Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1918

James Charles Frederick Cross

by

J. C. F. Cross
Service no. 27166
Private, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment), 13th Batallion; formerly 1875, King’s Royal Rifle Corps
Killed in action on 29 September 1918, age 26
Son of Mrs. G. Cross, of 161 Hartington Road, South Lambeth, London.
Remembered at Vieille-Chapelle New Military Cemetery, Lacouture, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

James Charles Frederick Cross, who joined up in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London on 14 September 1914, just over a month after war was declared, survived nearly to the end of the war. He died barely six weeks before the end of hostilities.

Cross’s service file, badly damaged in the Second World War, documents his many movements and transfers, but these are difficult to decipher. I can discern that he was first assigned to the Army Service Corps; that he landed in France on 25 March 1913 and was wounded in action two months later; that in June 1916 he was given 10 days’ detention for neglecting to comply with an order; that he joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps at Etaples on 22 June; and that he was transferred to the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) later that same month. He seems to have been wounded again, in September and was classed PB (assigned to Permanent Base at Etaples, which must have been a welcome relief to soldiers, almost as good as being sent to “Blighty”). On the 16 October he came down with “ear disease.”

A note in the file tells us that Cross’s body was moved to Vieille-Chapelle. When his mother Georgina signed her name with a mark on Form W.5080 she declared herself a widow. There was no mention of Cross’s half-sister sister Beatrice.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 James Cross lived at 22 Larkhall Lane, London SW4. The family occupied 3 rooms. James’s father Charles Cross, 67, was a milkman from Devon; Georgina Cross, 47, was from Oxfordshire. They had been married for 23 years and had two children. Beatrice Emily Cross, 36, a child of Charles’s first marriage, was a boot saleswoman born in Limehouse. James Charles Frederick Cross was, in 1911, a warehouseman born in Battersea.

Victor Leslie Corben

by

V. L. Corben
Second Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers
Secondary Regiment: Rifle Brigade, attd. 52nd Battalion
Died age 23 on 22 July 1918
Son of Fred and Esther Margaret Corben, of “Stonehaven”, 55 St Albans Avenue, Bournemouth. Born in London.
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London SW17

In July 1918 Victor Leslie Corben, a Second Lieutenant attached to the Rifle Brigade, was on leave in London when he started to suffer headaches and fever. He was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital (this building, now known as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, sits opposite Wandsworth Prison). A few days later, appendicitis was diagnosed and on 7 July he was operated on by an Army surgeon. He had further surgery to drain a pelvic abscess but died the next day at 10.40am.

Corben’s personal effects, a suitcase and a small parcel of personal property, were sent to his father, Fred Corben, a stone merchant of “Hillside”, 51 Union Road, Clapham.

The will was proved by his father, who undertook to settle any debts left by his son. “The loss of the boy is indeed a severe blow to us,” Fred wrote to Major Bright of the Rifle Brigade at Colchester in August, thanking him for his sympathy and for the settlement of Victor’s accounts.

However, when Fred applied to the Army for funds to cover his son’s funeral expenses, he was turned down. Your son died in England, of an illness not related to his service, they said. Fred was outraged, barely concealing his anger in a note written on 10 December 1918. For him, the appendicitis was clearly connected with the wounds Victor had sustained the previous year, and also with a bout of trench fever. “I was never consulted in reference to the operations which were performed on him at the hospital,” he complained. “[Yet] as soon as he had passed away in his country’s service I was called upon to pay for the coffin in which he was to be buried. … This seems to me a gross injustice.”  The Army was intransigent: “No grant for Army funds is admissable,” it stated.

Victor Corben was born in Clapham on 23 February 1895, and after boarding at Cranleigh School, Surrey, worked in mechanical engineering. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed just over 10 stone. The 1911 census shows the Corben family living in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther Margaret, 48, was from Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was “assisting in the business,” as was Leslie’s brother Frank H. Corben, 20. A servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, had been with the family for at least 10 years (she appears on both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). Later Fred and Esther moved to “Stonehaven,” 55 St. Albans Avenue, Bournemouth.

Information from the 1911 and 1901 censuses
In 1911 the Corben family lived in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was a stone merchant, born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther, 48, was born in Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was described as “assisting in the business”, as was Frank H. Corben, 20. Victor Leslie Corben, 16, meanwhile, was a pupil at Cranleigh School at Cranleigh, Surrey.

Victor is on the 1901 census as a six-year-old, although Florence is not. In 1901 there was a second son, Fred N. Corben, then aged three. He is not on the 1911 census, and may have died in the intervening years (the 1911 census shows that the Corbens had lost one child by that date). The household kept a live-in servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, who had been with them for at least 10 years (she appears on the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). In 1901 the family kept two servants, the other being Florence Dawson, aged 20, who was born in Battersea.

Stanley Henry Compson

by

S. H. Compson
Service no. G/19059
Private, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 10th Battalion
Died aged about 21 on 23 March 1918
Awarded the Military Medal
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France
Enlisted at Maidstone, resident at Hunton, Kent

British Army Service Records 1914-1920

Stanley Henry Compson was assumed dead on 23 March 1918. Like so many other families of soldiers, the Compsons not only had no body – generally only those gravely injured soldiers who managed to get back to Britain were buried at home – but no imagined foreign resting place.

Grieving families clung to whatever was left in order to mourn their dead. Memorials such as St Mark’s and Stockwell went some way to fill the gap left by the absence of a funeral. They are places to focus on and a place to point to with pride. Medals do the same – physical remnants of the deceased. Perhaps this is why Compson’s father, Joseph H. Compson, enquired often about the medals.

