Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

age 33

George Edwards Verney

by

G. E. Verney
Service no. G/13935
Private, Royal Sussex Regiment, 13th Battalion
Born in Brixton; enlisted in Lambeth
Killed in action on 26 September 1917, aged 33
CWGC: “Son of George Verney, of 53 Dalberg Road, Brixton, London.”
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

Information from the censuses

Brixton-born George Edward Verney was a baker. Aged 26, he was living with his parents, George Verney, 53, a cab driver from WInslow, Buckinghamshire, and Annie Verney (née Edwards, 60, from Riverhead, Kent, and sister Rose Verney, 22, a general domestic servant born in Clapham, at 20 Gilbey Road, Tooting, where the family had five rooms. George and Annie had had six children, with five surviving. In 1901 the Verney family lived at 4a Park Place, Clapham.

Joseph Strand

by

J. Strand
Service no. 6/9792
Corporal, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 9th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London
Died of wounds on 18 August 1917, aged about 33
Remembered at Mendinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium

Information from the censuses

Barman Joseph Strand, 28, was unemployed in 1911. He lived with his widowed mother, Elizabeth Sarah Strand, 58, and brother, Hebert Stanley Strand, 25, a taxi motor mechanic at 57 Hartington Road, Stockwell. The family shared their two-roomed home with Catherine Shery, a single 26-year-old cook. All members of the household were born in Lambeth. Elizabeth had five children (one had died). In 1901 the Strand family lived at 69 Dorset Road. Ten years previously, in 1891, the family lived at 2 Alfred Place, in South Lambeth. Henry Strand, Joseph’s father, was a painter.

Albert George Victor Sales

by

A. G. V. Sales
Service no. 242156
Private, Leicestershire Regiment, “A” Coy. 2nd/5th Battalion
Killed in action on 26 September 1917, aged 33
Born in Battersea; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Clapham.
CWGC: “Son of Mrs T. Sales, of 36 Peardon Street, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

On 18 April 1918 Albert Sales was “regarded for official purposes as having died on or around 26/9/17”. He had gone missing during the chaos of battle. He had been at the front for three months.

Sales, a sheet metal worker, presented himself at the recruiting office on 24 February 1916. He gave his address as 82 Larkhall Lane, Clapham. He was measured (5 feet 6¼ inches, with a 35-inch chest expandable by 3 inches), over 10 stone. The Army observed that he had a squint in his right eye.

Like many other conscripts, he went into the Army Reserve, waiting his turn to be mobilised. There he stayed until 4 October 1916. Then he was trained and packed off to France in February 1917. However, Sales had repeated trouble with a septic foot. He was injured on 28 April, but did not receive treatment until 9 May. It continued to give him trouble throughout May. Then in late June he was sent to the Front, and went missing.

Information from the 1911 census

Albert George Victor Sales’s mother, Theresa Sales, a 56-year-old railway waiting room attendant from Doncaster, was living at 172 Stewart’s Road with her youngest child, Archibald Oliver Sales, 15, and married daughter Elizabeth Gertrude Riley, 29, and her two children.

Henry Thomas Payn Pardue

by

H. Pardue
Service no. 473280
Serjeant, London Regiment (The Rangers), 1st/12th Battalion, formerly 6526, 16th London Regiment
Enlisted in London; lived in Brixton
Killed in action at about age 33 on 10 May 1917
Remembered at Arras Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

Henry Pardue’s story illustrates neatly the dispersal of a family after the death of a mother and the remarriage of a father. In 1911, Henry Thomas Payne Pardue, 27, was living with his aunt Annie Warren, 39, his sister Gladys (a dancer) and Annie’s four children at 85 Shakespeare Road, Stoke Newington. His siblings were scattered across the country: Charles John Pardue, 36, was a law writer in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; William Pardue, 24, was a private in the Royal Marines at East Stonehouse, Devon. Henry’s married sisters are not traceable through the census. Henry’s father, Charles John Pardue, 63, meanwhile, had started another family. He had at least 14 children from his marriages. In 1911 he was working as a stationer’s clerk and was married to Emma Matilda Pardue, 43; they had four children lived at 79 Corporation Street, West Ham.

Information from the 1901 census

Henry Pardue was born in 1884 in Clerkenwell. In 1901 he was a 17-year-old litho apprentice living at 2 York Mansions, Newington, with his family. His father, Charles J. Pardue, born in 1848 in Westminster, was by 1901 a widowed lawyer’s clerk. His deceased wife, Annie Eliza Pardue, was a year younger.
The 10 children I can find on the various censuses are:
Elizabeth Caroline Pardue, born 1870 in Westminster, described as a dancer on the 1901 census
Annie Eliza Pardue, born 1872 in Westminster, described as a dancer on the 1901 census
Alice Jane Pardue, born in 1873 in Camberwell
Charles John Payn Pardue, born 1875 in St Bride’s (Fleet Street)
Marion Rose Pardue, born in 1878 in St Bride’s (Fleet Street)
Emily Maud Pardue, born 1880 in Camberwell
Henry Thomas Payn Pardue, born in 1884 in Clerkenwell
William F. O. Pardue, born in 1887 in Clerkenwell, and working as a messenger aged 14 in 1901
Gwendoline Pardue, born in 1893 in St Pancras
Gladys Pardue, born in 1897 in Newington
In 1881 the family were living at 36 Leather Lane, Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden Ely Rents and Ely Place. I can find no trace of the family in the 1891 census.

George Frederick Geleit

by

G. F. Geleit
Service no. B/200790
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 13th Battalion
Killed in action age about 33 on 29 May 1917
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the censuses

George Geleit was 3rd generation German, his grandfather, August Geleit, having emigrated to London some time before 1871.

In 1911 George Geleit, who was born in Bermondsey, was 27 and married to Clara, aged 25, from Walworth. They had two young children they had named after themselves: George, 2, and Clara, 1, both born in Brixton. The family lived in 2 rooms at 87 Hackford Road (this address is now Van Gogh House – the artist lodged there from August 1873). George described himself as a “housekeeper”.

The 1891 shows Annie Geleit, a 30-year-old widow from Bermondsey, living with her 3 sons, including George Geleit, 7, at 26, Russell Street, in north Brixton.

The 1871 census shows an August Geleit, 46, a tailor, and Caroline (possibly Christina) Geleit, 32, both born in Germany living with their 5 children at Houghton Street, Westminster. August died in 1887.

Geleit means escort or convoy in German.

Abraham Crocker

by

A. Crocker
Service no. 5308
Private, London Regiment, 1st/20th Battalion
Died aged about 33 on 1 October 1916
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Abraham Crocker, from Crewkerne, Somerset, was employed as a carman for a building contractor. He lived at 2 Layham Cottage, Stockwell with his brother, John Crocker, 45, a labourer at a brewery, and his sister-in-law Annie Crocker, 46, also born in Crewkerne. The family lived in 4 rooms. The children of John and Annie Crocker were
Elise Annie Crocker, 13
Mabel Elizabeth Crocker, 12
Gladys Sarah Crocker, 11
Florence Crocker, registered on the 1901 census as 2 months old, does not appear on the 1911 census. The family were then living at 22 Carroun Road. All the children were born in Lambeth.