Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1917

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

Claude Lionel Whittingham

by

Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart
Panel at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial showing Claude Lionel Whittingham’s name. Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart

C. L. Whittingham
Service no. 269729
Private, Hertfordshire Regiment; formerly 3122, Essex Regiment
Born in Southwark; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 31 July 1917, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of John B. and Alice Louisa Whittingham, of 28 Angell Road, Stockwell, London. Also served at Gallipoli.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Brother of Horace John Baker Whittingham

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Claude Lionel Whittingham joined the Army as a Private on 10 December 1914. He was attached to the 1st London General Hospital of the Royal Army Medical Corps (the military extension of St. Batholomew’s Hospital). The hospital was stationed at St. Gabriel’s College (photo) on Cormont Road, Camberwell (a requisitioned residential training college for women teachers). The whole of Myatts Fields Park itself was closed to the public until 1921 due to its use as a hospital.

By September 1915 Whittingham was serving on the H.M.H.S “Aquitania,” converted in the previous month to a hospital ship (she started life as a luxury liner, was requisitioned as first a Royal Navy ship, and then became a troop ship). With 4,182 beds the “Aquitania” was the largest of 71 hospital ships used during the First World War. Whittingham served as an orderly on the ship until March 1916, when he joined the war effort in Gallipoli, the scene of Winston Churchill’s doomed attempt to open up a new front in order to confuse and exhaust the enemy. We do not know what Whittingham’s role was in this theatre of war but it is likely that he continued to serve in some capacity on the “Aquitania”. He returned to England on 7 May 1916.

On 19 July 1916, while based at Home, Whittingham requested a transfer to the 3/5th London F.A. Brigade “for the purpose of serving abroad”. It is not clear from the records what happened to this request. In any event, Whittingham was transferred first to the Essex Regiment and, on 9 September, to the Hertfordshires. He was posted to France on 4 November and missing in action on 31 July 1917. Later he was presumed dead.

In civilian life Claude Lionel Whittingham was a grocer’s clerk. When he joined up he was described as 5 feet 6 inches, 9 stone, with a 33 inch chest that he could expand by 2half inches, a fair complexion, with grey eyes and “reddish” hair. By the time he  transferred to the Hertfordshires he had grown three inches in height and in chest measurement. His military character was described as “very good”.

After he died, Whittingham’s mother wrote to the Records officer at the Hertfordshire Regiment to query why her son’s RAMC rather than his Hertfordshire service number was set on the medals. The polite but clipped reply was that the number used is the number “your gallant son” held on first disembarkation in a theatre of war.

Information from the censuses

Claude Whittingham was a 13-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived with his parents and siblings at 28 Angell Road, Brixton where his father, Manchester-born John Whittingham, 48, was an apartment house keeper. His mother Alice Whittingham 48, was from Bermondsey. There were five siblings: Horace Whittingham, 17, a junior commercial clerk; Ivor Whittingham 15, a cashier; Claude; Rhoda Whittingham 11; Alfred Whittingham, 5. Claude and his younger siblings were born in Newington. There were six boarders, including a producer of plays from Dublin and a pair of music hall  artists. Ten years previously, the Whittingham family lived at 63 and 64 Delaune Street, Newington. John Whittingham was described as a “cab proprietor”.

Ernest Frank Whiting

by

E. F. Whiting
Service no. 25607
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born in Dover, Kent; enlisted in Dorking, Surrey; lived in Clapham
Died of wounds on 14 October 1917, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Edward Whiting, of 28 Durand Gardens, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Dozinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Ernest Frank Whiting, 20, a law clerk, lived at 25 Durand Gardens, Stockwell. His parents, Edward Whiting, 60, a joiner, and Susannah Whiting (née Kingsford), 57, were both from Dover. They had 11 children, but by 1911 only five survived. All born in Lambeth. Ernest, Lilian Kate Whiting, 24, a typist, and Mabel Ellen Whtiing, 22, a book keeper. Their married sister Winifred Maud Riley, 28, lived with the family with her husband William Riley, 30, a restaurant waiter from Liverpool and daughter Winifred Lotty Whiting, 9. George William Canham, 22, a bank clerk born in Lambeth boarded.

