Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1916

Charles William Pace

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C. W. Pace
Service no. 722461
Private, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 15 September 1916, aged 28
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

The records for Charles William Pace in the main show nothing very remarkable. He was 26, lived at 55 Dawlish Street and was working as an outdoor porter before he signed up at Camberwell on 4 March 1916.  He stood 5 feet 1 inch tall, with a 33½ inch chest, which he could expand by 2½ inches. He gave his mother Sarah as next of kin, but this was later amended to his new wife, Florence, of 21 Seaham Street. William married Florence Meredith at St Barnabas, South Lambeth on 23 July 1916.

One item does stand out – a letter from ‘per pro’ Mrs. Pace (Pace’s mother as the address given is Dawlish Street), in which, on 18 October 1916, over a month after Pace had died, she pleads, “I have received no letter or tidings from him for some time now … If he has been wounded or fallen sick and has been removed to hospital would you please endeavour to trace him through your Records.” Clearly, for his mother, the possibility that Pace is dead was too dreadful to admit in a letter.

Pace’s record for the 15 September 1916 merely states “missing after action”. He was probably absorbed into the mud of France, lost without trace. He had served 280 days.

Information from the 1911 census

Charles William Pace, 21, was a tea packer, born in Walworth. He, and his elder brother James Stephen Pace, 24, a window cleaner, also born in Walworth, lived with their widowed mother, Sarah Ann Pace, 56, who was from Bermondsey, at 14 Gladstone Street, Stockwell (now gone), where they had two rooms. Sarah had nine children, seven of whom survived to 1911.

Harry Norris

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H. Norris
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery, 6th Ammunition Col.
Service No. 70166
Died as a prisoner of war on 24 September 1916, aged about 23
Remembered at Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq 

Chris Burge writes:

Henry (known as Harry) Norris was born in 1893 in Stepney, east London, the first child of parents of Thomas Henry and Edith (née Hollole) who had married the previous year at St Mark’s Church, Victoria Park in Tower Hamlets. Harry’s father was a serving Metropolitan Police Constable, born in Chelsea, and his mother Edith was originally from Cornwall. Harry’s younger brother Arthur was born in Chelsea in 1898 and in the 1901 census the Norris family were living in Stepney. Another child, Rose, was born in 1900 in Stepney but died as an infant and a second brother, Charles, born in 1901 and baptised at St Anne’s on South Lambeth Road on 5 August 1904, died in 1906. Henry’s third brother Albert was born Lambeth in 1905. 

In 1904 the family’s address was 39 Coronation Buildings, opposite Vauxhall Park on South Lambeth Road (since demolished and replaced with offices). In the 1911 census, Thomas and Edith Norris were living with their three sons in four rooms at 26 Radnor Terrace, off South Lambeth Road, a property that also housed two other people in one other room. Henry’s father was now 44 and his mother 46; they had been married for 18 years. Thomas listed all their children on the census return including the deceased Rose and Charles. Harry was working as a waiter at the War Office. 

Just a year later, Harry had decided to join the Army. His enlistment is recorded in the pages of the Surrey Recruitment Register. He had attested on 26 April 1912 at Kingston, Surrey, joining the Royal Horse Artillery. His stated age was 19 years 5 months and he was 5ft 9¾in in height, weighed 10st 6lb and had blue eyes. His occupation was described as ‘light porter’ and reference was made to Charles Dawes, a cheesemonger who lived with his family at 237 Wandsworth Road.

Harry was in India, serving in the Anglo-Indian Army at Kirkee (now known as Khadki) when war broke out. When the 6th (Poona) Division was mobilised in September 1914, Harry was posted to the 6th Ammunition Column of the Royal Field Artillery. On 16 October the division sailed from Bombay for Mesopotamia (an area encompassing present-day Iraq and Kuwait, and parts of Iran, Syria and Turkey), ostensibly to protect the Anglo-Persian oil pipeline and the refinery at Abadan in the Persian Gulf. Oil was vital to the British Navy. The Anglo-Indian force landed in the Shattl-Al Arab waterway in November 1914 and Harry Norris was recorded as disembarking on the 20th.

