Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 20

Charles John Young

by

C. J. Young
Service no. 42404
Private, Essex Regiment, 11th Battalion; formerly 49934, Northamptonshire Regiment
Born in Putney; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in South Lambeth
Killed in action on 21 March 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of John and Elizabeth Young, of 97 Hartington Road, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Beaumetz-les-Cambrai Military Cemetery No. 1, Pas de Calais, France

Information from the 1911 census

Charles John Young, a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911, lived at 21 Camellia Street, Stockwell. His widowed mother, Elizabeth Young, 44, was born in Germany and made her living charing (cleaning). There were six siblings: Minnie Young, 18, who worked stripping tobacco; Rose Young, 16, a collar machinist; Lena Young, 14, a darning machinist; Walter Mafeking Young, 10; May Lily Elizabeth Young, 6; Grace Margarete Young, 5. The family of eight lived in two rooms. Three other of Elizabeth’s babies had died.

Arthur George Wright

by

A. G. Wright
Service no. 1633
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 2nd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Westminster; lived in Lambeth
Died of wounds on 9 August 1916, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Arthur John Wright, of 34 Thorncroft Street, Wandsworth Road, London.”
Remembered at Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery, Saulty, France

Arthur George Wright, with kind permission of the Wright family.

Arthur George Wright was born in South Lambeth on 8 November 1895 and baptised at St Anne’s, South Lambeth Road on 20 March the following year. He was the second child of Arthur John Wright, a carman born in Clapham, and Mary Ann (née Lanfear)  from Rockley, Wiltshire, who lived at 1 Wyvil Street. 

On 26 August 1901, when the family was living at 14 Kenchester Street, Arthur George and his older sister Beatrice were admitted to St Barnabas School. 

The couple had a total of eight children. Beatrice died at the age of ten in 1907 and another child, Ellen, died as an infant. On the 1911 census Arthur John listed all his children, alive and dead, but scored through the lines for Beatrice and Ellen. 

The census shows that Arthur George  was working as an errand boy and that the  family of eight lived in three rooms at 62 Goldsborough Road. Another household of seven lived in a further four rooms at the same address.

Arthur George enlisted in Westminster. After the war, his father gave his address as 34 Thorncroft Street, Wandsworth Road.

Arthur Worby

by

A. Worby
Service no. G/61093
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
Died on 16 November 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of John and Mary Ann Worby, of 76 Crimsworth Road, Wandsworth, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Worby, 12 in 1911, lived at 76 Crimsworth Road, South Lambeth. His father widower John Worby, 53, was an Army pensioner from Cambridge. There were five siblings on the census return – their places of birth reflecting their father’s Army career. Emma Worby, 24, was born in Chatham, Kent; Jessie Worby, 20, a laundress, was born in Port Royal, Jamaica; John Worby, 15, an errand boy, was born in Dublin; Frank William Worby, 16, an errand boy, was born in Middlesbrough; Arthur Worby, 12, was born in South Lambeth. Arthur’s nephew, Arthur Worby Gridner, 1, lived with the family.

Information from Howard Anderson, great-nephew

“Arthur Worby came from a military family, his father John Worby was career soldier, leaving the Royal Engineers as a Quarter Master Serjeant (the old spelling) after 21 years service. Arthur was one of 11 children, most born in barracks around the world, one was my grandmother Jessie, born on a troop ship in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Arthur Worby’s sister Jessie married Albert Allen (a common Stockwell name) who was an Old Contemptible who survived the war. In the 1st Middlesex Regiment, he was Mentioned in Despatches 3 times for staying behind with the wounded. His son Ted repeated that at Arnhem in 1944, being awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross for gallantry, for staying with the wounded when the Germans overran the town.”

Arthur Worby was brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley, who married his sister Ethel Maude Worby.
Visit 1stmiddlesex.com for more information.

Reuben Edward Wild

by

R. E. Wild
Service no. R/6573
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, “C” Coy. 9th Battalion
Died of wounds on 25 September 1915, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Herbert John and Annie Wild, of 24 Halstead Street, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Brother of Herbert William Wild

Stanley Franklin Whiting

by

S. F. Whiting
Service no. F/13871
Aircraftman 1st Class, Royal Naval Air Service, H.M.S. President II
Died of illness on 27 January 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Benjamin F. and Augusta Whiting, of 85 Lark Hall Lane, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Wandsworth (Streatham) Cemetery, Garratt Lane, London SW17

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Clapham-born Stanley Franklin Whiting was 13 and living in a six-roomed house at 85 Lark Hall Lane, Clapham, where his family had lived since at least 1901. His father, Benjamin Franklin Whiting, 40, was a corn and coal merchant, born in Battersea; his mother, Augusta Whiting (née Burkitt), was from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. Stanley had a brother, Eric Whiting, 8, born in Clapham. An older brother had died some time after the 1901 census. Clara Banham, a 26-year-old domestic servant from Kentish Town, lived in.

Alfred Herbert Watts

by

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.