Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 19

Frank Worthy

by

F. Worthy
Service no. 4785
Rifleman, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), “D” Coy. 1st/21st Battalion
Enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 15 September 1916, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of Alfred James and Matilda Clara Worthy, of 12 Normandy Road, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

In 1911 Frank Worthy was a 14-year-old schoolboy. He lived at 5 Addison Place, Brixton (now part of Normandy Road) with his parents, Alfred James Worthy, 45, a sign writer for the council, and Matilda Clara Worthy, 37, both born in Lambeth. Frank had two siblings. The family occupied four rooms. 

Frank, who was born on 23 October 1898, attended Stockwell Road School and moving on in 1908 to Battersea Polytechnic Boys’ Secondary School, for which he received a bursary. He left in July 1914 to train as a teacher at London Day Training College. 

Frank Worthy enlisted on 27 January 1916 in Lambeth, giving his age as 19, occupation as teacher and address as 5 Addison Place (since renamed Normandy Road), Brixton. He had previously been rejected for service. Frank stood 5ft 11in tall, with a chest measurement of 33½in. His moles on his upper right arm and abdomen were noted. He joined the British Expeditionary Force on 15 June 1916 and survived exactly three months after that.

The Worthys were members of the Plymouth Brethren. 

Claude Lionel Whittingham

by

Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart
Panel at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial showing Claude Lionel Whittingham’s name. Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart

C. L. Whittingham
Service no. 269729
Private, Hertfordshire Regiment; formerly 3122, Essex Regiment
Born in Southwark; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 31 July 1917, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of John B. and Alice Louisa Whittingham, of 28 Angell Road, Stockwell, London. Also served at Gallipoli.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Brother of Horace John Baker Whittingham

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Claude Lionel Whittingham joined the Army as a Private on 10 December 1914. He was attached to the 1st London General Hospital of the Royal Army Medical Corps (the military extension of St. Batholomew’s Hospital). The hospital was stationed at St. Gabriel’s College (photo) on Cormont Road, Camberwell (a requisitioned residential training college for women teachers). The whole of Myatts Fields Park itself was closed to the public until 1921 due to its use as a hospital.

By September 1915 Whittingham was serving on the H.M.H.S “Aquitania,” converted in the previous month to a hospital ship (she started life as a luxury liner, was requisitioned as first a Royal Navy ship, and then became a troop ship). With 4,182 beds the “Aquitania” was the largest of 71 hospital ships used during the First World War. Whittingham served as an orderly on the ship until March 1916, when he joined the war effort in Gallipoli, the scene of Winston Churchill’s doomed attempt to open up a new front in order to confuse and exhaust the enemy. We do not know what Whittingham’s role was in this theatre of war but it is likely that he continued to serve in some capacity on the “Aquitania”. He returned to England on 7 May 1916.

On 19 July 1916, while based at Home, Whittingham requested a transfer to the 3/5th London F.A. Brigade “for the purpose of serving abroad”. It is not clear from the records what happened to this request. In any event, Whittingham was transferred first to the Essex Regiment and, on 9 September, to the Hertfordshires. He was posted to France on 4 November and missing in action on 31 July 1917. Later he was presumed dead.

In civilian life Claude Lionel Whittingham was a grocer’s clerk. When he joined up he was described as 5 feet 6 inches, 9 stone, with a 33 inch chest that he could expand by 2half inches, a fair complexion, with grey eyes and “reddish” hair. By the time he  transferred to the Hertfordshires he had grown three inches in height and in chest measurement. His military character was described as “very good”.

After he died, Whittingham’s mother wrote to the Records officer at the Hertfordshire Regiment to query why her son’s RAMC rather than his Hertfordshire service number was set on the medals. The polite but clipped reply was that the number used is the number “your gallant son” held on first disembarkation in a theatre of war.

Information from the censuses

Claude Whittingham was a 13-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived with his parents and siblings at 28 Angell Road, Brixton where his father, Manchester-born John Whittingham, 48, was an apartment house keeper. His mother Alice Whittingham 48, was from Bermondsey. There were five siblings: Horace Whittingham, 17, a junior commercial clerk; Ivor Whittingham 15, a cashier; Claude; Rhoda Whittingham 11; Alfred Whittingham, 5. Claude and his younger siblings were born in Newington. There were six boarders, including a producer of plays from Dublin and a pair of music hall  artists. Ten years previously, the Whittingham family lived at 63 and 64 Delaune Street, Newington. John Whittingham was described as a “cab proprietor”.

William Henry White

by

W. H. White
Service no. 41697
Private, Leicestershire Regiment, 8th Battalion; formerly 11013, Royal West Surrey Regiment
Born in Stockwell; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action on 27 May 1918, aged 19
CWGC: “Only son of William Henry and Matilda White, of 13, Mordaunt St., Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Soissons Memorial, Aisne, France

Chris Burge writes:

William Henry White, a private in the Leicestershire Regiment, was Home (that is, in England) until 3 May 1916 when he sailed for Le Havre. The records show that he returned to London on 22 August 1916 and was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth, where he was treated for trench fever. This disease (variously known as Wolhynia fever, shin bone fever, quintan fever, five-day fever) is caused by an organism transmitted by body lice, and conditions at the front were ideal for its spread.