Beyond the marshlands of the lower Tigris was flat desert with no roads and no water, except in rivers. In an ill-fated advance to capture Baghdad, the Anglo-Indian forces were repulsed at Ctesiphon (Tusbun, or Taysafun) on 24 November 1915. Pursued by Ottoman forces, 6th (Poona) Division retreated to Kut-al-Amara but were surrounded and cut off after digging in on 7 December 1915. On 29 April 1916, after 147 days, the siege of Kut-al-Amara ended in a humiliating surrender. An estimated 10,061 troops and 3,248 followers were taken captive. Already weakened by hunger and disease, thousands of men were forced marched across the Syrian desert to the mountainous region of Anatolia. The survivors were mostly used as forced labour on railway construction and tunnelling work. According to the March 1916 returns taken at Kut before the surrender, the 6th Ammunition Column numbered two officers, 37 British and 96 Indian other ranks, a total of 135 men (see E.W.C. Sandes (Major E.W.C. Sandes M.C., R.E.), In Kut and Captivity: With the Sixth Indian Division, London, Murray, 1919, p.475).

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission database lists the names of 37 British servicemen who served in the 6th Ammunition Column and died as prisoners of war. Most of the men had been scattered among the camps that sprang up around the railway works in half a dozen different places in Anatolia, in both the Amanus and Tuarus Mountains. The majority perished at Baghtche and its associated camps. Among the identified deaths at the Tarsus camp was Harry Norris who died on 24 September 1916. He was not the only man from the 6th Ammunition Column at the Tarsus camp. Gunner 91160/26927, Henry Christopher Lovegrove died three days later, on 27 September 1916. Although recorded as a Gunner in the RFA by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, his entry in the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929, shows Lovegrove was in the 6th Ammunition Column and had died as a prisoner at Tarsus. Gunner Lovegrove was born in Wandsworth and his family lived near Clapham North at the time of the war, and later in Balham. His brother Harold Courtney Lovegrove was also killed in the war. 

The date at which Harry’s parents were informed of their son’s death is unknown. An official report into the treatment of British Prisoners of War in Turkey presented to Parliament in 1918 and printed by HMSO led to newspaper articles that could only have brought great distress to the families of these men. More than 60 per cent of the British troops taken prisoner at Kut were known to have died as prisoners of war. 

The Norris family had moved to 5 Meadow Road near Vauxhall Park during the war and remained there until at least 1930.

Harry Albert Nixon

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H. A. Nixon
Service no. L/12127
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 2nd Battalion
Died 1 July 1916, aged around 27
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

Roll of Honour of the Great War 1914-1918

NIXON, H.A., Private, 2nd Middlesex Regiment.
He enlisted in 1906, and was drafted to the Western Front shortly after the commencement of hostilities. He fought in many important engagements, including those at Ypres, Loos, and Albert and did good work. He was unfortunately killed in action on the Somme on July 1st, 1916, and was entitled to the 1914 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
“His memory is cherished with pride.”
31, Priory Grove, Lansdowne Road, S.W.8.

Army Service records

Nixon’s Army Service records are extensive, as you would expect with such a long service history (8 years and 128 days) and they throw up some interesting aspects of life in the military in the early 20th century:

  • Nixon’s travels across the globe in the service of Empire – to Aden, India, Malta, and when the Great War, with the British Expeditionary Force to France, where he died.
  • his health – inoculations against typhoid, treatment for repeated bouts of syphilis
  • his regular problems with discipline

Sadly, like so many other Service Records, Harry Nixon’s are in a very bad state and difficult to read. However, I have been able to establish that Nixon joined the Middlesex Regiment at Winchester, the city of his birth, on 24 February 1908, aged 19 and 5 months. He abandoned his previous life as a “van guard” (train guard) and became a career soldier.

Nixon’s general health was good. He stood taller than average at 5 feet 6½ inches (169cm) and weighed 134lbs (just over 9½ stone or 61kg). His chest measured  37½ inches (95cm), which he could expand by 3½ inches (9cm). With a fresh complexion, grey eyes and fair hair, the British Army was happy to sign him up. He was pronounced fit to serve.

