Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 21

Alfred Rodgers or Rogers

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A. Rodgers (on the memorial as Rodgers, in the Commonwealth War Memorial database as Rogers)
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 1st Bn.
Service no. 11158
Killed in action on 25 September 1916, aged 21
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Rodgers was born in November 1894 in Pimlico on the north side of the Thames, the second child of Frederick William and Mary Ellen (née Mulcahy). His older brother Frederick was born in Pimlico in 1890, in the same year that their parents had married at St John’s, Worlds End, Chelsea. By the time of the 1901 census, the four members of the Rodgers family lived at 55 Dalyell Road in Stockwell, in just one room in a property that housed two other families. The family faced considerable hardship as Alfred’s father Frederick was unable to work after the amputation of his right leg. His mother Mary was a packer in a laundry. 

In the 1911 census, brothers Frederick and Alfred Rodgers were still living with their parents, who were now both 43. The family had moved a few doors away to 40 Dalyell Road, where they lived in just two rooms of the three-storey building which also housed a family of six in four rooms, a widow in one room and a young mother and child in another room. Alfred’s father had found work as a beer bottler while his mother was working as an ironer in a laundry. Alfred’s brother Frederick, now 20, was an attendant in a cinema and Alfred, whose age was given as 18, was a shop boy for a bookmaker (betting shop). 

Frederick volunteered at the very beginning of the war, on 9 September 1914 at Marylebone, joining the Buffs (East Kent) Regiment. Within a week, as private 2176 Rodgers he was posted to the 8th Battalion at Shoreham, Sussex. His disciplinary record started to deteriorate in the spring of 1915; on six occasions between April and June he is absent without leave. The last of these was on 18 June 1915, when he was absent for over four days. On his return, he was given 14 days confinement to barracks and hauled before the Commanding Officer for a second time. On the 26 June he was posted as a deserter. He was reputedly the father of a child born in the Hastings area around March 1916 but his parents had no knowledge of his whereabouts, and may never have heard from him again. 

In mid 1915, the mayors of London boroughs were encouraged to boost the dwindling numbers of volunteers by launching new recruitment campaigns to raise local battalions. In Lambeth the designated battalion was the 11th battalion of the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey), established on 9 June 1915. In neighbouring Wandsworth, it was the ‘Wandsworth Regulars’, the 13th (Service) battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. Alfred Rodgers chose to volunteer at Wandsworth on the 9 July 1915, giving his address as 74 Paradise Road, Clapham and stating his age as 20 years and nine months. At his medical he was recorded as 5ft 1in tall, weighing 7st 7lbs, and with a 32in chest. His recorded occupation was ‘vanguard’. His mother Mary was his next of kin. 

The battalion made a series of farewell route marches around Wandsworth in late August 1915 before moving to Witley in Surrey and to Blackdown near Aldershot by February 1916. Alfred was not with the battalion when it finally departed for France in June 1916 as he had been transferred to the 14th Reserve Battalion in May and then the 10th Reserve Battalion. on 24 June. He was finally sent to France in a draft of men supposedly destined for the 9th Battalion, who sailed from Folkestone on 27 July. 

Once in France, Alfred and others were diverted to the 1st East Surrey, joining them at the Somme front on 7 August. August was spent out of the line in a period of training and practising bombing and firing on the ranges. They returned to the trenches in very wet weather on 31 August. September was spent in and out of various support trenches in continuing bad weather until a Brigade attack on enemy position took place on 25 September. Among the many casualties was Alfred Rodgers, killed in action on that day.

When Alfred’s mother Mary Ellen took Army Form W5080 to be witnessed and countersigned at St Barnabas vicarage on 18 August 1919, she had written just her own and her husband’s names on the form as the sole relatives of her dead son. Mary Ellen received her son’s medal in August 1921. 

Alfred parents Frederick William and Mary Ellen Rodgers were still living at 74 Paradise Road in 1938. They passed away within a few months of each other in 1944, both aged 77.

Everard Vaughan Ridge

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E. V. Ridge
Lieutenant, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 153rd Coy.
Died on 9 April 1917, aged 21
CWGC: “Son of the late Edward H. Ridge, of 15, Bedford Row, High Holborn, London.”
Remembered at Arras Memorial, France and at St John’s Church, Clapham Road, London SW9

Everard Vaughan Ridge attested for service in the Territorial Force on 13 April 1913. He served as Gunner in the 7th County of London Battery Royal Garrison Artillery. He was discharged to a commission in the 13th Reserve Battalion Worcestershire Regiment in September 1915. Transferred to the 153rd Company Machine Gun Corps, he was killed in action, on 9 April 1917, aged 21 years.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Everard Vaughan Ridge was a 15-year-old schoolboy living with his family in nine rooms at 55 Chelsham Road, Clapham. His father, twice-widowed Edward H. Ridge was a 52-year-old solicitor born in Manchester. There were five children from the first marriage and one from his second (all born in Clapham).
Violet Maude Ridge, 20, a millinery shop assistant
Phyllis Myfanwy Ridge, 18, a clerk in an insurance office
Ronald Edward Trevor Ridge, 16, an engineering apprentice
Everard Vaughan Ridge, 15
Victoria Gwenllian Ridge, 13
Reginald Nelson Ridge, 4
Dorothy Robinson, 21, a housekeeper from Bootle, Lancashire, lived with the family.

