J. R. Clarke
Service no. 15257
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 11th Battalion
Died age 22 on 1 November 1918
Son of Mrs A. Clarke, of 20 Beech Street, Dorset Road, Clapham, London
Remembered at Tourgeville Military Cemetery, Calvados, France
1918
Frederick Joseph Chaddock
F. J. Chaddock
Service no. 9238
Corporal, Gloucestershire Regiment, 1st Battalion
Died around age 33 on 31 October 1918
Remembered at Busigny Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France
Frederick Joseph Chaddock was born in late 1880 in Lambeth, the fourth child and third son of Augustus Chaddock, a stone mason, and Caroline Ellen Chaddock.
The family lived at 12 Esher Street (now Aveline Street) in Kennington, an area defined in 1899 by Charles Booth as ‘fairly comfortable: good ordinary earnings’ and populated by ‘labourers, cabmen, mechanics, police.’ By the time Frederick started attending Vauxhall Street School in 1885, the family had moved to 47 Bonnington Square. In 1891, when Frederick was 10, the Chaddocks had moved a few doors down, to No. 14. There were now seven children in the family (there were eventually eight).
In 1901, Frederick was lodging at Rowton House, a working men’s hostel in Vauxhall accommodating 470 men in ‘cubicles’, while his parents, four siblings including his married sister, her husband and their two young children, along with three people from another household, lived at 10 St Stephens Terrace. Frederick was then listed as having no occupation. It is possible that he was between jobs, unwell or the Chaddock household was simply too full to accommodate him.
Rowton House at Bondway, Vauxhall was the first of a new type of accommodation created by politician and philanthropist Montague William Lowry Corry (Lord Rowton), formerly a private secretary to Benjamin Disraeli. Rowton was previously involved in setting up the Guinness Trust, which aimed to provide low-cost housing for respectable working people in London and Dublin (there is a Guinness Trust estate on Kennington Park Road).
Frederick entered the Lambeth Infirmary on 26 September 1903, for unknown reasons and left nearly five weeks later. The reason for his stay is unknown, only that he was discharged at his own request and to the care of his father.
At an unknown date Frederick enlisted in the 1st Dragoon Guards. He was later transferred to the Gloucester Regiment. The 1911 census records him as a private with the 2nd Battalion, then stationed at the Verdala Barracks in Malta. At some point before 1911, his parents had separated, with Augustus, by then retired, lodging at 28 Tradescant Road and Caroline living with two daughters a three-minute walk away at 39 Guildford Road.
Frederick served from the beginning of the war, arriving in France in December 1914. In early 1918 he married Florence Victoria Ding. He was killed in action in the final push against the Germans near Busigny (south-east of Cambrai in Nord) less than two weeks before the end of the armistice. His widow Florence later married Frederick’s older brother Percy, and had two children.
Many thanks to the Chaddock descendants for this information. All images are © Stanley Fletcher
Thomas Cavalier
T. C. Cavalier
Service no. 468539
Able Seaman, Mercantile Marine Reserve, RFA Reliance
Died age 27 on 20 January 1918
Son of Mrs E. Cavalier, of 14 Irving Grove, Stockwell
Remembered at Plymouth Naval Memorial
Thomas Cavalier was killed on HMS Louvain after it was attacked by a U-boat (UC22) in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ship was employed in examination duties at sea to enforce a blockade. There is some information she was being used as a leave ship when torpedoed. Of the 151 on board only 10 survived.
Frederick Harold Capewell
F. H. Capewell
Service no. G/75140
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 17th Battalion
Died age 18 on 1 April 1918
Son of Brian Charles and Lily Rosina Capewell of 35 Union Road, Clapham.
Remembered at West Norwood Cemetery and Crematorium
Brother of Brian Harvey Capewell
Information from the Capewell family
“Fred was due to take over his father’s business and his father never got over their deaths. Their sisters did well – Isabel read Geography at University, quite something for a working class girl of that time, and went on to become a headmistress in Palmer’s Green. The other boys became bank managers or civil servants. The last survivor, Richard Thomas, died in 1986. Their second cousin was Sir Malcolm Sargent, the famous conductor via their grandmother.
The family originated form Fradswell, near Stone in Staffordshire and their grandfather Brian Capewell came down to London and worked in a variety of jobs including as a muffin man.”
Information from the censuses and from the family headstone in West Norwood Cemetery
In 1901 Frederick Harold Capewell was living with his family at 68 Paradise Road, Lambeth. By 1911 they had moved to 24 Union Road, London SW4 where they had 7 rooms.
In 1911, Frederick’s father, Brian Charles Capewell, was a 47-year-old master plasterer born in Finsbury. The headstone states that he died on 20 October 1939, aged 76.
Frederick’s mother, Lily Rosina Capewell (also shown on the headstone) was 47 in 1911. She was born in London. The children listed on the census were:
Isabel Capewell, 20, a college student, born in Battersea. She died 8 April 1963, aged 72.
