Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

W names

Bertram Horace Winter

by

B. H. Winter
Service no. S/15614
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 13th Battalion
Enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 11 April 1917, aged 27
CWGC: “Son of Mrs A. Winter, of 19 Prideaux Road, Landor Road, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Arras Memorial, France

British Army Service Records 1914-1920

Milkman (and former butcher) Bertram Horace Winter signed up at the Whitehall recruiting office on 15 February 1916. He lasted 273 days before he died at Arras on 11 April 1917. The details of his service are scant – we know that he embarked for the 3rd Battalion on 3 July 1916 and was posted to the 13th Battalion on 20 July. He stood 5 feet 4½ inches tall, with a 34½-inch chest (he could expand it by 2½ inches), and weighed a little over 8½ stone. His physical development was judged “good”. Bertram’s widowed mother Augusta was named as next of kin. She lived at 25 Viceroy Road, South Lambeth.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Bertram Horace Winter was working as a butcher’s assistant. He lived at 147 Larkhall Lane, over the shop, with butcher Albert Henry and his wife Lydia Eliza Henry, both 41, a childless couple. Meanwhile, Bertram’s parents, William Charles Winter, 59, a paper hanger and house decorator and his wife Augusta Winter (née Sexton), 58, both Lambeth-born, lived at 31 Courland Grove, Stockwell. Of their 12 children, 7 survived, with four living at home: Frederick W. Winter, 28, a paper hanger and painter; Emily Elizabeth Winter, 26, a dress and mantle maker; Arthur Thomas Winter, 26, a paper hanger and painter; Walter Winter, 25, a porter for a tailor shop. All were born in Clapham. The Winter family had lived at this address since at least 1901.

Stanley Frank Willis

by

S. F. Willis
Service no. 415208
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), 1st/9th Battalion; formerly 7927, 7th London Regiment
Born in Clapham; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Stockwell
Died on 13 August 1917
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Alfred Willis

by

A. Willis
Lance Corporal, Royal Engineers, 39th Coy. AA Section.
Service no. 563845
Died on 7 March 1919, aged 21.
Remembered at Cologne Southern Cemetery, Germany

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Willis was born in Clapham in 1897 to Arthur and Ellen Mary Willis who had married in 1894. Both of Alfred parents were from Kent. Arthur was listed on the 1897 Electoral Roll at 4 Larkhall Lane, Stockwell. In the 1901 census, the family of three were living a 2 Larkhall Lane and Arthur was working as a hay and straw salesman. Alfred’s younger sister Marion Edith Willis was born in 1902.

By the time of the 1911 census the Willis household had moved to 267 South Lambeth Road, situated just beyond the Stockwell Terrace, and consisted of Arthur, 43; Ellen Mary, 42; Alfred, 13; Marion Edith, nine; and Ellen Laura Dowell, 37, Arthur’s cousin by marriage. One of Arthur and Ellen’s babies had died in infancy. Arthur still made his income as a salesman of hay and straw. The family lived in some comfort in a two-storey house with seven rooms and a basement.  

Alfred Willis was conscripted around May 1916, a date estimated from the war gratuity paid to his father in 1919. Alfred joined a Territorial Force unit of the Royal Engineers as denoted by his original army service number T/2833. His service papers have not survived but the papers of Sapper 563844 (T/2384) V.H. Prodham provide a guide. Prodham, a clerk from Ealing, worked for the Gas, Light & Coke Company in Horseferry Road, Westminster and was conscripted into the ‘London Electrical Engineers’, his service reckoned from 8 May 1915. At the outbreak of the war the London Electrical Engineers, who specialised on searchlights, were based at 46 Regency Street, Westminster, on the north side of the Vauxhall Bridge. London experienced its first Zeppelin raids on 31 May/1 June 1915 and a double ring of searchlights and anti-aircraft guns was established around London in 1916. Zeppelin raids continued into 1916 with bombs dropping on Brixton and elsewhere in South London. Gotha bombers began raids in May 1917. Between June 1917 and May 1918 they made about 17 attacks on London. 

There is some ambiguity in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records as to which AA company Alfred served in and whether Alfred was deployed in England or France before the 1918 Armistice. Both the 39th Coy. AA Sect. and 3/Coy AA Sect. are mentioned in CWGC documents; they had both operated in France from 1916. There was also a no.39 AA Company based at Bower’s Gifford on the Isle of Sheppey operating six three-inch 20-hundredweight guns plus eight searchlights, as part of the Thames and Medway AA Defence Command. Commonwealth forces entered Cologne on 6 December 1918, less than a month after the Armistice, and the city was occupied under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles until January 1926. Alfred’s death was not combat-related and he may have passed away during the third wave of influenza pandemic in 1919 while serving in the army of occupation.

Alfred’s parents remained at 267 South Lambeth Road with Ellen Laura Powell until about 1930.