Albert Edward Purslow

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A. E. Purslow
Service no. 170
Corporal, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 7th Battalion
Born at Stonehouse, Devon; enlisted at Kingston Upon Thames; lived in Brighton
Died on 18 November 1916, aged 21
Remembered at Stump Road Cemetery, Grandcourt, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Brother of William Charles Purslow

Ray Gloster writes: ‘The Stump Road Cemetery is situated in a bleak windswept location, so on a cold February morning we could only imagine what it was like there in November 1916. Many of the graves were for men from the same regiment, The Queen’s, who died on the same day, 18 November, the last day of the battle of the Somme/Ancre.’

Information from the 1911 census

William Purslow, 21, and Albert Purslow, 15, were shop assistants, William for a hosier and Albert for an oilman. The household lived in four rooms at 15 Burnley Road, Stockwell. Charles Purslow, 50, from Lydford in Devon, was a music-hall musician; Alice Purslow, 46, was from Plymouth. They had four children, three of them living at home:
William Purslow, 21, born in Plymouth
Albert Purslow, 16, born in Stonehouse, Devon
George Purslow, 7, born in Fulham

Ray Gloster writes:

Albert Edward Purslow married Emma Caroline Ann Shed at Wandsworth in 1915. They had a daughter Phyllis Jeanette Elinor Purslow, who was born on 10 November 1916, just eight days before Albert was killed in action on the Somme at the battle of the Ancre.

He enlisted at Kingston upon Thames, which according to his pension records he did so before the war, at the age of 18. It is likely that he was transferred to the 7th Battalion as a Non Commissioned Officer after it was formed in September 1914.

In 1916 Emma was living in Brighton, Sussex in 1916, and she stayed in Sussex until her death at Eastbourne in 1981. She did not remarry but brought up her daughter alone, and then her two grandsons. Phyllis died in Hailsham on 1 November 2008.

Albert was a 4th generation professional soldier. His father Charles, although working as a music-hall musician in 1911, had served for 15 years in the Royal Marine Light Infantry at Plymouth, until 1899, 13 years as a musician, having previously served for almost six years in the 1st Battalion 53rd Shropshire Regiment of Foot at Plymouth, the same regiment as his father William and also his grandfather William, who was from Shrewsbury, Shropshire but continued to live in Plymouth in retirement.

In 1908, Albert’s sister Ethel married a musician, Alfred George Manning, one of four brothers who had served in the Royal Marines Light Infantry band (a fifth brother was also a musician, whilst the sixth was a baker). In 1913 she emigrated to Canada with her husband and son George (b. 1909), their second son Alfred was born soon after arriving in Canada. The family settled in the United States a few years later.

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.

Henry John Penney

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H. J. Penney
Service no. 7074
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), 1st/9th Battalion
Enlisted in Putney; lived in Brixton
Died of wounds age 21 on 20 October 1916
CWGC: “Son of Henry and Louisa Mary Penney, of 29 Knowle Rd., Brixton, London. Native of London.”
Remembered at Etaples Military Cemetery, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the 1911 census

Henry John Penney, 15 in 1911, was a goldsmith’s apprentice. He lived at 29 Knowle Road, Brixton where his family had four rooms. His father, Henry Penney, 42, was a stone mason from Southwark, and his mother, Louisa Mary Penney, 41, was from Lambeth. They had three surviving children (of four): Henry, born in Lambeth; Beatrice Jessie Penney, 10; Irene Grave, 8. Both girls were born in Brixton. There were two boarders: Elizabeth McCallum, 46, a married daily housekeeper from Tilbury, Essex, and Gladys Lilian McCallum, 6, born in Portsmouth, possibly Elizabeth’s daughter.

Ernest Frederick Oehring

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E. F. Oehring
Service no. 71553
Private, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 142nd Coy.
Enlisted at Camberwell; lived in Brixton
Killed in action at age 21 on 11 January 1918
CWGC: “Son of Frederick Ambrose and Alice Hannah Oehring, of 85, Ferndale Rd., Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 14-year-old Ernest Frederick Oehring was working an engraver’s errand boy. He lived at 85 Ferndale Road, Clapham, where his family had 7 rooms.  His father, Frederick Oehring, 44, was a bookbinder’s finisher, born in Lambeth. Alice Oehring, Ernest’s mother, 38, was also from Lambeth. The couple had two children, Ernest, who was born in Walworth, and Winifred Oehring, 10, born in Lambeth.

In 1901 the Oehring family lived at 29 Knowle Road.

Frederick A. Oehring’s father was also called Frederick A. Oehring. Frederick senior was a tailor born in Leipzig, Saxony and was described in the 1891 census as a “naturalised British subject”. He was 63. His wife, Caroline Oehring, was 54 and born in Lambeth. The family lived at 4 Pownall Terrace, off Kennington Road.