Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 26

Ernest Frank Whiting

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E. F. Whiting
Service no. 25607
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born in Dover, Kent; enlisted in Dorking, Surrey; lived in Clapham
Died of wounds on 14 October 1917, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Edward Whiting, of 28 Durand Gardens, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Dozinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Ernest Frank Whiting, 20, a law clerk, lived at 25 Durand Gardens, Stockwell. His parents, Edward Whiting, 60, a joiner, and Susannah Whiting (née Kingsford), 57, were both from Dover. They had 11 children, but by 1911 only five survived. All born in Lambeth. Ernest, Lilian Kate Whiting, 24, a typist, and Mabel Ellen Whtiing, 22, a book keeper. Their married sister Winifred Maud Riley, 28, lived with the family with her husband William Riley, 30, a restaurant waiter from Liverpool and daughter Winifred Lotty Whiting, 9. George William Canham, 22, a bank clerk born in Lambeth boarded.

Thomas Frederick Wellington

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T. F. Wellington
Service no. 70152
Driver, Royal Engineers, L.Z. Cable Section
Born in Southwark; enlisted in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 2 July 1915, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Mrs Rose Cockman, of 22 Horace Street, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

On 10 August 1915, less than a month after Thomas Frederick Wellington was killed in action at Ypres, the Royal Engineers Records Office wrote to his bereaved mother, Rose Cockman: “Special information has been received,” they said, ” … He was killed in action 2/7/15 and was buried behind Signal Station at Zillebeke, appros: Square L.22.D Map Belgium Sheet 28. 1/40,000.” But somehow Wellington’s remains ended up missing, and he is remembered instead on the panels of the Menin Gate Memorial and at Stockwell.

The Records Officer’s letter crossed with one of Mrs. Cockman’s in which she asked about the whereabouts of her son’s will and “small book”. These were not in his custody, the officer told her, in a letter sent the following day. However, Wellington’s personal effects were sent on. They indicate a man of careful and organised habits. As well as the usual watch, pipe, diary, letters, handkerchiefs, gloves, and so on, they included a holdall containing a razor, two toothbrushes, a lather brush, shaving soap and housewife (a small sewing kit for making repairs to uniforms). And, naturally, his driver’s licence.

Wellington’s Army career was solid, with no conduct issues. He started out in the London Army Troops of the Royal Engineers. He stayed 139 days and was discharged “in consequence of joining regular army.” He transferred to the London Signals Training Centre and from there on 16 December 1914 went to Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, where the Electrical Signalling Branch the School of Military Engineering was based. He went to France on 26 December.

Thomas Frederick Wellington, 5 feet 6 or 8 inches tall (depending on who was doing the measuring – both heights are given in his records), weighing over 10½ stone, with a 36 inch chest (which he could expand by 3 inches), was judged “good” in physical development. He had a fair complexion, dark grey eyes and light brown hair. In civilian life he had a varied career: from “ticket printer” in 1911, to engineer’s photographer when joining the Army in 1914. He also described himself as a draughtsman. He left 8 siblings (full and half).

Information from the 1911 census

Thomas Wellington, a 21-year-old ticket printer, lived with his mother, stepfather, sister and step-siblings at 15 Horace Street (now gone – replaced by a Local Authority housing estate), Stockwell. Charles Booth, in his poverty map of 1886-1903 described Horace Street as “poor and crowded”. Thomas’s mother, Rose Cockman, 44, from Torrington, Essex, had married Ernest Cockman, 39, a timber carman from Wandsworth, in about 1894. She had at least two children from her previous marriage: Thomas and Rose Wellington, 10, both born in Southwark. With Ernest she had a further three: Ernest Cockman, 6; Dorothy Cockman, 4; and Edith Cockman, 2, all born in South Lambeth.

George Robert Henry Wedderburn

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G. Wedderburn
Private, London Regiment, 19th Bn.
Service no. 611750
Died of illness in early 1919, after discharge, aged 26
Buried in Southwark 6 March 1919

Chris Burge writes:

George Wedderburn (left) and a friend. Courtesy of Elaine Collins.