However, Nixon proved to be something of a difficult character. He remained a private throughout his long army career and possibly his poor conduct record accounted for his lack of advancement.

The following list is what I have been able to interpret from the record. No doubt, if I understood the abbreviations I would be able to pull out more details.

  • In January 1910 he was pulled up for inattention on the range.
  • At Dum Dum (West Bengal) he was absent from parade.
  • Using improper language towards an NCO.
  • At Malta he was punished for “improper conduct – walking arm in arm with other soldiers” and “using obscene language”.
  • On 11 September 1913 in Aden he was punished for “using improper language towards a NCO” and promptly shipped out of the 1st Battalion to the 2nd.
  • On a date I cannot decipher, in Valletta, he was disciplined for “interfering with the military police”

Venereal disease was a common hazard for career soldiers. Nixon became infected with syphilis, according to his Syphilis Case Sheet on around 31 August 1911 at Darjeeling. He sought treatment less than two weeks later on 9 September 1911 and by 1912 the Army doctors at Dum Dum were treating him regularly. His appointments were weekly, although he is often marked as “absent”, presumably because he was on operations.

Nixon was treated with mercury and iodides – neither of them very effective. Better, more modern medications were available (the German Nobel prize-winning physician Paul Erlich developed Salvarsan 606 and Neosalvarsan 614 in 1906).

When the Great War started, Nixon was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. On 1 July 1916 he was listed as “missing’, but his next of kin were not notified until 15 August. He was eventually classed as killed in action. His effects were sent to his younger sister, Mrs Alice Maude Weaver, who lived at 42 Margate Road, Lyham Road, SW2, rather to his mother Alice/Rebecca. “I recive [sic] the photos quite safe,” she wrote in reply, “thanking you very much for sending them.”

When sent Harry’s medals in 1919, she wrote in her careful handwriting: “Recive [sic] with thanks. Thank you very much for sending me the 1914 Star, I am very proud of my Poor Brother.”

On Army form W. 5080, in which relatives give the names and addresses of living family of the deceased, Father is listed as “None” (presumably his father, Frederick C. Nixon, a general labourer, was by then deceased) and mother as “Alice Nixon” (there is some confusion over her name: she is listed on the 1901 and 1891 censuses as “Rebecca” and on the 1911 as “Alice”), 59. Two siblings were declared: Daisy Dorithey [sic] and Fredrick. All three were living at 31 Priory Grove, South Lambeth, SW8. In reality, there were or had been at least 11 siblings (of 18 born alive in 29 years of marriage), although some of them may not have survived. The form was signed by G. Robinson Lees, the vicar of St Saviour’s, Brixton Hill.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Harry’s family lived at 31 Priory Grove, SW8, where they occupied 4 rooms. The household consisted of his parents Frederick C. Nixon, 55, a general labourer born in Stepney, and Alice Nixon, 49, born in Dorset. The couple had 12 surviving children (of 18). These 6 are on the census:
Alice Maud Nixon, 18, born in South Lambeth (as were all the children listed on this census) and whose occupation is given as “oatmeal stores manufactures” for a brewery
Kate Nixon, 15
Rose Helen Nixon, 11
Tom Owen Nixon, 9
Daisy Dorothy Nixon, 8
Fredrick Joseph Nixon, 6 

Information from 1901 census

In 1901 Harry was living at 22 Conroy Street with his mother, Rebecca A. Nixon, 39, who worked as a bottler in the vinegar works*, and who was born in Pullin, Dorsetshire. The children registered on the census were
Fannnie Nixon, 13, born in Winchester, Hampshire, working as a greengrocer’s assistant
Charles Nixon, 14
Harry Nixon, 12
Alice Nixon, 8
Kate Nixon, 5
Rose Nixon, 1
There is no mention of Harry’s father Frederick. There were two lodgers: widower Harry Wimble, 45, a casement maker from Ileywhite, Hampshire, and Laura Wimble, 13, born in Paddington (presumably his daughter).
* Possibly the Beaufoy Vinegar Works (later taken over by Sarsons), now Regents Bridge Gardens

