Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 23

William Charles Ray

by

W.C. Ray
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 8th Bn.
Service no. 39290.
Killed in action on 23 October 1918, aged 23.
Remembered at Forest Communal Cemetery, Nord, France

In 1911 William Charles Ray lived with his parents, William, a 37-year-old carman, and 32-year-old Louisa Esther (née Rainbow), and four siblings at 10 Broomgrove Road, Stockwell Green, where they occupied three rooms. Louisa’s mother Caroline Rainbow lived in the other half of the house with a son, adopted daughter and a lodger.

William was almost 21 and working as an engine driver when he was called up 30 May 1918. He stood 5ft 5in, with brown hair and hazel eyes. His chest measured 33in. His physical development was judged to be ‘Good’. 

Ray had two misdemeanours on his Service record: failure to wash before breakfast, for which he was confined to barracks for three days, and overstaying his pass when on active service, for which six days’ pay was withheld. 

Ray married Annie Florence Judd in 1917. She lived at 44 Tregenna Street, Brixton Hill with their two daughters, Annie Edith, born in 1916, and Florence Violet, born posthumously in May 1919. She received his identity disc and a weekly widows’ pension of 20s and 6d.

Frank Wybrew

by

F. Wybrew
Service no. 10622
Private, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own), 1st Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Lambeth
Killed in action on 18 September 1916, aged 23
CWGC: “Son of Maria Rose Whitehouse (formerly Wybrew), of 11 Irving Grove, Stockwell, London, and the late William Wybrew.”
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France and at St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

Frank Wybrew was baptised at St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, Stockwell on 14 May 1893, the second of three children of William Joseph Wybrew, a saddler, and Maria Rose (née Millett). They gave their address as 65 Andalus Road, Stockwell. 

Frank’s father died in 1896, at around the time Maria Rose gave birth to their third child. She subsequently married James Edward Whitcombe, a harness maker.

In 1911, Frank Wybrew lived with his mother, stepfather James Edward Whitcombe, a harness maker, a younger sister, three of his five half-siblings and his maternal grandfather in a four-roomed flat, 12 Emily Mansions on Landor Road, Stockwell.  He worked as a ‘general hand’ for a seed merchant.

Alfred George Wellings

by

A. G. Wellings
Service no. 10167
Private, Coldstream Guards, 3rd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Wandsworth
Killed in action on 2 August 1917, aged about 23
Remembered at Artillery Wood Cemetery, Belgium

Brother of Thomas Henry Wellings

The 1901 census shows seven-year-old Alfred George Wellings as one of three children of Alfred Wellings, a 32-year-old horse keeper born in Vauxhall, and Elizabeth Martha (née McGoun),  33, a cardboard box maker from Blackfriars in the City of London, living at 29 Mansion House Street, Kennington. 

Alfred was born on 27 January 1894 and attended Walnut Tree Walk School in Kennington. His family lived at 3 Hotspur Street, off Black Price Road.   

In 1911 Alfred was working as a page at the Junior Athenaeum Club at 116 Piccadilly, London, a gentleman’s club whose members were MPs and peers, members of the universities, fellows of the learned and scientific Societies, and gentlemen connected with literature, science, and art. Thirty-five servants lived in at the club. 

His widowed mother Martha and brothers Thomas and George lived in two rooms at 35 Camellia Street, South Lambeth. Martha was still working as a cardboard box maker.

From Dickens’s Dictionary of London, published 1879, by Charles Dickens, Jr.: The Junior Athenaeum Club “occupies the house once inhabited by the late Duke of Newcastle, and built at extraordinary cost by his father-in-law, the late Mr. Adrian Hope. Members of both Houses of Parliament, members of the universities, fellows of the learned and scientific Societies, and gentlemen connected with literature, science, and art are eligible for election. The members elect by ballot. “No ballot shall be valid unless at least twenty members actually vote. One black ball shall annul ten votes, a tie shall exclude.” Entrance fee, £31 10s.; annual subscription, £10 10s.”