George Wedderburn was born on 30 August 1892, the first child of George Wedderburn and Clara Wilmott  of 5 Chapel Street (since renamed Mowll Street), Stockwell. George was baptised on 18 October 1892 at Christ Church, North Brixton, with the given names George Robert Henry. George Snr, originally from Newcastle, worked as a stable groom for the Waine furnishing company at 131-139 Newington Butts, close to the Elephant and Castle. Clara was born and raised in Lambeth. When George’s younger brother Joseph Alfred was born in 1896, the family were still in Chapel Street and George’s father was described as a ‘comedian’, a hint of another side to the lives of the Wedderburn family. 

By 1901, eight-year-old George was one of four children and the Wedderburn family were living at 14 Buff Place, Camberwell. George’s father was described as a horse dealer. Three families making a total of 17 people were living at the same address. Although close to Camberwell Green and the surrounding amenities, Buff Place was one of a group of side alleys described by the social surveyor Charles Booth in 1899 as comprising ‘shoddy three storey buildings’.

In the 1911 census, George was now one of eight children. His parents were both 37 and the children’s details were set out in the clear hand of their father: George, 18; Joseph, 15; Robert, 13; Clara, 10; James nine; Isabella, seven; Samuel, four; and Gladys, two. Their father was still working as a domestic groom, while Joseph was a newsboy and George Jnr was a labourer. Large families were the norm, but in this case the family of ten were crammed into just four rooms at 21 Ely Place, South Lambeth, was one of a group of turnings off Dorset Road that were all marked as a poor area when visited ten years earlier by Booth. 

Towards the end of 1915 with conscription looming, it was clear that both George and his brothers Joseph and Robert would not escape service. In the case of George, only his discharge papers have survived. They tell the story of a man broken in mind and body, revealing that before the war George had wholly, or in part, earned his living as a variety artist, performing for around five years in various Moss Empire theatres. His family later said he was known to perform comical songs and dances in a double act with his father.  

George’s Army life began at the end of November 1915 when he chose to attest under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme in which men enlisted under the promise that unmarried men in their group would be called up first. He joined the reserve of 19th London Regiment, a Territorial Force unit whose administrative base was in Camden Town, near St Pancras Station. George was given the service number 5116. Perhaps it was no coincidence that music-hall artists brother Henry Arthur and Ronald Gladstone Moon joined 19th London Regiment at the same time. Brixton and the surrounding area was popular with variety artists for its good transport links. Henry Moon gave a Brixton Road address when he attested in Lambeth on 30 November 1915. His service number was 5100, and his brother Ronald’s was 5121. 

George was given compassionate leave to marry Mabel Jane Wright on 28 May 1916 at St Paul’s, Lorrimore Square, Southwark, which was close to Mabel’s home in Lorrimore Road. After this, George returned to his unit and within four months was sent to France.

He landed at Le Havre on 13 August, spent nearly a month at the infantry base and finally reached the 1/19th London on 23 September 1916. It was the height of the Somme offensive and his battalion, which had already suffered heavy casualties attacking High Wood, were briefly out of the front line. Back in the Line, intense shelling buried men alive or dead. In October the battalion withdrawn from the Somme only to be sent north to the Ypres sector. Trench conditions were always at their worst in winter and sporadic shelling invariably added to the casualty lists. George was admitted to a Field Ambulance on 14 January 1917 with a high fever and was in hospital in Boulogne a week later before being transferred to England on 30 January.

George’s health deteriorated to the point that on 8 June he was sent to convalesce at Summerdown Camp near Eastbourne. His condition worsened and by August 1917 he was transferred to the 1st London General Hospital after displaying the classic symptoms of neurasthenia, an illness now renamed dysautonomia, an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. It may have been what is commonly known as shell shock. After 32 days George was moved to the Tooting Grove Military Hospital where he stayed for 148 days and was described as ‘nervous and excited at the least thing’. In February 1918, George was moved again, this time to the 4th General Hospital at Denmark Hill were he stayed for 51 days, still suffering from neurasthenia. Finally on 29 March 1918 George was transferred to the Maudsley Neurological Clearing Hospital, Denmark Hill and appeared before a medical board on 19 April 1918. The board found him to be permanently unfit for service and awarded him a pension, but only for six months. He was discharged on 10 May 1918 after spending 41 days at the Maudsley, free to return home to Mabel at 81 Lorrimore Road, Kennington. When completing his discharge papers, George wrote ‘Variety Artiste (if possible) Gardening or Farming’ in the section asking about what kind of work he desired.

