Stockwell War Memorial

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Accident

Harold Percy Tozer

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H. P. Tozer
Second Lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps/Durham Light Infantry, 9th Battalion
Died in a flying accident on 16 December 1916, aged 25
CWGC: “Son of Henry James and Agnes Emma Tozer, of 31, Lansdowne Gardens, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at East Harnham (All Saints) Churchyard, Wiltshire

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Harold Percy Tozer, 19, a clerk for a timber merchants, lived with his parents and sister at 31 Lansdowne Gardens, Stockwell. His father, Henry James Tozer, 43, was a solicitor’s clerk from Shadwell, east London; his mother, Agnes Emma Tozer, 43, was from Ipswich. Lilian Elizabeth Tozer, Harold’s sister, was 16 and working as a clerk for a philatelist (stamp collector/dealer). Both Harold and Lilian were born in South Lambeth. The Child family lodged with the Tozers: Arthur Ernest Child, 32, a cook from Portsmouth; his wife Ethel, 32, from Egham, Surrey, and their son Leslie Eric, 8. The Tozers had been at the same address since at least 1901.

British Army WW1 Service Records 1914-1920 (Officers)

Tozer enlisted in the 4th Battalion of the Cameron Highlanders on 11 September 1914 and served for 347 days with them. He was described as 5 feet 9 inches, with a 36½ inch chest which he could expand by 3½ inches. He embarked from Southampton on 19 February 1915 and was wounded in action the following month (gunshot wound to the elbow). He was invalided back to England, to the Fairfield Hospital, Broadstairs on 18 June.

Later that year he was granted a temporary commission – 2nd Lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry (he was gazetted on 20 August 1915). Tozer’s service from then until the accident that killed him in 1918 is not known.

Ernest Thomas Skudder

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E. T. Skudder
Service no. 651614
Rifleman, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), 21st Battalion
Enlisted at Camberwell; lived in Clapham
Wounded accidentally on 18 February 1918, aged 20.
Remembered at Rocquigny-Equancourt Road British Cemetery, Manancourt, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918
SKUDDER, E. T., Rifleman, 21st London Regiment (1st Surrey Rifles).
He volunteered in June 1915, and on completing his training was sent in the following year to the Western Front, where he played an important part in several battles, including those of Hill 60, Ypres, II, Loos and Vimy Ridge. He was unhappily killed in action at Cambrai, during the Allied Advance in October 1918*, and was entitled to the General Service and Victory Medals.
“Honour to the immortal dead, who gave their youth that the world might grow old in peace.”
10, Clarence Street, Clapham, S.W.4.

* CWGC and Soldiers Died in the Great War give 18 February as Skudder’s date of death.

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

On 18 February 1918, at Cambrai, France, Ernest Thomas Skudder, a 20-year-old Rifleman in the 21st London Regiment, was with his platoon at the front. They were taking part in an exercise to test a new type of grenade, the No. 84, Mark II. Unfortunately Skudder remained standing after the order was given to get down, and he died of multiple and severe wounds, to the neck, left shoulder, arm. “Hand spattered,” noted [an officer] in the file.

As was usual in such cases, the Army held a Court of Enquiry in the Field. The notes from this have been lost so we do not know the conclusions it came to. However, superior officers felt that questions remained. “Was a qualified officer in charge of the ‘throwing,’ in accordance with instructions contained in Para I, Chapter IX, SS 182 – Part II, please?” they asked. What happened, exactly, to Rifleman A. Silverton, who was apparently caught up in the explosion, where did he get his much less severe injuries? Captain F. C. Barker and his collegues Second Lieutenants G. N. C. Woodruff and A. W. Humphreys wanted answers.

When soldiers received injuries that were not severe enough to permanently damage them but sufficient to send them home to “Blighty” to recover, the Army was immediately suspicious. Were these injuries SIWs (self-inflicted wounds)? The officers were evidently suspicious about Silverton. In addition, if there was someone to blame for the loss of Skudder, they wanted to know about it.

At the beginning of the second enquiry they were interested in Silverton. What was the extent of his wounds? He was wounded in the back of the leg and on the thigh, according to the testimony of Serjeant W. Ellis. Silverton was sent to the Aid Post, which is where Corporal Myers, another witness, found him. Myers had gone there to enquiry about Skudder, who had taken the full force of the bomb.

