Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

1920

George Albert Pelling

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G. A. Pelling
Service no. C/3505
Rifleman (served as batman), King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 17th Battalion
Born in Wandsworth, enlisted in London
Died 1920, aged 26 (not listed in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database)

Medals

Silver war badge no. 169847 (War Office and Air Ministry: Service Medal and Award Rolls, First World War. Silver War Badge. RG WO 329, 2958–3255. The National Archives.)

Data from British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920 (The National Archives)

Joined 28 May 1915 in London. Occupation given as “wood machinist”. Address 60 Union Grove, Clapham.

Height 5 ft 7¾in. Chest 36½in (expansion 2½in). Middle finger of right hand missing.

Posted 26 January 1916; posted home 11 February 1917 – “Discharged. No longer physically fit for service”

Born in March 1894. Baptised 4 February 1898 at All Saints, Lambeth. Parents given as George Pelling, a cab driver, and Miriam Mary Ann, of 99 Thorparch Road.

1911 Census

In 1911 George Albert Pelling, aged 17, was working as a painter and living with his parents and two of sisters at Thorparch Road.

Family tree information on Ancestry.co.uk

Miriam Mary Ann née Hirst, died 1936.

Joseph Charles Murray

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Joseph Charles Murray
Joseph Charles Murray

J. C. Murray

Royal West Kent Regiment
Died 7 May 1920, aged about 34
Remembered at Stockwell War Memorial
Steve Wright has sent some information about his great-uncle Joseph Charles Murray.
Joseph Charles Murray, a porter in civilian life, was born in St Giles parish, London, in about 1886. His father was Charles Murray. He had seven sisters: Anges, Lizzy, Gracie, Maude, Ivy, Bess and Lucy.
He was married first to Emily Abigail Harris, with whom he had a daughter, Winifred. After Emily died, he married Florence Rogers, with whom he had a son, Joseph Edwin.
Joseph joined the Royal West Kent Regiment Army in 1903. The medical officer noted down his height – 5 feet 4.5 inches – and weight – 112 pounds (8 stone). His chest measured 31 inches, and 33.5 when expanded. He had a fresh complexion with brown hair and grey eyes. There was a tattoo on his right forearm, and scars on both knees, the left thigh, back of the neck and head and right eyebrow. However, by 1907 he was having trouble with his ears. He was diagnosed with double ottorhea, from which he recovered. He served in Malta, and after a spell in the Army reserve after 1906, he was mobilised on 5 August 1914, almost immediately the war started.
By 30 June 1915 he was discharged as no longer physically fit for war service. He was suffering from chronic inflammation of the middle ear, which led to loss of balance and headache. He was 29. The documentation states that his character was “very good” and that he had been awarded two badges. However, the medical board decided that this was not the result of active service, climate or ordinary military service, and although it was permanent he was not entitled to incapacity payments. Later, the Army adjusted the assessment and decided that it was a quarter due to his service.
By 1917 Murray was described in Army medical reports as “very deaf.” Murray, then living in Kibworth Street, Kennington, died on 7 May 1920 from otitis media and cerebrospinal meningitis (pneumococcal).
Postscript: Joseph’s grandson Edwin (Joseph Edwin’s son) was killed in 1961 in the Lanfranc air disaster. 34 boys and two teachers from Lanfranc Secondary Modern School in Croydon, as well as three crew, were lost when their plane crashed in Norway.

Harry George Mead

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H. G. Mead
Service no. 37888
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 37th Battalion, transferred to 63909, Labour Corps
Died on 4 November 1920 at about age 42
CWGC: “Husband of Ada Mead, of 40, Wilcox Rd., South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920

In 1919, when the pension board assessed Harry George Mead, they found him 100 per cent disabled. His symptoms included shortness of breath, expectoration, anaemia and haemoptysis (coughing up blood). His general condition was poor. Mead had contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, and this was attributed to his war service. He had been posted for duty in July 1916 and had served 2 years and 217 days in France.

It was clear that Mead would be unable to return to work (he had been a painter). There was a note in the file to investigate the status of their adopted son, Robert, then 12. The pension board awarded him 27s 6d a week for six months, and 40s for 64 weeks thereafter, with 10s for his wife, Ada.

Information from the 1911 census

Harry George Mead, 33, and born in Lambeth, was a house painter. In 1911 he was married and living with his wife, Ada Mead, 34, who was from Brislington, Bristol, in 2 rooms at 12 Paradise Road, Stockwell. They had been married for 5 years and had no children.