James Henry Newman

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J. H. Newman
Service no. 3409
Private, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Enlisted at Kennington, resided at South Lambeth
Killed in action on 17 September 1916, aged about 18
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Information from the 1911 census

James H. Newman was a 13-year-old schoolchild in 1911. He lived with his parents and 6 of his 11 siblings in four rooms at 39 Horace Street, Stockwell. His father, James, 51, was a railway guard from Sturminster Newton, Dorset. His mother, Mary Jane, 51, was from Holt, near Wimbourne in Dorset. James’s sisters Maud and Violet, 19 and 15, were domestic servants.

Information from the 1901 census

James Henry Newman was 3 in 1901 and living at 39 Horace Street with his family. His parents were from Dorsetshire – father, also called James, was a 41-year-old railway breaksman from Sturminster Newton and his mother, Mary J. Newman and also 41, was from Wimbourne. The 5 children registered on the census were:
George W. Newman, 13, a milkman’s assistant
Annie Newman, 12
Maud M. Newman, 9
Bessie Newman, 6
Violet Newman, 5
James H. Newman, 3, named on the memorial

Information from the 1891 census

In 1891 the family were living at 35 Horace Street. James Newman senior is described as a railway porter. The census shows that there were two older children:
Elizabeth Newman, 7
Florence Newman, 5
George Newman, 3, and Annie Newman, 2, appear in the 1901 census
There was a lodger, James Cunningham, a 22-year-old cab driver born in Lambeth, and a visitor from Sturminster, 21-year-old Elizabeth A. Bleathman.

Information from the 1861 census

James Newman senior appears on the 1861 census as a one-year-old living in Sturminster. His father, George Newman, 25, was an agricultural labourer, married to 28-year-old Mary A. Newman, who like George was born in Sturminster. At that point they had two children, James and his two-year-old sister Ann. They lived at Church Street, Sturminster.

Arthur John Newman

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A.J. Newman
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 2nd Bn.
Service no. S/15670
Missing in action on 23 October 1916, aged about 26
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Chris Burge writes:

Arthur John Newman’s origins were in north London. He was born in Highgate, the third child of Alfred and Mary Elizabeth Newman (nee ????), and baptised at St John Holloway in Islington, on 20 April 1890; his older brother Alfred Edward was baptised on 6 January 1884 at the Archway Road Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, and his sister Edith Charlotte was baptised 16 October 1887 at St John Holloway, Islington. The family were living in Kentish Town at the time of the 1891 census and had moved to Pimlico by the time of the 1901 census. Arthur’s brother Alfred Edward was married in 1905 and set up home in Kent. 

By the time of the 1911 census, Arthur, Edith and their parents had moved to south London and were living at 19A Goldborough Road, off Wandsworth Road. Arthur‘s father was now 51 and his mother 50 and had been married 28 years. Arthur was working as a clerk, and both his parents and Edith were employed as office cleaners. The Newmans lived in four rooms of a sub-divided property that housed another family of six living in three other rooms.

Fragments of Arthur’s service papers have survived and show that he volunteered under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme on 4 December 1915, attesting at the Lambeth recruitment centre. He was not called up until 15 February 1916 and was processed at Whitehall, when he was posted to the 6th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a reserve battalion who were based at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, off the northern coast of Kent. On 14 June 1916, after four months of basic training, Private S/15670 Newman was sent to France in a draft of men destined for the 2nd Battalion. He reached the front on 9 July 1916. The keeper of the battalion’s war diary noted on 11 July that a draft of one officer and 50 other ranks reported for duty and were posted to C and D companies.