The party had been testing the throwing of grenades, with an instructor and assistant instructor. The thrower stood up with the instructor, and aimed over the top of the trench at the rifle butts, which were about 100 yards away. However, 15 yards to the right of this group stood Skudder with the rest of his party behind him. He was not in the line of fire, but, according to one witness, Rifleman W. Richardson, he was the only one not to obey the order to get down. Lance Corporal Gray, whom the officers suspected had failed in his duties, claimed he did not notice anyone not lying down, the reason being that he had got into the trench and was facing in the opposite direction to Skudder and his party.
It is unclear from what is left in the file exactly what happened next. The bomb exploded and killed Skudder. From the diagram it looks as if the bomb landed in the trench near Skudder. However, the conclusion of the Enquiry includes one tantalising line: “If Skudder had obeyed the order given by Sgt. W. Ellis he would not have been wounded. He went forward with the intention of throwing the bomb clear of the trench.” Did the bomb land in the trench and did Skudder attempt to pick it up and throw it out of harm’s way?

In the event, the enquiry found no wilful negligence. They blamed Gray but decided to take no action as there was no intention to harm Skudder. As for Silverton, there was not enough evidence to decide how he was injured.
Skudder death, after serving 2 years and 259 days, bereaved his parents, Emma Elizabeth and Alfred Thomas, and sister Edith Emma. Just a few months later, in July, his mother died of flu and pleuropneumonia. She was 58. The Army sent on Skudder’s effects: an identity disc, letters, a small pocket notebook, a cigarette case, a Christmas card, a “wounded stripe” (he had received a gunshot wound to his thigh in June 1917), a canvas wallet and a linen bag.

In life, Skudder stood 5 feet 6¼ inches tall. He measured 36½ inches around the chest. His physical development was deemed “good.” Skudder’s war was, at least on paper and disregarding the accident that ended it, not especially eventful. We know from the National Roll that he took part in several of the war’s most bitter battles, including Hill 60, the Second Battle of Ypres, Loos and Vimy Ridge. During this time he had only one black mark against his name, and that was before he was posted to France – for being absent from Retreat until Tattoo on 21 November 1915, for which he was punished with three hours’ pack drill and the loss of two days’ pay. He was in England for five months in 1916, during which he was hospitalised for 28 days with “debility following influenza.”

We cannot know what, if anything, the Army told Skudder’s parents about his accidental death.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Ernest Thomas Skudder, then 13, was living at  26 Clarence Street, Studley Road, Stockwell with his parents and sister. His father, Alfred Thomas Skudder, 53, was a brewer’s drayman from Greenwich; his mother, Elizabeth Emma Skudder, 50, was born in Clapham. Edith Emma Skudder, his sister, aged 11, was born in Lambeth like her brother. The family had 5 rooms.

Cecil Ernest Philcox

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Cecil Ernest Philcox
Cecil Ernest Philcox

C. E. Philcox
Lieutenant (temp), South Staffordshire Regiment, 1st Battalion
Died on 24 May 1917, aged 21
Awards Military Cross; mentioned in despatches
CWGC: “Son of Alice E. and the late Alfred James Philcox.”
Remembered at Achiet-le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension, France, on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA and at family memorial at West Norwood Cemetery

Brother of Percy William Arthur Philcox

Cecil Ernest Philcox was born in 1895. After attending Dulwich College he worked in a timber broker’s office in the City (his father was a timber merchant). He enlisted in the ranks of 12th Battalion of the London Regiment (The Rangers). One of his two brothers, Percy William Arthur Philcox, was killed in action with the Rangers on 8 May 1915.

Cecil was transferred to the Inns of Court Officers Training Corps at Berkhamsted on 20 April 1915 and in July was given a temporary commission in the 10th (Reserve) Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment at Harrogate. He took part in action at High Wood, Mametz, Beaumont-Hamel, Arras, Serre, Martinpuich, Bullecourt.

In November 1916 Cecil was appointed Battalion Bombing Officer. He died on 24 May 1917 at No. 45 Casualty Clearing Station near Bullecourt of wounds received three days earlier when a defective No. 5 Mills grenade thrown by Private T. Hindley exploded during training, fracturing Cecil’s skull and injuring Hindley himself and Lance Corporal Carrington. A court of enquiry held in the field, at which three witnesses gave evidence, and Hindley made a statement, concluded that no one was to blame for Cecil’s death. All described how Cecil had given the order to throw, how Hindley’s throw was a good one and made in the “regulation manner” and how the grenade exploded only six feet away from the bombing party.

Cecil was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.