It is not known if George had found employment by the time his pension expired, but there was a new beginning when he became a father in 1918. Following family tradition, George and Mabel named their son George Bruce Wedderburn. 

George Wedderburn died in early 1919, he was laid to rest in Southwark [where?] on 6 March 1919. The authorities refused Mabel’s claim for a war pension.

Mabel was still living at 81 Lorrimore Road in 1945 when her son George Bruce Wedderburn was a ‘service voter’ at the same address in the 1945 election. He had been in the Army since 1939. Mabel was living in Norwich when she passed away in 1984, aged 89. George Bruce Wedderburn died in Norwich in 1998, aged 79. 

James Trimmer

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J. Trimmer
Service no. 9374
Serjeant, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, 1st Battalion
Born in Battersea; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 18 August 1916, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Harry and Sophia Trimmer, of London; husband of Jane Elizabeth Trimmer, of 94 Wilcox Rd., South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval, Somme, France

Information from the 1901 census

In 1911 James Trimmer was a private in the 1st Battalion of the North Lancashire Regiment. He was stationed at the Bhurtpore Battacks, in South Tedworth, Hampshire. Meanwhile, his parents, Harry Trimmer, 53, a locomotive engine driver from Holybourne, Hampshire, and Sophia Elizabeth Trimmer (née Adams), 56, from Marylebone, London were living in four rooms at 94 Wilcox Road, South Lambeth, where they had lived since at least 1901. James was one of their three surviving children (of six).

David Townsend

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D. Townsend
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 1st Bn.
Service no. 442
Died on 8 May 1917, aged 26
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France

Chris Burge writes:

David Townsend was born in August 1890, the third child of Harry and Elizabeth. In the 1891 census, the couple were living at 27 Broomgrove Road, off Stockwell Road, with their three children: George, Walter and baby David. Three other families lived at the same address, a total of 17 people in one property. The overcrowding was typical of all the properties in this alley, which the social reformer Charles Booth described in his 1899 notebook as the only squalid part of the area, ‘as like a den as I have seen anywhere.’

By the time of the 1901 census there had been three additions to the family: Florrie, Charles and Sarah Ada. The Townsends had moved next door to number 29, which was also home to the Williams family of nine. David’s mother Elizabeth died in 1904 and the family began to split up.

In the 1911 census, siblings Florence and Charles were in live-in service, while only David’s older brothers George and Walter were still in Lambeth. George was a boarder in the Wandsworth Road and Walter was still in Stockwell. Walter had married Beatrice Elsie Hurley in 1909 and their first child Walter John was born and baptised in 1910. Walter (known as Jack) made a living as a fishmonger’s assistant, Beatrice was a daily servant. Walter Townsend’s family lived in three rooms at 29 Broomgrove Road, a property also occupied by another family of nine people. We cannot find David on the 1911 census. 

David enlisted on 7 September 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war. Only burnt fragments of his service papers have survived, but his service number and other records suggest that pre-war he had been in the 4th Extra Reserve Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. All reservists had been urged to report for duty and were processed ‘with all possible speed’. 

At the time of his enlistment David was just over 24 years old, 5ft 4in tall and weighed 118lbs with a 34in chest. He gave his brother ‘Jack’ at 31 Broomgrove Rd as his next of kin. Passed medically fit, David was first posted to the 3rd East Surrey stationed at Dover. 

He was sent to France on 3 December 1914 as part of a draft of 160 men who reached the 1st East Surrey eight days later. David endured the winter in the trenches of the Ypres Salient. Spring 1915 brought a renewal of fighting, notably at Hill 60 in April and his battalion was subjected to chlorine gas in early May. Quieter months followed and they were near Morlancourt, on the Somme, by September 1915. It was noted on 16 September that two men were wounded by trench mortar fire and one other by an accidental explosion of one of their own bombs. David Townsend was wounded in the back and invalided back to England by 26 September. He would not rejoin his battalion in France until 25 May the following year.