Henry Ingham White

by

H. I. White
Service no. 550898
Rifleman, London Regiment, 12th Bn (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)
Died 15 August 1917, aged about 30
Remembered Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belguim
Son of William George and Emma White, of 11, Stirling Rd., Stockwell, London.

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Henry Ingham White was born in 1887, the youngest of William George and Emma White’s two sons. He was baptised on 20 July 1887 at St Barnabas, Pimlico, where William and Emma had been married seven years before. The family lived at 3 Union Street, Pimlico Bridge. Henry’s father worked as a ‘shopman’.  Within a decade the White family had moved to 11 Stirling Street, off Clapham Road. Young Henry was still at school, this brother William John, then aged 17, assisted their father who managed a trunk shop.

In the 1911 census, the four members of the White family were living in relative comfort as occupants of the seven-room property at 11 Stirling Street. The census revealed that only two of William and Emma’s six children had survived into adulthood. William John, then 28, and Henry, then 22, were part of the family business. Henry’s father was the manager of a trunk and bag manufacturer, his brother William John was the secretary, while Henry was a ‘fancy leather worker’. The location of their premises and full extent of their business is not known.

The key surviving document in understanding the war service of Henry Ingham White is his entry in the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects. A low service number of 3308 was added beneath the 550898 number and his war gratuity amounted to £13. The 3308 service number may not appear on Henry’s medal records, but the Soldiers’ Effects information indicates someone who joined in 1914.

When Henry Ingham White decided to volunteer, his links with Pimlico drew him to 58 Buckingham Gate, Westminster, home of the Queen’s Westminster Rifles, the 16th Battalion County of London Regiment. The QWR had departed for France on 1 November 1914 and were recruiting for their reserve. Perhaps Henry met Frederick Watson Haggett from Clapham as he stood in line on 7 November 1914. New recruits were posted to the battalion’s 2nd or 3rd reserve for training. Henry White became private 3308, and Frederick Haggett private 3309. Frederick Haggett and men with similar numbers were drafted in France at the end of June 1916, soon to be on the Somme. It is possible Henry was held in England for other duties. It is certain that Henry was in France by 19 April 1917, a replacement for men lost in the Arras offensive.

The QWR were in action in July and August 1917 near Ypres in what is commonly known as Passchendaele. Henry was wounded on, or shortly before, 15 August after trenches held by the QWR were heavily shelled. He was evacuated to the 3rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station at Remy sidings, some five miles behind front lines. Hundreds of casualties passed through the Station between 14-16 August. Henry Ingham White was one of the five deaths noted on the 15 August 1917.

It was a bitter blow for Henry’s father who had lost both his wife Emma and sister Caroline in 1916. William George White passed away in 1924, aged 65. An image of Henry’s CWGC headstone and the White family grave may be found here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10778460/henry-ingham-white.

Clarence George Wheeler

by

C. G. Wheeler
Service no. L/21895
Driver, Royal Field Artillery, “A” Bty. 162nd Bde.
Died of wounds on 4 April 1917, aged 24
CWGC: “Son of George Henry and Fannie Wheeler, of 35 Holland Street, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery, Arras, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Clarence George Wheeler, 18, was a grocer’s assistant. He lived with his parents, George Henry Wheeler, 46, a glass cutter from Sevenoaks, Kent, and Fanny Wheeler, 48, from Canterbury, Kent, in four rooms at 35 Holland Street (now Caldwell Street), Stockwell, as well as his four siblings: Albert Henry Wheeler, 15, a shop boy; Margaret Wheeler, 12; Hilda May Wheeler, 9, Edgar Ralph Wheeler, 4. An older sibling, Nina, who appears on the 1901 census, had died. Clarence was born in Stepney, east London, his siblings in Brixton.