Cecil’s family lived at 255 South Lambeth Road. His father, Alfred James Philcox, who died in 1913, was a timber merchant, originally from Kentish Town, north London. His mother, Alice Eliza Philcox was born in Lambeth. After Cecil and his brother Percy died in the war, two children survived: Alfred Reginald, who in 1911 was working as a clerks in a timber merchant’s office (presumably his father’s) and Ethel Beatrice Philcox.

Information from the censuses
On the night of the 1911 census Cecil Ernest Philcox, aged 15 and still at school (Dulwich College), was at his cousin’s house at 29 Kingsmead Road, Streatham. Leonard Wilfred Philcox, 13, was the son of Mervyn Philcox, 50, a watch and jewellery dealer born in Wandsworth, and Martha Jane Philcox, 51, from Lambeth. Meanwhile, his family were at 255 South Lambeth Road.

Alfred James Philcox, 59, was a timber merchant, born in Kentish Town, north London. His wife, Alice Eliza Philcox, 55, was born in Lambeth. They had five children: Cecil; Alfred Reginald Philcox, 22, and Percy William Arthur Philcox, 19, both clerks in a timber merchant’s office (presumably working with their father); Ethel Beatrice Philcox, 18; and one other. All the children were born in Lambeth. Florence Maud Philcox, 19, a niece born in Lambeth, lived with the family, as did Kate Elizabeth Percival, a 20-year-old single domestic servant from Rotherhithe, south-east London.

Horace Thomas Pelling

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H. T. Pelling
Service no. CH1/8111
Private, Royal Marine Light Infantry, H.M.S. “Bulwark.”
Died on 26 November 1914, aged 18
Remembered at Chatham Naval Memorial

Information from Royal Naval Division

Horace Pelling was born on 9 December 1895 in Clapham. He enlisted on 3 July 1913, embarked on H.M.S. “Bulwark” on 22 October 1914, but, as the service record says bluntly, “discharged dead” on 26 November 1914, killed by an internal explosion of his vessel, off Sheerness. His father, Horace John Pelling of 174 Wandsworth Road, received a Star medal issued on 27 July 1919.

The explosion left all of the Bulwark’s officers dead, and out of her complement of 750, only 14 sailors survived; two of these men subsequently died of their injuries in hospital, and almost all of the remaining survivors were seriously injured. There is a good account at www.nhcra-online.org

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Horace Thomas Pelling, 15, was a labourer working in the manufacture of ammonia. He was born in Clapham. His father, Horace John Pelling, 40, as a general gas fitter from Steyning, Sussex; his mother, Hanna Elizabeth, 41, was from Walworth. Horace had one sibling: Albert Edward Pelling, 7, born in Battersea. Three other siblings had died. The family lived in two rooms at 3 Garnies Street (now gone, although there is a Garnies Close off Sumner Road), Camberwell.

William Reginald Guy Pearson

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W. R. G. Pearson
Captain, Royal Air Force, No. 4 Training Depot Station
Died in a flying accident on 20 June 1918, aged 21
Son of Reginald and Minnie Pearson
Remembered at Eastham, St Mary, Cheshire

William Reginald Guy Pearson
William Reginald Guy Pearson. Captain William Reginald Guy Pearson, R.A.F., accidentally killed at a Northern aerodrome, was the second son of Dr. and Mrs. Spencer Pearson, of Clapham Road, London S.W. An exceptionally skillful and careful pilot, he was officially credited with having brought down eleven enemy machines, and had been mentioned in despatches. From The War. Illustrated Album Deluxe: the story of the great European war told by camera, pen and pencil, by Sir John Alexander Hammerton. The Amalgamated Press, 1919.

From Flight, 4 July 1918
Capt. WILLIAM REGINALD GUY PEARSON, R.A.PV, who lost his life on June 20th at a Northern aerodrome owing to a collision in the air, in which Lieuts. McFarlane and Flynn were also killed, was the second son of Dr. and Mrs. Spencer Pearson, of Clapham Road, S.W. He was 21 years of age, and was educated at Ashdown Park and Berkhampsted, where his classical attainments promised a brilliant University career. At the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Empire Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, and later, receiving a commission in the A.S.C., proceeded to France in January, 1915. He very shortly afterwards joined the R.F.C. in France, and acted for several months as an artillery observer. Returning to England, he completed his training as a Scout pilot, and served in France in a fighting squadron for nearly a year, during which time he had over fifty encounters with enemy machines, and was officially credited with having brought down eleven German aeroplanes, many of them two-seaters. He became a flight commander and gained his captaincy, being mentioned in despatches. Capt. Pearson was a flying instructor at the time of his death, and was considered one of the most careful and skilful of pilots.