 Almost another year of fighting had passed when the 1st East Surrey took part in the Battle of Arras in April and May 1917. An attack on Oppy Wood and Village on 8 May was a costly failure, the total of killed, wounded or missing of all ranks numbering 509. David Townsend was posted missing that day. An enquiry was made via the British Red Cross on 20 July, but eventually on 13 February 1918 private 442, David Townsend was regraded for official purposes as having died on or since 8 May 1917.

It was David’s brother Walter who received his medals in 1920 and 1921. It was also Walter who took the Army form W5080 to be witnessed and countersigned at St Andrew’s Vicarage on 17 March 1921, in order to receive his late brother’s plaque and scroll. According to Walter, David Townsend’s only other living relatives were his brother Charles and married sister Florence. Walter and Beatrice Townsend lived at 31 Broomgrove Road until around 1930, when they moved to Stockwell Grove.

Postscript: David Townsend’s brother ‘Jack’, also served in the Great War. Walter John Townsend was marked as a ‘Naval or Military absent voter’ in the 1918 Electoral Roll for Lambeth at 31 Broomgrove Road. The separate list of Lambeth’s absent voters which would have identified his unit has not survived. Between May 1915 and the war’s end Private ‘6546 Walter John Townsend’ served in the same company of the 1st East Surrey as David Townsend. It’s possible that the brothers had both been in the East Surrey Regiment before the war. chris burge

Cecil Francis Seymour

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C.F. Seymour
Lance Corporal, Scots Guards, 2nd Bn.
Service no. 14265
Died on 24 August 1918, aged about 26
Remembered at Mory Street Military Cemetery, St Leger, France and on the Rainhill Asylum roll of honour, now in the care of Rainhill British Legion

Cecil Francis Seymour was born in 1892 at Christmas Common, Watlington, Oxfordshire, the youngest of Henry and Sarah Seymour’s eight children. At the time of the 1911 census, Cecil was working as part of the large domestic staff of the Scottish-born landed proprietor Charles Adrian James Butter and his American wife Agnes Marguerite at the Abbey, Witham, Oxford. Most of the staff were from Scotland. 

On 9 August 1915 Cecil Francis Seymour volunteered in Liverpool for the Scots Guards. He had previously been working as an attendant at Rainhill County Lunatic Asylum in St Helen’s, Merseyside. His place of birth was either falsely given or incorrectly recorded as Edinburgh. In keeping with the Guards, Cecil Seymour was a tall individual at 5ft 11in. He was first sent to France on 5 October 1916 but suffered trench foot and a damaged ankle and was returned to England just after Christmas. This, and other illness, prevented him from being declared fit for active service until he returned to France on 30 March 1918. 

While in England, on 30 April 1917 Cecil married widowed Amy Maria Petrie (née Carrett) at Holy Trinity, Clapham. Amy gave her address as 12 Landor Road. Her first husband Robert Alexander Petrie, a tailor, died on 7 May 1916 after being discharged from the Army with tuberculosis. 

Petrie, an old soldier who had re-enlisted on 2 August 1914 in the Army Service Corps, had married Amy at St John’s, Newington on 5 April 1908, after six years service as a military tailor in the Scots Guards. His service record was incorrect, which meant that Amy had difficulty claiming her widow’s pension, so she  turned to the Moffat Institute at Esher Street, Upper Kennington Lane, for help.  Further assistance was given by the Lambeth Branch of the London War Pensions Committee before an award of 10 shillings a week was made in September 1916. 

Cecil Seymour rejoined his battalion when the enemy were at their most active on the Western Front. The 2nd Scots Guard had suffered around 160 casualties during nine days of constant heavy shelling at the end of March 1918. There was little respite until July when the battalion had its first contact with US troops, but they had to endure a night of gas shelling in the final week of July. After a period of rest and training the battalion was ordered to attack and encircle the enemy at St Leger. Over the two days of 24/25 August 1918 the battalion suffered 16 other ranks killed and 94 wounded. Amy Maria had been made a widow for a second time. 

A letter from the Ministry of Pensions dated 28 March 1919 informed Amy that as the widow of the late 14265 Lance Corporal C.F. Seymour 2nd Scots Guards she has been awarded a weekly pension of 13 shillings and ninepence. Four weeks later, a small parcel of her late husband’s effects was posted to her. 

On 24 October 1923 37-year-old Amy departed England to start a new life in Australia. Her last address in the United Kingdom was recorded as 12 Landor Road.