Arthur Newman joined the battalion when it was in billets after moving north from the Somme to the Loos sector. Several periods of trench duty in the Hohenzollern sector followed during the rest of July, August and September. By mid-October the battalion had returned to the Somme and took part, in deteriorating weather and ground conditions, in a divisional attack during the final stages of the offensive. Their assault on enemy position near Le Transloy on 23 October resulted in a loss of eight officers either killed or wounded and 230 other ranks killed, wounded or missing. Arthur was reported missing and his next of kin informed within a few weeks. In August 1917, ten months later, Arthur’s family were informed that he was officially presumed to have died on, or since, 23 October 1916. 

After the end of the war it was Arthur’s father Alfred who completed Army Form W5080 which listed the relatives of a deceased soldier in order that he could receive his son’s medals, plaque and scroll. Alfred took it to All Saints Church, XXXXXXXXX, to be witnessed and countersigned on 30 May 1919. 

Arthur’s parents were still living at 19A Goldsborough Road when the Stockwell War Memorial was unveiled in 1922. 

Arthur Joseph Mullett

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A. J. Mullett
Service no. 130014
Pioneer, Royal Engineers, 3rd Battalion Special Brigade; formerly 35044, London Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted at Holborn; lived in Lambeth
Died of wounds on 1 July 1916, aged about 21
Remembered at Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France

Brother of George Thomas Mullett

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Arthur Joseph Mullett, then a 14-year-old schoolboy, lived at 12 Ely Place, Stockwell with his parents, a brother and a sister. The family had lived at that address since at least 1901. His parents were from Dorset: Henry Mullett, 51, was a horsekeeper for a brewery (a job he was doing at the time of the 1901 census), born in North Matravers; Harriett Mullett, 52, was from Swanage. Emily Mullett, 26, was an ironer for a laundry, born in Lambeth; William Mullett, 23, was a welder for a bus company, also born in Lambeth; Arthur Mullett was born in Battersea. The family occupied 4 rooms. Elizabeth Mullett (in 1901 a laundry machine hand) and George Mullett (in 1901 working as a printer’s boy in the lithography department) had left home.

Information from Terry Reeves

Around March 1916 Arthur would have been transferred from the London Regiment to the Royal Engineers Special Brigade, who were responsible for much of Britain’s offensive chemical warfare effort on the Western Front. Arthur would have been sent initially to Helfaut, some 4 miles south of St Omer, where the Special Brigade had established their expeditionary force Depot. He would have been billeted in one of the surrounding villages as the 3rd Battalion formed up. The unit was a cylinder company responsible for dispensing gas from heavy cylinders which had to be carried into the front line, often with assistance from the infantry, and installed in the front line trenches.

On the night of 30 June/1 July 1916, Arthur’s K Company detachment was tasked to release cylinders containing “White Star” gas, so-called because of the white star emblem on the cylinder.  They were filled with a 50/50 mix of phosgene and chlorine. The former had a low vapour pressure and needed a propellant, which was provided by the chlorine which had a higher vapour pressure. The release of this gas was part of a minor operation in support of 2nd Australian Brigade at Ploegsteert in Belgium. The battalion war diary noted the following:

“106116 Cpl R. G. Williams, 1282286 Pioneer A Lewis and 130014 Pioneer AJ Mullett were working in an emplacement, their Tower Respirators were fixed efficiently. A shell burst in front of our parapet and blew a cloud of gas back so that some entered the bay occupied by these men. They all felt a slight irritation and reported to their section commander, who ordered them to go to at once to the dressing station. The two pioneers remained, but later Cpl Williams said that he felt quite well and returned to his work. He was sent back to the hospital at once. All three were dead by the following morning.”

Cpl Williams and Pioneer Lewis are recorded as dying on 30 June and Pioneer Mullet dying on 1 July at No. 8 Casualty Clearing Station. 

The report continued:

“The Tower Respirator which each man was wearing throughout the attack is proof against White Star gas. 

“It is surmised that respirators must have been temporarily displaced by a shell which is known to have wrecked the emplacement.”

From a technical point of view, phosgene had a delayed-action effect, of anything up 48 hours. Any exertion could bring about tiredness and collapse during that time which fits with the casualties described above. 

All three men are buried in Baileull Communal Cemetery. Cpl Williams and Pioneer Lewis side by side and Arthur Mullett just a few graves away in the same row.