E026 W R Guy Pearson paper report 26-06-1918COLLISION IN THE AIR – THREE AVIATORS KILLED
A verdict of “Accidental death” was returned at an inquest on Friday on Captain William R. G. Pearson, of London, Lieutenant William Smith Macfarlane, of Edinburgh, and Lieutenant Vincent Flynn, of New Jersey, U.S.A., who were killed as a result of a collision while flying at a height of 1,000 feet on Thursday.

Evidence was given that Captain Pearson was in a machine with Lieutenant Macfarlane, and that Lieutenant Flynn was flying alone. They came together as though practising fighting. Pearson turned to the right, which was the rule of the force when flying, but Flynn turned to his left, and the machines collided and came to the ground wrecked. Pearson and Flynn were killed instantly and Macfarlane died a few minutes after being picked up. In the opinion of the witness, had Flynn adhered to the rules, and turned to the right, the accident would not have happened.

E026 W R Guy Pearson plaque
The wooden plaque inside the church at Eastham, St Mary, Cheshire, and the burial register from the church. Pearson is no. 995. Photo © Tracey Fisher

Record of Pearson’s 11 ‘hits‘

According to a report in the Brixton Free Press, Pearson’s father, Dr. Reginald Spencer Pearson, who had played a major part in raising money for the Stockwell Memorial Committee, was too distressed to attend its unveiling in May 1922:

[A]  gentleman whose absence was the cause for general regret was Dr. Pearson, who had identified himself so much with the progress of  the movement, and who regards the memorial in the light of the tomb of his own dear son. But Dr. Pearson felt that he could not bear the strain which the ordeal of unveiling and dedicating this memorial would impose upon him.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 William Reginald Guy Pearson lived in a 10-room house, 14 Lake Street, Leighton Buzzard. His father, Reginald Spencer Pearson, 45, a doctor from Workington, Cumbria, and mother, Minnie Savile Pearson, 40, from Wakefield, Yorkshire, had four children besides William:
James Pearson, 15, born at Parbold, Lancashire (on the 1901 census)
Kathleen Mary Pearson, 7, born at Islington, London
Richard Cuthbert Liverton Pearson, 4, born at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
Hubert Edward Spencer Pearson, 1, born at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
There were two ‘visitors’ (probably servants) in 1901, Florence Hughes Kinchliff, 27, a single mother’s help from Wakefield, and Dorothy Morris Tabor, 24, a mother’s help from St George’s in the East, London. In 1901, when the family lived at 48, Mildmay Park, Islington, there were 2 servants: a mother’s help and a page.

George Sidney Miller

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G.S. Miller
Petty Officer Stoker, Royal Navy, HMS Vanguard
Service no. 311632
Died in an explosion on 9 July 1917, aged 27
Remembered at  Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent

Chris Burge writes:

George Sidney Miller was born in Willesden, northwest London in 1892, the second child of parents George Henry and Elizabeth Miller, who were both originally from Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. At the time of the 1901 census, George, 33, and Elizabeth, 29, lived in four rooms at 47 High Street Clapham with their three children: Irene, 12; George, nine; and Samuel, five. George Snr, a police sergeant, died in 1903, aged 36. On 16 January 1909 Irene married Talbert Vincent Wilcocks at St Mark’s Church, Kennington, giving their addresses as 74 and 76 Clapham Road. The marriage was witnessed by Talbert’s sister and Frederick Staughton.

By the time of the 1911 census, Irene was living in four rooms at 26A Mandalay Road, Clapham, with her husband and their two baby daughters. George Sidney Miller appeared in the census at the Royal Navy Torpedo School Ship HMS Vernon, Portsmouth, listed as ‘Stoker 1st Class’. He was listed as 22 and single, both of which were untrue. 

George Sidney Miller had joined the Navy on 1 May 1907, signing for 12 years. He claimed to have been born in Willesden on 25 November 1888. He was described as 5ft 6in tall with dark brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion. He married Laura Hazelden on 17 November 1910 at St Barnabas, South Lambeth, where Laura had been baptised as a child. Her family home was at 8 Horace Street. At the time of the wedding George gave his true age, which was 18, and HMS Vernon as his place of residence. Frederick Staughton was one witness of their marriage. George and Laura’s first child, George Frederick Sidney Miller, was born on 25 April 1911 and baptised on 10 May 1911 at St Stephen’s, South Lambeth, at which time Laura gave her address as 76 Clapham Road, where she lived in one room and had been working as a laundress. 