Arthur Spurgeon Waterman

by

A. S. Waterman
Service no. 3295
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 12th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 18 July 1916, aged about 23
Remembered at Dranoutre Military Cemetery, Heuvelland, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Information from the censuses

Arthur Spurgeon Waterman, named after the famous preacher and founder of Stockwell Orphanage, was a house painter. Aged 19 in 1911, he lived with his parents and four of his five siblings at 100 Paradise Road, where the family had eight rooms. They had lived at that address since at least 1901. George Phillip Waterman, 56, was a house decorator, born in Clapham; Jane Waterman, 58, was born in Islington. Lillian Gertrude Waterman, 23, was a “lady clerk” for a manufacturer of toilet preparations; Jennie Rebecca Waterman, 21, was “at home”; George Gordon Waterman, 20, was a painter; Rose Ann Waterman, 17, was an invoice clerk for a printing firm. All were born in Clapham. Four other children did not survive.

Frederick Ward

by

F. Ward
Private, London Regiment, ‘B’ Coy. 2nd/19th Bn.
Service no. 614287
Died of wounds on 3 April 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza) and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick Ward was born in Lambeth and baptised on 20 May 1894 at St Andrew’s, Stockwell, when his parents Edwin and Agnes Ward (née Woolsey) were living at 19 Stockwell Green, and his father worked as a decorator. In the 1901 census Frederick was the third eldest of five siblings living with their parents in four rooms at 8 Clark’s Row (between Ingleton and Robsart Streets, near Brixton Road; Ingleton Street was demolished after 1945 becoming Ingleton Street Open Space, then renamed The Slade Garden in 1958 and is known today as Slade Gardens). His father Edwin was then employed as a ‘laundry carman’. Hardship followed when Edwin died in 1902, aged 46. The family suffered further loss in 1903 when Frederick’s younger brothers Ernest and Christopher died. 

When Frederick’s 51-year-old mother Agnes completed her 1911 census return, the household consisted of five other people: her children Agnes, 22, Edwin, 21, and Frederick , 16, and boarder Charles Ward, a widower aged 59. Agnes entered ‘no occupation’ for herself and Elsie, who was disabled. Edwin worked as a restaurant porter and Frederick as a milkman’s assistant. They lived in five rooms at 5 Ingleton Street, off Brixton Road.

Edwin was married with a young child when he volunteered in October 1915, serving as a motor driver in the Army Service Corps throughout the war. Frederick was conscripted late in 1916 and was first sent to Salonika, landing on 1 March 1917. Frederick spent three months there in miserable weather. Morale was low and the men were glad to leave in June 1917 when the battalion was moved to Egypt. The battalion took part in the campaign in Palestine in 1917 and 1918. They were present at the hugely symbolic capture and subsequent defence of Jerusalem in December 1917. ‘B’ company fought at ‘Talaat ed Dumm’ in February 1918. Late in March 1918 they were part of the forces that attacked Amman for the first time. Frederick Ward was wounded and evacuated to the 76th Casualty Clearing Station where he died on 3 April 1918. 

Frederick’s brother Edwin returned to his family at 15 Medwin Street in April 1919. Agnes and Elsie lived at 5 Ingleton St until his mother passed away in 1932, aged 73. Elsie later lived with Edwin’s family in Sevenoaks, Kent. 

Albert Edward Upton

by

A. E. Upton
Service no. L/17507
Private, London Regiment, 7th Battalion, formerly Middlesex Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 21 March 1918, aged about 23
Remembered at Chauny Communal Cemetery British Extension, Aisne, France

Information from the censuses

Albert Edward Upton, 16 in 1911, was described by his father Edward Upton as “youth – not settled” on the 1911 census. Edward repeated the word “unsettled’ in the next column (which is meant for information on the type of business a person is employed in) and added “butcher”, confusingly, to the next column (designed to record whether the business took place at home or outside the home). Edward Upton’s mistakes have given us a lot more information than most census returns. For instance, he tells us that he was born “between Brixton and Clapham Roads” and that he and his wife, Mary Ann Upton, at 54 the same age as her literal-minded husband and from Beaulieu, Hampshire, had been married 21 years last September. We also know that he worked as a goods guard for the London & South West Railway.  The couple had two children (one had died): Albert and Ada Mary Ellen Upton, 19, a service housemaid. Both were born, Edward tells us, were born at 7 Dawlish Street, South Lambeth, where the family still lived.