Soldiers serving on the front line lived in squalid, damp and cold conditions. In the fire trench – that is the foremost of three zig-zag trenches, the others being the support trench and the reserve trench – soldiers frequently lived amongst corpses and body parts, and faeces. These were ideal conditions for rats (they were said to have been as big as cats) and flies, for transmitting dysentery, and lice. In the freezing conditions (only the hottest summer days produced balmy nights), men huddled together for warmth, and thereby enabled the lice to pass from one human host to another.

Even when not in the fire trench the men stayed close to one another for they were not allowed to light fires. These would attract shellfire from the enemy or, later in the war, fire from enemy aircraft.

Soldiers did not stay indefinitely in these conditions: generally, four days’ service in the fire trench was followed by four in the support trench and eight in the reserve. The rest of the month was spent ‘in rest’ during which they performed other services, such as supplying the trenches with rations, water and ammunition. Opportunities for bathing and washing clothes were limited – the aim was to take a bath every 10 days but this was not always possible.

Lice infested the seams of the soldiers’ uniforms. To kill them required heat – either hot irons, steam or very hot water. At the front, these methods were out of the question, and the only option was to run a candle up and down the the seams or to pick them off by hand. This process was done in while sitting round in groups and became known as “chatting up”, giving rise to a new term for conversational banter. Lice eggs attached to body hair were killed using a paste of naphthalene (once used in mothballs and moderately toxic).

From 1915 to 1918 between one-fifth and one-third of all British troops reported ill had trench fever, and it is estimated that 97% of men, including officers, had lice.

Trench fever, while rarely fatal, was an unpleasant disease. Symptoms come on suddenly and include high fever, severe headache, painful eyeballs, soreness of the muscles of the legs and back, and hyperaesthesia of the shins. The patient may relapse frequently and recovery usually takes about a month. Even so, White’s 47 days in hospital were, however, probably a welcome respite from the horrors of the front and a spell at Home may have saved many others from death or mutilation when in the line of fire.

White, a messenger in civilian life, claimed to be just over 19 when he enlisted on 13 August 1915, although he was probably only just over 16. Recruits had to be 18 (and 19 before they could be sent abroad). White’s file does not indicate that his deception was discovered. He was 5 feet 4 inches tall, with a 34 inch chest (expandable by 4 inches), and a scar on the middle finger of his right hand. His physical development was judged to be “good”.

He went missing on 27 May 1918 and was later declared dead.

Information from the 1911 census
William Henry White was a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived at 8 Rattray Road, Brixton with his parents, William Henry White, 40, an assistant in a bootmaker’s shop, born in South Lambeth, and Matilda White, 33, from Battersea. The family had four rooms. He was one of four children, all born in South Lambeth, the others being: Annie Matilda White, 13; Doris Ella White, 9 and Ethel Alice White, 1.

Thomas Henry Wellings

by

T. H. Wellings
Service no. 29546
Private, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 1st Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Camberwell
Died of wounds on 1 October 1918, aged 19
Remembered at Grevillers British Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France

Brother of Alfred George Wellings 

Information from the 1911 census and British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

In 1903, Thomas Henry Wellings , who was born on 20 May 1899, was enrolled in Walnut Tree Walk school. At the time his family lived at 8 St Olave’s House, a block of social housing in Walnut Tree Walk.

Pension records show that on 20 July 1915 he enlisted in the 21st Battalion of the London Regiment. Thomas gave his age as 19 and two months but he was only 16 and was discharged. The Army was impressed with his good military character. ‘Could have made a good soldier if of the required military age,’ was written in his file. 

Wellings’s discharge papers describe him as having a fresh complexion, grey eyes, light brown hair; he was 5ft 6in, with a 36in chest, and under 8st. His physical development was judged to be ‘Fair’. He gave his address as 2 Thorncroft Street, a few streets away from Camellia Street. He must have re-enlisted later.

In 1911 Thomas Wellings, aged 12, lived at 35 Camellia Street, South Lambeth with his widowed 43-year-old mother Elizabeth Martha (née McGoun), who worked as a cardboard box maker in a factory. Another son, George Wellings, 9, also lived there. The family had two rooms. Mrs. Wellings, who had two other children living elsewhere, was from Blackfriars. She did not give place of birth for her sons.

Wellings must have enlisted again when he was able or compelled.

Walter Percy Wallis

by

W. P. Wallis
Service no. 153407
Private, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 200th Battalion
Died on 3 February 1919, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of Percy William and Sarah Naomi Wallis, of 9, The Mount, Bidborough, Kent.”
Remembered at Lapugnoy Military Cemetery, France

Information from the 1911 census

Only child Walter Percy Wallis, a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911, lived at 11 Glendall Street, Stockwell with his parents, Percy William Wallis, 38, a railway riveter from West Malling, Kent, and Sarah Naomi Wallis, 40, from Rye, Sussex. Walter was born in Ashford, Kent. They shared their four-roomed home with John James Seckert, a single 44-year-old restaurant waiter from Mayence, Germany.

John Frederick Wake

by

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.