Stanley Herbert Williamson

by

S. H. Williamson
Service no. TF/265478
Private, Royal Sussex Regiment, 2nd/6th battalion
Died 29 August 1917, aged 21
Remembered at Rawalpindi War Cemetery, Pakistan

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Stanley Herbert Williamson was born on 5 January 1896, the sixth child of George and Matilda Williamson. Stanley was baptised at St.Gabriels, Pimlico, on 4 March 1896 when the family lived at 7 Clarendon Street and Stanley’s father worked as a dairyman. By 1901, the Williamsons had moved nearer to Westminster and the family had grown by one.

In the 1911 census the family had moved south of the river, living at 105 Kennington Road, Southwark. Stanley and five of his siblings lived with their parents, occupying eight rooms. Stanley’s father was now a wharfman. Stanley, then 15, was a ‘forwarder’ (he undertook the processes following sewing and including covering) and older brother Walter a ‘finisher’ in the bookbinding trade.

Stanley volunteered in the first days of November 1914, travelling to Brighton to join a newly formed cyclist battalion, the 2nd/6th battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. His original service number was 920. The battalion had converted to infantry by November 1915 and on 4 February 1916 sailed from Devonport to India. Stanley’s death in 1917 was not combat related.

He had nominated his father as next of kin and sole legatee. George Williamson received his son’s war gratuity and medals in 1919 and 1920. Stanley’s parents lived at 4 St Martin’s Road, close to the site of the Stockwell Memorial, for around a decade after the Great War.

William John Williams

by

Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart (who comments: "The photograph is rather blurry as it is right at the top of the column")
Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart, who comments: “The photograph is rather blurry as it is right at the top of the column”

W. J. Williams
Service no. R/19181
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, “D” Coy. 11th Bn.
Born in Vauxhall; enlisted in Piccadilly, central London; lived in Lambeth
Died on 8 August 1917, aged 30
CWGC: “Son of James and Henrietta Williams, of 36 Kenchester Street, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Sidney Williams

by

S. Williams

Rifleman, “D” Coy., London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)
Service no. 556984
Died on 11 May 1918, aged about 36
Remembered at Cologne Southern Cemetery, Germany

Chris Burge writes:

Sidney Williams was born in 1881, the youngest of Charles Richard Williams and Mary Ann Ford’s 10 children. Sidney spent his formative years in the heart of Southwark, living near London Bridge Station in Borough High Street above his father’s successful clothier and tailor shop. At the time of the 1901 census, Sidney was not quite 20 and working as an auctioneer’s clerk. 

On retirement, Charles Richard and Mary Ann Williams moved to the relative quiet of 86 Gauden Road, North Clapham, where they rented four rooms. In the 1911 census, Sidney, 29, was living there with his parents and two sisters, 45-year-old Emily and 35-year-old Ada Lily, a schoolteacher. Sidney’s parents were now 73 and his father Charles lived on a masonic annuity (he had joined the Royal Jublia masonic lodge in the year before Sidney was born). Sidney was still working as an auctioneer’s clerk. Six other rooms at the same address were home to the family of Sidney’s older brother Mark Albert Williams, his wife Ellen and their three children. 

Sidney Williams married Ethel Mary Edwards, a dressmaker originally from Dorset, in the spring of 1914 in a civil ceremony, which took place near the home of Ethel’s married sister Florence Richards who lived near Acton Green, west London. The couple lived in Jefferys Road, Clapham after their marriage. Ethel died soon after the birth of their son Frederick Charles Sidney Williams on 27 October 1916 and was buried in Wandsworth cemetery. 

Sidney Williams may have been put on Army Reserve due to his personal circumstances, but around August 1917 he was called up and processed at the Central Recruitment Office in Whitehall, joining the 16th Bn. London Regiment as rifleman 556984 Williams, leaving baby Frederick in the care of his late wife’s sister, Florence Robinson. He entered France on 2 January 1918, and was one of around 50 reinforcements who joined the Queen’s Westminster Rifles in the first week of 1918. 

They moved to the Gravelle sector in February where they remained during March. It was Sidney’s misfortune to be in the forward zone on 28 March 1918 when they suffered the full force of the enemy’s spring offensive, and was among the many killed, wounded and missing. After suffering a wound to his right leg, he was taken prisoner and held in the Friedrichsfeld POW Camp, near Wesel in Germany. Poor camp conditions and the lack of good medical care led to his death from sepsis on 11 May 1918, as reported on the camp’s ‘Toten-List’ (death list), dated 21 May 2018. 

When taken prisoner Sidney had given his 80-year-old father Charles as his next of kin and he would have been the first to be informed of their youngest son’s death. Both Charles and Mary Ann died in 1919, and it was left to other family members to arrange for Sidney’s name to be added to the Stockwell War Memorial. 

Sidney’s son Frederick remained with his aunt Florence and her husband and died in 1988, aged 72.

S. Williams. Rifleman, “D” Coy., London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles). Service no. 556984. Died on 11 May 1918, aged about 36. Remembered at Cologne Southern Cemetery, Germany