Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1918

Arthur Webb

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A. Webb
Service no. 651657
Serjeant, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), 21st Battalion
Died of wounds on 31 August 1918, aged 35
CWGC: “Son of James and Mary Jane Webb, of 22, Kendoa Rd., Clapham, London. Native of Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

The Army was evidently impressed by draper Arthur Webb. Shortly after he presented himself at the London Regiment’s Camberwell recruiting office in June 1915 he started on a trajectory through the ranks. Exactly a month later, he was appointed paid Lance Corporal. By the end of July he was Corporal, by October Lance Serjeant, and before he was posted to France he was Acting Serjeant. By January 1917 he was Serjeant.

Webb’s conduct was excellent – but not perfect. There was one black mark against his name: for being late for company parade some time in May 1917, for which he was reprimanded.

It was all over on 31 August 1918, when Webb died of a gunshot wound to the neck, “penetrating the spine” as noted in his file.

What else do we know about Webb? Physically, he was short (or rather, not tall) and not well built. He stood 5 feet 4½inches, with a 36½ inch chest (plus 2½ inches). He weighed 8 stone 10 pounds. He left a collection of effects, all forwarded to his mother, including the usual photos, letters, discs, pipe and notebook, but also two pairs of glasses, a watch and chain and, a small surprise,  a rosary in a tin box. We have plenty of evidence that Webb was an Anglican: his documents state it clearly, he is remembered on the memorial plaque at St Andrew’s, Landor Road and he lived in a Church institute with his mother, he may nevertheless have been “High Church” enough to find comfort in the use of a rosary. Or it may have merely been his good luck charm in a world in which every iota of luck was worth keeping beside you.

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Webb, 27 in 1911, worked as a commercial clerk. One of six children, he lived with three siblings, two boarders and his widowed mother, Mary Jane Webb, 51, the caretaker at 57 Stockwell Road, a “preventive home” for girls, dedicated to training girls for domestic service. The property had 14 rooms, most probably not for habitation. The siblings were Henry James Webb, 30, an insurance clerk; Florence Webb, 23, no occupation; Alfred Webb, 21, an insurance clerk. The two boarders were Church of England ministers: John Smith, 24, single, from Hackney, and Harry Thomas James, 25, from Penarth in Glamorgan.

Alfred Herbert Watts

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A. H. Watts
Service no. 44390
Rifleman, Royal Irish Rifles, 15th Battalion; formerly London Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 14 October 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Mrs S. J. Watts, of 28 Rosetta Street, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Heuvelland, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Watts’s name is included in Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914–1918. 

Information from the censuses

Alfred Herbert Watts, a 13-year-old schoolboy in 1911, also found work as a milkboy. He lived at 28 Rosetta Street,  South Lambeth, where his family had five rooms. Alfred’s father, George Henry Watts, 49, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire was a carman, working for the London & South West Railway. His mother, Sarah Jane Watts (née Doel), 46, was from Yarnbrook, Wiltshire. They had two other children: Water Henry Watts, 22, a packer in a tea warehouse, and Elsie May Watts, 17, a dressmaker.  Daisy Laura Neale, 9, a niece from Heywood, Wiltshire, lived with the family, as did Albert Taylor, a 35-year-old single boarder, whose occupation is unrecorded.

Frederick Ward

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F. Ward
Private, London Regiment, ‘B’ Coy. 2nd/19th Bn.
Service no. 614287
Died of wounds on 3 April 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza) and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick Ward was born in Lambeth and baptised on 20 May 1894 at St Andrew’s, Stockwell, when his parents Edwin and Agnes Ward (née Woolsey) were living at 19 Stockwell Green, and his father worked as a decorator. In the 1901 census Frederick was the third eldest of five siblings living with their parents in four rooms at 8 Clark’s Row (between Ingleton and Robsart Streets, near Brixton Road; Ingleton Street was demolished after 1945 becoming Ingleton Street Open Space, then renamed The Slade Garden in 1958 and is known today as Slade Gardens). His father Edwin was then employed as a ‘laundry carman’. Hardship followed when Edwin died in 1902, aged 46. The family suffered further loss in 1903 when Frederick’s younger brothers Ernest and Christopher died. 

When Frederick’s 51-year-old mother Agnes completed her 1911 census return, the household consisted of five other people: her children Agnes, 22, Edwin, 21, and Frederick , 16, and boarder Charles Ward, a widower aged 59. Agnes entered ‘no occupation’ for herself and Elsie, who was disabled. Edwin worked as a restaurant porter and Frederick as a milkman’s assistant. They lived in five rooms at 5 Ingleton Street, off Brixton Road.

Edwin was married with a young child when he volunteered in October 1915, serving as a motor driver in the Army Service Corps throughout the war. Frederick was conscripted late in 1916 and was first sent to Salonika, landing on 1 March 1917. Frederick spent three months there in miserable weather. Morale was low and the men were glad to leave in June 1917 when the battalion was moved to Egypt. The battalion took part in the campaign in Palestine in 1917 and 1918. They were present at the hugely symbolic capture and subsequent defence of Jerusalem in December 1917. ‘B’ company fought at ‘Talaat ed Dumm’ in February 1918. Late in March 1918 they were part of the forces that attacked Amman for the first time. Frederick Ward was wounded and evacuated to the 76th Casualty Clearing Station where he died on 3 April 1918. 

Frederick’s brother Edwin returned to his family at 15 Medwin Street in April 1919. Agnes and Elsie lived at 5 Ingleton St until his mother passed away in 1932, aged 73. Elsie later lived with Edwin’s family in Sevenoaks, Kent. 

John Frederick Wake

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J. F. Wake
Service no. 75115
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 10th Battalion; formerly 42273, 99th Training Reserve Battalion
Born in Battersea; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in South Lambeth
Died of wounds on 18 May 1918, aged 19
Remembered at St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France

Information from the 1911 census

John Frederick Wake was a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived with his family at 25 Bognor Street, Battersea (this street has now disappeared but was once in a tight knot of streets off Thessaly Road). John’s father James Stowe Wake, 43, was a painter’s labourer born in Westminster; his mother Elizabeth Wake (née James), 39, was born in Lambeth. John had five siblings (two had died): Sydney Albert Wake, 14, a messenger boy; James Stowe Wake, 9; Ivy Kathleen Wake, 6; Daisy Isabell Wake, 6; George Edward Wake, 1.

William Charles Viney

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W. C. Viney
Service no. 179460
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery, No 1 Depot
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Lambeth
Died on 21 February 1918, aged 31
CWGC: “Husband of Florence Emily Viney, of 3 Portland Place South, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Information from parish records and 1911 census

William Charles Viney, 25, and Florence Emily Sheaff, 27, married at All Saints Church, Newington, on 27 August 1911. William described himself as a stock keeper of confectionary, and his father, William Viney, as a general labourer. The 1911 census shows William Viney as boarding at 7 Freemantle Street, Newington (the address he gives on his marriage record), where he lived with engine fitter Alfred Webster and his family. Viney’s occupation here is given as “store keeper”.