In the 1911 census, policeman Frederick Staughton was living at 74 Clapham Road with his wife ‘Amy’ and 15-year-old stepson John Miller, born in Harlesden, northwest London. Amy Staughton was 38 and from Great Yarmouth. Frederick had married an ‘Amy Miller’ in 1906. While it’s not certain that George’s mother Elizabeth and Amy were the same person, his younger brother was baptised Samuel John Miller, which suggests Frederick Staughton may have been more than a family friend.

At the of outbreak of war, George Miller had risen to Leading Stoker and already educationally passed for Petty Officer; he was at the Pembroke II shore station. Between July 1914 and May 1916, he served on HMS Stour, part of the 9th Destroyer Flotilla that patrolled home waters. George and Laura’s second child, Eileen Laura,  was born on 7 December 1915 and baptised at St Stephen’s, South Lambeth, on two weeks later, when their home address was 35 St Stephen’s Terrace, which was virtually opposite the church.

A year later George Sidney Miller was involved in an incident that threatened to end his naval career. He appeared in court accused of the manslaughter of Herbert Jones. George Sidney Miller, 24, stoker, had been bailed in a police court on 23 November 1916 after a Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Herbert Jones. The case was heard by Justice Avory on 13 December 1916 at the Old Bailey where George pleaded guilty, and was reported in newspapers soon after:

A NAVAL WHIRLWIND. A naval stoker, aged 23, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to-day to the manslaughter of Herbert Jones, whom he was said have struck outside a public-house. It was alleged that an insulting remark had been used to him and he ran amok. Mr. Justice Avory said that he doubted whether the prisoner intended to hit the deceased. You were the victim of that mistaken kindness which people show men in the services home on leave. I wish it could be made a more serious offence than is now to treat soldiers and sailors. You were mad with drink for the time being, and you ran amok. “I understand that someone called you a coward. Anything more calculated to irritate a man like you I don’t know. You ran about waving your arms like a whirlwind, striking anyone and not caring who it was.” Prisoner was bound over.

Justice Avory’s sympathetic hearing saved George from disgrace and worse. Whether it was chance or the Navy deliberately keeping George out of further trouble, he found himself sent far from London to the Fleet at Scapa Flow where he joined the crew of HMS Vanguard on 1 January 1917 and by April was an acting petty officer (stoker). HMS Vanguard was the Royal Navy’s seventh dreadnought battleship when launched in 1909, part of the Naval Arms Race that had preceded the war when the public were associated with the chant ‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’ The only time HMS Vanguard fired her guns in anger was during the battle of Jutland in 1916. In the Fleet anchorage in Scapa Flow on the evening of Monday 9 July 1917, it was overcast, with a gentle northeasterly. Vanguard and her neighbours carried out their usual evening routines until about 11.20pm when, without warning, flames became visible abaft Vanguard’s foremast, followed immediately by two heavy explosions, and the battleship disappeared under a pall of smoke. When the smoke lifted the great ship had gone. Of the 845 onboard, only two survivors were found. George Sidney Miller had died that day. 

The Naval Court of Inquiry was unable to determine any definite cause to the explosion. It was only able to conclude that it may have been due to the ignition of cordite from an ‘avoidable cause’, or the deterioration of perhaps unstable cordite. No blame was attributed to any one person. 

By the time the loss of the Vanguard was widely reported in the British press on 14 July 1917, the next of kin had been notified and Laura Miller was still at St Stephens Terrace, South Lambeth Road, SW8. When the Stockwell War Memorial was unveiled in 1922, Laura had been living at 111 Gaskarth Road, near Clapham South since 1918. It was the home of George’s married sister Irene, whose husband Talbert had served in the Royal Garrison Artillery during the war. 

Laura Miller was married for a second time in 1925 to Edward Henry Gardener, an older man who had served in the Royal Navy between 1897 and 1906 and during the war. They lived in Boyd Road, Colliers Wood, from 1925, where Laura was still living when Gardener passed away in 1954. Laura passed away in Merton in 1971, aged 78. 

George and Laura’s daughter Eileen Laura Miller died in 1934, aged 18. His son George Frederick Sidney Miller died in 1989, aged 78.