Geoffrey William John Dee

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G.W.J. Dee
Private, 24th (County of London) Bn (The Queen’s)
Service no. Regiment 720356
Died on 15 February 1920, aged 23, after discharge 

Chris Burge writes:

Geoffrey Dee was born on 26 November 1896 in Woolwich, southeast London, the first child of John Edwin and Emma Churchill (née Loftin) Dee, who had married earlier in the year. Geoffrey was baptised with the given names Geoffrey William John on 10 September 1897 at St Bride’s, Fleet Street on the same day as three of Emma’s younger siblings, when his parents’ address was 120 Ivydale Road, Nunhead, southeast London and his father worked as a licensed victualler (publican). Geoffrey’s younger brother Philip was born on 15 September 1898 and baptised Philip Walter Loftin Dee on 30 October 1898 at St Martin’s, Dorking, in Surrey, during the period his father was running the Red Lion Hotel. 

Geoffrey’s father died in 1899, and the following year his mother, then living in the Walworth Road, near Elephant and Castle, married George Edward Holton at St Bride’s. Holton, a police constable, was based at the nearby Bridewell Place Station. At the time of the 1901 census George, Emma, Geoffrey and Philip were living at 6 Clock Passage (also known as Clock Place), off Hampton Road and close to Newington Butts, a densely populated area in the parish of St Mary Newington, Southwark. The property was home to three families totalling 11 people. 

George and Emma’s first child Dorothy Ellen was born on 19 June 1901 and baptised at St Mary Newington on 25 August. 

Ten years later, Geoffrey and family were living in Stockwell, at 13 Portland Place North, near Clapham Road in Stockwell. Geoffrey’s stepfather was had risen to the rank of serjeant in the City of London Police and he had listed their children in age order on the census form: Geoffrey Dee Holton, 14; Philip Dee Holton, 12; Dorothy Holton, nine; Stanley Holton, seven; Kathleen Holton, five; John Holton, two. Emma’s younger brother Walter Robinson Loftin, a 34-year-old stereotyper from Kent, boarded with the family. A total of nine people occupied the property’s seven rooms. 

In May 1911 life changed abruptly for the Holton family when Emma died. Forty-year-old George Holton was married for a second time on 3 December 1912, to 23-year-old Constance Muriel Chapman at St Stephen’s Church, South Lambeth.By 1915, there would be three more additions to the Holton family.

Geoffrey Dee was working as a stereotyper at Spottiswoode & Co., Shoe Lane, in the City when war was declared. In the excited rush to volunteer many employees of the print firm joined the City of London Rifles at their Farringdon Road drill hall, but Geoffrey Dee made a different choice. On 6 August 1914 he went to the drill hall at New Street (now Braganza Street), Kennington on 6 August 1914, determined to join the 24th County of London Battalion (The Queen’s). 

He added a year to his age, claiming to be 18 years and 11 months. At 5ft 9in in height with a 33in chest, no questions were asked and he was passed fit. Within days, Private 1894 Dee was in the St Albans area with the 24th Londons. The battalion was sent to France early in 1915, landing at Le Havre on 16 March, the beginning of Geoffrey Dee’s three years on the Western Front. He was wounded in the right leg around 15 June 1915 and treated at 4th Stationary Hospital at St Omer.

Geoffrey was an infantry observer and survived all of the 24th London’s actions until seriously wounded on 16 July 1918, again in the right leg. He was evacuated to the UK where he underwent an above-knee amputation. After the amputation, a medical board at the military hospital Denmark Hill judged his general health as ‘good’. When Geoffrey completed a statement of his own case, he said that he had been treated at Weir Hospital in Grove Road,  Balham, which housed a section of Third London (T.F.) General Hospital. A final review was made at Charterhouse Military Hospital, Charterhouse Square, London, a specialist hospital for limbless men, on 8 March 1919. Geoffrey Dee was discharged six days later and awarded a pension of £2 7s 6d for 13 weeks and then 16s 6d for life. It was noted that his figure (frame) on discharge was ‘slight’ and he faced ‘uncertain’prospects of employment. Geoffrey’s address throughput this period was the Holton family home now at 262 Clapham Road.

Geoffrey died in Torquay, Devon, in 1920 of an infection in his right leg. He is not listed in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database. The military authorities may not have regarded him as a war casualty, but the Stockwell War Memorial committee thought otherwise. 

Geoffrey’s younger brother Philip, also an electrotyper, was conscripted into the Army after 1916 and served in the Royal Fusiliers. Philip returned to Lambeth and in August 1924 sailed for Brisbane, Australia, seeking a new life. He died in 1991. 

George Edward Holton, Geoffrey and Philip’s stepfather, was living in Streatham Vale when he passed away in 1930. 

