Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1915

George Hansford

by

G. Hansford
Service no. 2917
Rifleman, London Regiment (The Rangers), 12th Battalion
Enlisted in London; lived in South Lambeth
Died of wounds age 25 on 28 April 1915
CWGC: “Son of Henry and Rosina Hansford, of 2, Stamford Buildings, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at St Sever Cemetery, Rouen, France

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 George’s father, Harry (or Henry) Hansford, 51, was a widower living in 3 rooms at 6 Stamford Buildings, South Lambeth Road, with 5 of his children. (Henry and his deceased wife Rosina had had 14 children – 9 of them surviving in 1911). He was a brass finisher and was born in Westminster. The children on the census were:
George Hansford, 22, a bell wireman, born in Westminster
Florence Hansford, 17, born in Battersea
Thomas Hansford, 15, born in Lambeth
Lily Hansford, 13, born in Lambeth
Arthur Hansford, 12, born in Lambeth
William Hansford, 8, born in Lambeth

Harry Frank Handel

by

H. F. Handel
Service no. 16005
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery, 20th Reserve Bty.
Died age 34 on 9 March 1915
Handel died at home on 9 March 1915 from pneumonia, mitral disease (disease of the heart valves) and heart failure.
CWGC: “Husband of A. H. Handel, of 2 Arlington Mansions, 18A Morat Street, Brixton, London. Served in the South African Campaign.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

See also George Frederick Billingsley and Sydney Walter Billingsley (stepsons).
There is also a thread about Harry Frank Handel on The Great War Forum.

Information from the 1911 census

Harry Frank Handel, 29, had been married to Ada Harriet Billingsley, 42, for 1 year when he completed the 1911 census. The family was then living in 3 rooms at 101 Cornwallis Road, Upper Holloway, north London. The couple had one son, Robert Harry Handel, 11 months, born in Highgate, north London (their daughter, Ida Helen Handel, was born in in 1915). The household included Harry’s stepsons: Sydney and George Billingsley, both remembered on the Stockwell War Memorial, and a stepdaughter, Winifred Kate Billingsley, 9. Harry Handel was an army pensioner, now working as a cook.

Information from the 1891 census

In 1891 Harry Handel was 9, living with his 6 siblings and parents in Camberwell (111 Crofton Road). His father, Harry Robert Handel, 36, was a pipe importer, born in Lambeth. His mother, Elizabeth Ann Handel, also 36, was born in Heytesbury, Wiltshire. The children on the 1891 census were
Elizabeth Kate Handel, 12, born in Lambeth
Nellie Eliza Handel, 10, born in Newington
Harry Frank Handel, 9, born in Newington
Amy Louise Handel, 7, born in Newington
Arthur E. L. Handel, 6, born in Newington
Ida Gertrude Handel, 1, born in Camberwell
Robert William Handel, 1 month, born in Camberwell
Annie Harriet Lawrence, 13 and born in Heytesbury, Wiltshire lived in as a general servant.

Alfred Bernard Gude

by

A. B. Gude
Service no. 1556
Private, London Regiment, 24th Battalion
Born in Clapham; enlisted in Kennington; lived in Stockwell
Died aged about 19 on 16 June 1915
Remembered at Wandsworth (Streatham) Cemetery, London SW16

Information from the censuses

In 1911 the Gude family lived at 26 Willington Road, Stockwell, where they occupied 4 rooms.Thomas George Gude, 39, was an engine driver for the London and South West Railway. He was born in Battersea. Alice Milly Gude, 47, was born in Clapham. Alfred Bernard Gude, their only child, was a messenger lad for the London and South West Railway.

Ten years previously, in 1901, the Gude family lived at 17 Union Street, Clapham. Two locomotive engine firemen, Walter H. Dizzard, a 26-year-old single man born in Guildford, Surrey, and William E. Burnard, 20, single and from Southsea, Hampshire, lodged with the family.

Alfred Grout

by

A. C. Grout
Service no. 13775
Private, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action age 20 on 25 September 1915
CWGC: “Son of Mrs C. S. Grout, of 6 Garden Row, Stockwell, London, and the late George Grout.”
Remembered at Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos, France

Information from the 1901 census

In 1901 Alfred Grout, then 6, and his siblings lived with their widowed mother at 30 White Hart Street in Kennington. The census merely gives his mother as “C. Grout” and does not state where she was born. She was 31. Her children are listed as:
Emily Grout, 10
George Grout, 8
Alfred Grout, 4
Ernest Grout, 4
All the children were born in Lambeth.

