Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1917

Henry Thomas Payn Pardue

by

H. Pardue
Service no. 473280
Serjeant, London Regiment (The Rangers), 1st/12th Battalion, formerly 6526, 16th London Regiment
Enlisted in London; lived in Brixton
Killed in action at about age 33 on 10 May 1917
Remembered at Arras Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

Henry Pardue’s story illustrates neatly the dispersal of a family after the death of a mother and the remarriage of a father. In 1911, Henry Thomas Payne Pardue, 27, was living with his aunt Annie Warren, 39, his sister Gladys (a dancer) and Annie’s four children at 85 Shakespeare Road, Stoke Newington. His siblings were scattered across the country: Charles John Pardue, 36, was a law writer in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; William Pardue, 24, was a private in the Royal Marines at East Stonehouse, Devon. Henry’s married sisters are not traceable through the census. Henry’s father, Charles John Pardue, 63, meanwhile, had started another family. He had at least 14 children from his marriages. In 1911 he was working as a stationer’s clerk and was married to Emma Matilda Pardue, 43; they had four children lived at 79 Corporation Street, West Ham.

Information from the 1901 census

Henry Pardue was born in 1884 in Clerkenwell. In 1901 he was a 17-year-old litho apprentice living at 2 York Mansions, Newington, with his family. His father, Charles J. Pardue, born in 1848 in Westminster, was by 1901 a widowed lawyer’s clerk. His deceased wife, Annie Eliza Pardue, was a year younger.
The 10 children I can find on the various censuses are:
Elizabeth Caroline Pardue, born 1870 in Westminster, described as a dancer on the 1901 census
Annie Eliza Pardue, born 1872 in Westminster, described as a dancer on the 1901 census
Alice Jane Pardue, born in 1873 in Camberwell
Charles John Payn Pardue, born 1875 in St Bride’s (Fleet Street)
Marion Rose Pardue, born in 1878 in St Bride’s (Fleet Street)
Emily Maud Pardue, born 1880 in Camberwell
Henry Thomas Payn Pardue, born in 1884 in Clerkenwell
William F. O. Pardue, born in 1887 in Clerkenwell, and working as a messenger aged 14 in 1901
Gwendoline Pardue, born in 1893 in St Pancras
Gladys Pardue, born in 1897 in Newington
In 1881 the family were living at 36 Leather Lane, Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden Ely Rents and Ely Place. I can find no trace of the family in the 1891 census.

Charles John Painter

by

C. J. Painter
Service no. 281508
Serjeant, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 2nd/4th Battalion
Enlisted at Shaftesbury Street; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action on 15 May 1917
Remembered at Arras Memorial, France

Information from the Watsham family

Charles John PAINTER was the husband of Gertrude Annie WATSHAM. Their marriage was registered in the March quarter 1915, and the birth of their (only child) daughter Joan PAINTER was registered in the June quarter of 1916. Gertrude Annie married a Harold F. NOBLE in 1924. They had no children. Gertrude died in 1973.

Leonard William Oakes

by

L. W. Oakes
Service no. 50044
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 26th Battalion
Assumed dead 2 April 1918, aged 19

Leonard William Oakes was baptised at All Saints, Devonshire Road, South Lambeth on 26 August 1898, the son of John Thomas Oakes and Mary (née Spearing).

The service medals and awards rolls show that Leonard William Oakes first joined the 10th Battalion, was moved to the 23rd and then the 26th. For unknown reasons, his name is not included in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Leonard William Oakes, 12, lived at 64 Paradise Road, Clapham with his widowed father, John Thomas Oakes, 56, a platelayer for the railway from Burton-on-Trent, and four of his five siblings. Lillie Anna Oakes, 28, born in Wilton, kept house. Alfred John Oakes, 22, was a welder in a wheel works. Allan Henry Oakes, 21, railway porter. Leonard Gosmay, a single 24-year-old carpet salesman from Kidderminster, boarded. The latter three were born in London.

In 1901 Oakes lived with his family at 10 Riverhall Street, South Lambeth. His mother, Mary Oakes, 47, was from Stowell, Somersetshire.  In 1891 the family lived at 170 Wandsworth Road with two lodgers: James Gillard, 23, a fitter’s assistant from Drayton, Somerset, and Ernest H. Stenning, 21, an engine cleaner born in Lambeth.

The household also included Maurice G. Spearing, a 14-year-old engine cleaner described as “stepson” (ie Mary’s son from a previous marriage) born in Hambridge, Somerset. The 1881 census reveals that at the age of four, Maurice was with his step-grandparents, carpet weaver Samuel and Ann Oaks, and their two sons, William and John, in Burcombe, Wiltshire.

Alfred William Newcombe

by

Alfred William Newcombe
Alfred William Newcombe. Photo © Richard Jones

A. W. Newcombe
Service no. 33465
Private, Bedfordshire Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born at Marylebone; enlisted at Bedford; lived at Watford, Hertfordshire
Killed in action on 27 June 1917, aged 23
Son of William Newcombe, of 96 Southville, Clapham Common, London.
Remembered at Philosophe British Cemetery, Mazingarbe, France

Information from the 1911 census
Alfred Newcombe, 17, worked as a grocer’s assistant and lived at 89 Priory Grove, where his family occupied four rooms. William Newcombe, his 42-year-old father, was a labourer from Wembworthy, North Devon; his mother, Betsy Eady, 43, was from Peterborough. Alfred’s sister, Maud Newcombe, 16, born in Clapham, worked in a factory.

Information from the William Alfred Newcombe’s family
Newcombe was born on 14 September 1893 at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, Marylebone Road to Betsy Eady, a night light maker of 98 South Ville, off Wandsworth Road. Newcombe was born William Alfred Eady. His mother married William Newcombe on Christmas Day 1893 and he appears to have taken that name.
Newcombe was always known as ‘Alf’.

Walter Henry Nethercott

by

W. H. Nethercott
Service no. Z/2766
Company Quartermaster Serjeant, Rifle Brigade, 3th Battalion
Born in Battersea; enlisted in London; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 10 October 1917, aged around 26
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

Walter Henry Nethercott, 23, a clerk, enlisted on 12 September 1914. The medical officer described him as having a healthy complexion with brown eyes and auburn hair. He had a mole on the tip of his left shoulder. He stood 5 feet 7half inches, weighed just over 9half stone and his chest measured 33 inches.

The Army recognised Nethercott’s talents early. He rose through the ranks and was promoted to Serjeant in the field in July 1916 and made Company Quartermast Serjeant three months later.

In March 1915 Netherott married Majorie Ballance, of 15 Walberswick Street, South Lambeth. She gave birth to a daughter, Margarette Phyllis, a year later.  Nethercott’s parents were deceased and he had no siblings.

In February 1918, four months after Nethercott was killed, the Army sent his effects to Marjorie: a fountain pen, a disc and chain, diary, Kitchener’s message, a copy of A Rifleman Should Know, a lock of hair. However, a Mr. John Mayo, received his medals, sent to him at 93 Larkhall Rise. The file does not tell us why, and when Marjorie, still living at Walberswick Street, wrote to request to send them to her, the Army replied that they had already been sent to Mr. Mayo.

Marjorie was given a weekly pension of 22s 6d for herself and Margarette.

Information from the 1901 census

In 1901 Walter Nethercott, who was 10 (born in 1891), was living with his widowed grandmother Mary A. Nethercott, 60, at 31 Wheatsheaf Lane. Mary was born in Godstone, Surrey, Walter in Battersea. There are no other members of the household listed.