 Geoffrey is not listed in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database as his death came after the cut-off date for inclusion. His story serves as a good example of the wider remit adopted by the Stockwell War Memorial Committee

William George Callen

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W. G. Callen
Service no. 12089
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps
Died age 24 on 29 August 1920
Son of Mr W. H. Callen, 100 Dorset Road, Clapham Road, London.
Remembered at Lambeth (Tooting) Cemetery

Information from the censuses

In 1911 William Henry Callen, then 45, born in Eastleigh, Hampshire, was living with his wife Ada Elizabeth, 47, born in Woolwich, at 100 Dorset Road, where the family occupied 4 rooms. Callen was a railway porter. His children, all born in South Lambeth, were Jessie Marion, 17, no occupation listed; William George, then 15, who was to die in 1920, presumably of wounds sustained in the war; and Florence Elizabeth, 13. The 1901 includes a third daughter, Margaret, born in 1900. At that time the family was living at 12 Walberswick Street.

The 1911 census shows that William Henry and Ada Elizabeth had had 5 children, 3 of them surviving to 1911.

Auguste Cadot

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A. L. C. Cadot
Service no. 127954
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery

A. L. C. Cadot’s name is not in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database, nor is he listed in the Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919 database. Although there was an Auguste Cadot listed in Streatham and an Adolphe Cadot in Lambeth, I could not be sure which one was on the war memorial and was inclined to accept that Cadot was likely to remain a mystery to us.

Quite a few names on the memorial are difficult to trace, but this is usually because their names are so common and a connection with Lambeth or Wandsworth cannot be proved. Generally, the more unusual the name, the easier it is to identify the man.

The National Archives hold a medal card for an Auguste Cadot (he was given the Victory Medal) as well as service and pension records.

British Army service record shows that on 11 December 1915 Auguste Cadot, then living at 17 Tregothnan Road, Stockwell SW9, enlisted at Clapham. He was 34, married to a Marion (nee King), to whom he agreed to send 6 shillings of his army pay.

Cadot was just over 5ft 6inches (1.68m) tall and his chest measured 37 and a half inches (90cm), with an additional 4 inches when expanded.

Auguste and Marion married at St Stephen’s Church, South Lambeth on 1 August 1912. There was one child, Dennis Auguste Cadot, born 30 April 1915.

The 1901 census showed that Auguste was one of three children of Laure Erzberger, a Frenchwoman. When Auguste was 20 and she was 51, she was married to Charles Erzberger, a 47-year-old German, a banker’s clerk. The family lived at 63 Gleneldon Road in Streatham. Both Auguste and his 27-year-old brother Henry Cadot were employed as manufacturer’s clerks. The household included a 15-year-old sister, Florence, born like her brothers in Kennington, and Alice Miller, 20, a general domestic servant who was born in Poulton, Gloucestershire.

The 1911 census shows Auguste was living alone in one room at 261 Clapham Road. The census describes him as a “cashier, book keeper, patentee and manufacturer” but by the time Cadot enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery in December 1915, he was describing himself as an accountant and book-keeper.

Cadot served in a Seige Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery (these were batteries equipped with heavy howitzers, sending massive shells to neutralise the enemy artillery and destroy dumps, stores, roads and railways behind enemy lines). He was a signalman but there are two parts to the abbreviation and I cannot tell what the first part is (Senior? Leading?). In any case, the records show that he passed 1st class in telephony, that his character was “good” and that he spent time in France and in Italy.

Cadot was hospitalised several times and sent home for leave, but after a 16-week stay in hospital, he was discharged on 12 February 1919, three months after the end of the war. He had served his king and country for three years and 64 days and his health was ruined. His record was stamped “No longer physically fit for war service” because was suffering from chronic nephritis “caused by service”.

The medical problems Cadot complained of included loss of sight (retinitis) and headaches. Nephritis, diagnosed by the doctors, is an inflammation of the kidneys. However, many soldiers suffered a specific type of the disease known as “trench nephritis” or glomerulonephritis, which was caused by living conditions in the trenches. The symptoms included breathlessness, swelling of the face or legs, headache, sore throat, and the presence of albumin and renal casts in urine. It affected 15,837 (1.8%) First World War pensioners.

The doctors examining Cadot noted the loss of sight and headaches, albumin traces, high blood pressure and cardiovascular changes. Nevertheless, when assessing Cadot for pension one doctor judged that “he will get work”, he was 80% disabled and that his symptoms were likely to last one year.

Alas, this prediction proved to be true, as Cadot died in Lambeth just under a year later, on 25 January 1920. He was 39.

The mystery of his absence from the standard databases of the First World War is solved. He died of the war, but too late to be included. Not too late to be memorialised in Stockwell, which he had called home and where he had started to raise a family.