Thomas William Gray

by

T.W. Gray
Lance Corporal, London Regiment, 1st/24th Bn
Service no. 1909 
Died 22 April 1915, aged about 23
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France 

Thomas William Gray was born in 1892 in Plumstead, southeast London, the second child of Walter and Helen Elizabeth Gray.  As a child, Thomas lived in Hare Street, within sight of the Thames. It was a short walk downhill to the Woolwich ferry, with the vast complex of the Victoria and Albert Docks across the river. The area was home to the Woolwich Arsenal and a Royal Engineers barracks but still had the open space of Woolwich Common and Shooter’s Hill on its southern boundary. 

By the time of the 1911 census, the family was living in the crowded environment of Lambeth. Walter and Helen were now in their fifties. Six of their eight children had survived into adulthood, but it was just Thomas, then 18, and his sister Annie, 17, who lived with their parents.  The family included an elderly widowed aunt. Walter worked for a biscuit manufacture as a commercial clerk, Thomas was as a clerk at tourist agent and Anne was a costumier’s dressmaker. The family had four rooms at 16 Thorne Road, a house they shared with two other families.

Thomas was one of the thousands who volunteered in the first week of August 1914. He had gone to the drill hall in nearby Braganza Street (previously New Street), Kennington, where the 24th (County of London) Battalion (The Queen’s) was based.  As part of the Territorial Force, battalion was mobilised on 5 August, but were under-strength and needed to large numbers of new volunteers from Lambeth and beyond.  

Thomas was on the move in mid-August when The Queen’s marched to a camp in the St Albans-Hatfield area. Training continued through the autumn and winter until the battalion left for France, disembarking at Le Havre on the 16 March.  Thomas  had already been promoted Lance Corporal.  Between March 28 and April 18 The Queen’s were mostly employed to dig  trenches at Lapugnoy, near Bethune in northern France. A hot march on 19 April took The Queen’s into the front line trenches at Richebourg Saint-Vaast.Sporadic shelling wounded one man on 20 April, killed another and wounded two on 21 April. It was noted that ‘1 NCO was wounded from A company’ on 22 April 22. Thomas Gray’s war had been cut brutally short.

The wedding of Thomas’ sister Annie Alice May on 22 December 1917 to Robert Bessant, a former neighbour, must have brought some comfort to the family. Bessant had volunteered for The Queen’s in September 1914 but was discharged unfit in April 1916, having never served in France. 

At the end of the war Thomas’s parents received a small pension. The REgister of Soldiers’ Effects shows that the war gratuity was split between his father and May Elizabeth Martin, a dressmaker from Southwark, who we can infer was probably Thomas’s sweetheart.

Members of the Gray family remained at the Thorne Road address until at least 1932.

The Queens’s memorial is in Kennington Park.

Philip Thomas Wilson Grant

by

WW1 officer Philip Thomas Wilson Grant
Philip Thomas Wilson Grant

P. T. W. Grant
Second Lieutenant, Wiltshire Regiment, 8th Battalion attd. 5th Battalion
Killed in action, age 18, on 15 October 1915
Born 30 November 1896
Son of Philip and Isabel Emilie Letitia Grant, of 52 Stockwell Park Road, Stockwell, London
Remembered at Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the 1911 Census

In 1911 the Grant family were living at 52 Stockwell Park Road, where they had 10 rooms. The family consisted of Philip Grant, 41, a butcher born at Withington, Lancashire; his wife Isabel, 35, born at Irvinestown, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland; two children born in Stockwell and still at school – Philip Thomas Wilson, then 14, and Isabel Winifred Jessie, 11. There was also a boarder, Henry Harling Denning, 28, a cashier born in Bristol, and a live-in servant, Lily Ellett, 17, born in Lambeth.

Information from the 1901 Census

Ten years previously, the family were living at 1 Sidney Road, SW9, with George Wilson, 23, and also a butcher, born in Stratford, Essex, who is described as “brother-in-law”, as well as an 18-year-old servant, Jane Ray, born in Fulham.

St Olave’s School

The picture of Grant is taken from a presentation by Peter J. Leonard available on the St Olave’s School website at www.saintolaves.net. When you enter the site, click on ‘Welcome’ then on ‘Chaplaincy’ and scroll to the bottom. There is a thread on St Olave’s at the Great War Forum.

Grant attended the school between May 1908 and December 1912.