not settled” on the 1911 census. Edward repeated the word “unsettled’ in the next column (which is meant for information on the type of business a person is employed in) and added “butcher”, confusingly, to the next column (designed to record whether the business took place at home or outside the home). Edward Upton’s mistakes have given us a lot more information than most census returns. For instance, he tells us that he was born “between Brixton and Clapham Roads” and that he and his wife, Mary Ann Upton, at 54 the same age as her literal-minded husband and from Beaulieu, Hampshire, had been married 21 years last September. We also know that he worked as a goods guard for the London & South West Railway.  The couple had two children (one had died): Albert and Ada Mary Ellen Upton, 19, a service housemaid. Both were born, Edward tells us, were born at 7 Dawlish Street, South Lambeth, where the family still lived.

Herbert George Underwood

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H. G. Underwood
Service no. A/200471
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 10th Battalion
Enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 10 August 1917, aged about 34
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911, Herbert George Underwood, a motor cab washer, was 28 and living with his widowed mother and siblings in four rooms at 4 Dorset Road. His mother, Anne Underwood, 69, was from Northamptonshire. She had had 9 children, six surviving. Herbert’s brother Albert George Underwood, 26, was a brass trimmer in a foundry, and his sister Rose Underwood, 30, was a domestic servant born in Shoreditch, east London. Dressmaker Edith Murray, 21, a niece to Herbert and his siblings, lived with the family.