Brian Harvey Capewell, 17, born in Clapham. He is shown on the headstone: “BRIAN HARVEY CAPEWELL. KILLED IN 1914-1918 war (NAVY) AGED 22”
Harry James Capewell, 15, born in Clapham. He died 27 November 1965, aged 70. (The headstone includes Harry’s wife Grace, who died 8 July 1988, aged 93.)
Frederick Harold Capewell, 12, born in Clapham. He shown on the headstone: “FREDERICK HAROLD CAPEWELL. KILLED IN 1914-1918 WAR (ARMY) DIED 6 APRIL 1918. AGED 19”
Richard Thomas Capewell, 2, born in Clapham.
The 1901 census also lists
Lily E. Capewell, 3, who died aged 7 October 1904.
Daisy Capewell, 8
The headstone includes
Sidney G. Capewell, who died 10 February 1905, aged 7 months.
Archibald Samuel Campbell
A. S. Campbell
Service no. 203096
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 2nd/4th Battalion
Killed in action on 26 April 1918
Remembered at Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel
British Army Pension Records 1914-1920
Very soon after war broke out jeweller’s assistant Archibald Samuel Campbell took himself to the recruiting office at Battersea and offered himself to the Wiltshire Regiment. They gave him a number, 13710, and measured him up: 5 feet 2 inches, 110 pounds and 34 inch chest. Puny by our standards, but not exceptional then. Campbell was described as having a sallow complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. His overall physical development was judged to be “good”.
However, only 41 days later he was discharged under Para 392 (ii) King’s Regulations ‘ “not being likely to become an efficient soldier”. There are no more details.
Campbell must have re-enlisted or have been called up again, this time joining the Queen’s Regiment, surviving to 26 April 1918 when he was killed in action and buried in the war cemetery in Jerusalem (now in Israel).
Information from the 1911 census
In 1911 Archibald Samuel Campbell was a student living at 193 Wandsworth Road with his parents and brother. The family had 2 rooms. Thomas S. Campbell, 48, was a messenger for the Admiralty. He was born in Chelsea, London. Humilia Campbell, 37, was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Archibald, then 15, was born in Langton Herring, Dorset. His younger brother, Edgar L. Campbell, 6, was born in Battersea. Humilia and Thomas had 3 children, with only Archibald and Edgar surviving to 1911.
John Henry Burns
J. Burns (listed on the Memorial as J. Burns)
Corporal, Royal Army Medical Corps, 15th Field Ambulance
Service no. 6003.
Died on 20 April 1918, aged 28
Remembered at Tannay British Cemetery, Thiennes, France
Chris Burge writes:
John Henry Burn was born in 1890 and baptised on 15 January at St Mary the Less, Lambeth, the first child of Henry Thompson Burn and Elizabeth (née Castle) who had married on 11 May 1886 at St Paul, Walworth. By 1901 there were five children and the family lived at 39 Neptune Street (Seaham Street in 1912) along with two other families, totalling 16 people.
In the 1911 census, John, then 21, is shown living in three rooms at 35 Dashwood Road with his parents and six younger siblings. John’s father Henry worked as a bill poster, while John worked as a cellarman. By then Elizabeth had given birth to 13 children, seven surviving.
Dashwood Road, sandwiched between the Longhedge and Nine Elms locomotive works and criss-crossed by the lines of the competing railway companies, was an area of social deprivation. John’s home was a few yards from both St Andrews Church and the Bolingbroke Public House. It was never silent and always grimy.
John’s service number is within the range of men who joined the RAMC early in 1912, when initial training took place at Aldershot. To the Army he was 6003 Burns.
John was sent to France on 20 August 1914, one of four men attached to the Regimental Medical Officer’s team for the 5th Divisional Ammunition Column. At some later date he was transferred to the Division’s 15th Field Ambulance, a mobile medical unit with orderlies, bearers, horse and motor transport. It had been a long war and on 14 April 1918 the 15th FA moved near Boeseghem. Five days later, a party of 20 men was sent to assist the 13th FA, based at Thiennes, who were hurriedly moving their advanced dressing station to the safety of a cellar, after their farmhouse location was shelled. The keeper of the 15th FA war diary noted on 20 April that ‘1 man Cpl. Burns killed by shell at CROIX MORRAISE ref map 36A 1/40000 J.21.C.10.2’ (50°38’49.5”N 2°32’03.4”E Rue de Tannay France).
John’s parents wanted an inscription for their son’s headstone at Tannay British Cemetery, making sure his name was correct. It seems possible the evidence they provided to those dealing with the Stockwell War Memorial led to his name being spelt as he was known to the Army.
Henry Thompson and Elizabeth Burn were living at 55 Gaskell Street by 1918, remaining there for several years after the war.