On 17 July 1919, he wrote to the military authorities with is change of address (he had moved to 77 St Agnes Place, SE11). “What is to be done about his M. M. [Military Medal]?” he asked. He requested that his was presented “publicly” and the medal arrived on 20 January 1920.

On 17 February 1921 he wrote again: “When may I expect to receive the medals due to my late son?”. Again, on 8 November 1921 he sent a change of address and added, “By the way, when may I expect to receive any medals that he is entitled to?”

A notice in the Edinburgh Gazette Supplement of 22 October 1917 stated that “His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to award the Military Medal for bravery in the Field to the undermentioned Non-Commissioned Officers and Men” includes Compson’s name.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Stanley Henry Compson was 14 and working as an errand boy for a grocer’s. He lived with his grandmother and other family members at 240 South Lambeth Road, London SW8. The household included
Jane Compson, 60, widowed, the mother of 6 children, 3 surviving: Joseph (Stanley’s father), Albert and Alfred.
Her son Albert Compson, 31, a motor cab driver
Another son, Alfred Compson, 28, also a motor cab driver
A granddaughter Lilian Compson, 16, a dressmaker’s assistant
Stanley Compson, 14
All the Compsons were born in Lambeth
Henry Hussey, 43, a boarder, working as a motor cab driver, born in Greenwich.
Information from the 1901 census
In 1901 four-year-old Stanley Henry Compson lived at 6 Wynyard Terrace, Lambeth, with his family: his father, Joseph H. Compson, a 27-year-old stockbroker’s clerk born in Lambeth; his mother, Catherine B. V. Compson, 23, born in Kennington; his brother, William E. Compson, 10 months, born in Kennington. Stanley was born in Brixton.

Edwin William Collins

by

edwin william collins named on stockwell war memorial london sw9
Edwin William Collins. Photo with kind permission of Emilia Alchin.

E. W. Collins
Service no. 479594
Private, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Then Labour Corps, transf. to (720746) 798th Area Emp. Coy. attd. Emp. S.B. Unit.
Died age 26 on 2 August 1918
Son of Edwin Collins, of 18 Elwell Road, Clapham
Remembered at Terlincthun British Cemetery, Wimille, Pas de Calais, France

British Army Service Records 1914-1920
Edwin Collins joined up on 5 September 1914 and survived nearly to the end. He was admitted to 2 Can. General Hospital in Boulogne on 1 August with multiple bomb blast injuries including a factured skull. His condition was “dangerous,” says the record. He died the following day.

Edwin was unusually tall – 5 feet 11 inches – although not very broad. His chest measured only 37 inches with 2 inches expansion. His physical development was “good”.

His final effects were sent on to his father, who was also called Edwin: pouch, purse, ring, testament, 2 leather cases, 2 numerals, cards, photos, letters, 2 French books, 3 religious books, 4 coins, disc.

Edwin was one of six children – 5 girls and a boy. His father, also called Edwin, lost his wife Frances in 1898 but remarried in about 1899.

Information from the 1911 census
Edwin William Collins was 19 in 1911, working as a railway porter, and living with his father, stepmother and sister in 6 rooms at 18 Elwell Road, Clapham (now disappeared). Edwin Collins, 61, was a retired policeman working as a “check-taker” at a theatre. He was born in Brenchley, Kent. His wife, Louisa, 53, to whom he had been married for 12 years was from Old Southgate (north London). Frances Maud Collins, 24, was a restaurant waitress. Like her brother she was born in Clapham.

Stanley William Clarke

by

S.W. Clarke
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 3rd Bn.
Service No. 279057
Died 31 May 1918, aged 19.
Remembered at Pernois British Cemetery, Halloy-Les-Pernois, France

Chris Burge writes:

Stanley William Clarke was born on 7 April 1899 and baptised on 24 October 1900 at Forest Gate, St James, Essex. Stanley was the third of the five known children of Thomas and Elizabeth Mary Clarke.  He was about five when the family settled in Lambeth.

In the 1911 census, Stanley, his four siblings and their parents lived in four rooms at 27 Angell Road, Brixton.  Stanley’s father was a foreman motor fitter and his older brother Sydney was working as an office boy. 

With the introduction of conscription in 1916, Stanley’s parents knew that, if the war continued, all but the youngest of their four sons might have to fight.  What happened to his older brothers Sydney and Harold is not known, but Stanley, who was just 15 in 1914, was conscripted in 1917.  He become eligible for overseas service at the age of 19 and was sent to France on 3 April 1918 as a private 654707 Clarke of 21st Bn., London Regiment.  He was transferred and renumbered as private 279057 Clarke four days later, on his 19th birthday. 

Stanley reached the support line on the 13 April, part of a 70-man draft, in cold and wet weather. After moving to the front line, their position was attacked on 24 April.  Fierce fighting led to over 200 casualties in a 48-hour period.  The battalion was relieved and in the first two weeks of May they played a football match and were entertained by concert parties.  They returned to a forward position on 22 May, in fine weather.  The situation remained quiet until sporadic shelling three days later caused 10 casualties, of whom Stanley was one. He passed down the evacuation chain to reach the 4th Casualty Clearing Station at Pernois, but succumbed to his wounds on 31 May 1918.*  

The Clarke family were living at 40 Tasmin Road when they received news of Stanley’s death.  His father Thomas died in 1930, aged 60. His mother Elizabeth, who continued to live in Tasmin Road with her youngest daughter Ivy until at least 1939,  died in 1956, aged 87.