Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Belgium

William Charles Ray

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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.

George Frederick Warwick

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George Frederick Warwick

George Frederick Warwick
Corporal, Service No. 30468, formerly 77895 (Royal Engineers)
Killed in action on 5 October 1917, aged 23
1st Bn., Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Belgium

A substantial number of men from the Stockwell area were not listed on the Memorial. The Stockwell War Memorial committee invited families to submit names. Some may not have wanted their sons’ names to appear on it; others may have moved away and not been aware that the opportunity existed; others still had resided outside the official boundary of a half-mile radius from the building. It is clear that some families came forward after the unveiling of the monument: a few names were added, out of alphabetical order, on the final panel.

George Frederick Warwick is not listed on Stockwell War Memorial, despite the fact that his family home at 180 Stockwell Road was within half a mile of the memorial site. We do not know the reason for his omission. His name has not been discovered on any of the other local surviving memorials.

After he enlisted in the Royal Engineers in Lambeth in 1915, George served as a Dispatch Rider in various locations around Arras, in the region of Artois, northern France. In March 1917 he was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and took part in the Battle of Arras (First and Third Battle of Scarpe), after which his regiment was kept on the front line to consolidate the system of trenches dug on the ground retaken during the battle.

On 30 September George left for Ypres and was killed in action just over two weeks later at the Battle of Broodseinde, at 19 Meter Hill.

While he was serving he fell in love with a young French woman, Georgette Béthencourt, who gave birth to his daughter, Marie, on 26 August 1917. He was able to hold his child in his arms only twice before leaving for Ypres.

George, who was born in the parish of St Martin in the Fields, Westminster in 1896, was the eldest of seven children of George Edward Warwick, a Covent Garden master porter, and Julia Catherine Williams. In the 1911 census the Warwick family was recorded as living at 180 Stockwell Road, with a female servant and a male boarder. When George’s daughter was 11, her George Edward, her grandfather, sent her George’s medals (see letter below).

Information and all photos by kind permission of George’s grandson-in-law Pierre Rouvillois, and Elisabeth Rouvillois.

Stanley Frank Willis

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S. F. Willis
Service no. 415208
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), 1st/9th Battalion; formerly 7927, 7th London Regiment
Born in Clapham; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Stockwell
Died on 13 August 1917
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

William John Williams

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Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart (who comments: "The photograph is rather blurry as it is right at the top of the column")
Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart, who comments: “The photograph is rather blurry as it is right at the top of the column”

W. J. Williams
Service no. R/19181
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, “D” Coy. 11th Bn.
Born in Vauxhall; enlisted in Piccadilly, central London; lived in Lambeth
Died on 8 August 1917, aged 30
CWGC: “Son of James and Henrietta Williams, of 36 Kenchester Street, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Reuben Edward Wild

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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

Claude Lionel Whittingham

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Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart
Panel at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial showing Claude Lionel Whittingham’s name. Photo © Marietta Crichton Stuart

C. L. Whittingham
Service no. 269729
Private, Hertfordshire Regiment; formerly 3122, Essex Regiment
Born in Southwark; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 31 July 1917, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of John B. and Alice Louisa Whittingham, of 28 Angell Road, Stockwell, London. Also served at Gallipoli.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Brother of Horace John Baker Whittingham

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

Claude Lionel Whittingham joined the Army as a Private on 10 December 1914. He was attached to the 1st London General Hospital of the Royal Army Medical Corps (the military extension of St. Batholomew’s Hospital). The hospital was stationed at St. Gabriel’s College (photo) on Cormont Road, Camberwell (a requisitioned residential training college for women teachers). The whole of Myatts Fields Park itself was closed to the public until 1921 due to its use as a hospital.

By September 1915 Whittingham was serving on the H.M.H.S “Aquitania,” converted in the previous month to a hospital ship (she started life as a luxury liner, was requisitioned as first a Royal Navy ship, and then became a troop ship). With 4,182 beds the “Aquitania” was the largest of 71 hospital ships used during the First World War. Whittingham served as an orderly on the ship until March 1916, when he joined the war effort in Gallipoli, the scene of Winston Churchill’s doomed attempt to open up a new front in order to confuse and exhaust the enemy. We do not know what Whittingham’s role was in this theatre of war but it is likely that he continued to serve in some capacity on the “Aquitania”. He returned to England on 7 May 1916.

On 19 July 1916, while based at Home, Whittingham requested a transfer to the 3/5th London F.A. Brigade “for the purpose of serving abroad”. It is not clear from the records what happened to this request. In any event, Whittingham was transferred first to the Essex Regiment and, on 9 September, to the Hertfordshires. He was posted to France on 4 November and missing in action on 31 July 1917. Later he was presumed dead.

In civilian life Claude Lionel Whittingham was a grocer’s clerk. When he joined up he was described as 5 feet 6 inches, 9 stone, with a 33 inch chest that he could expand by 2half inches, a fair complexion, with grey eyes and “reddish” hair. By the time he  transferred to the Hertfordshires he had grown three inches in height and in chest measurement. His military character was described as “very good”.

After he died, Whittingham’s mother wrote to the Records officer at the Hertfordshire Regiment to query why her son’s RAMC rather than his Hertfordshire service number was set on the medals. The polite but clipped reply was that the number used is the number “your gallant son” held on first disembarkation in a theatre of war.

Information from the censuses

Claude Whittingham was a 13-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived with his parents and siblings at 28 Angell Road, Brixton where his father, Manchester-born John Whittingham, 48, was an apartment house keeper. His mother Alice Whittingham 48, was from Bermondsey. There were five siblings: Horace Whittingham, 17, a junior commercial clerk; Ivor Whittingham 15, a cashier; Claude; Rhoda Whittingham 11; Alfred Whittingham, 5. Claude and his younger siblings were born in Newington. There were six boarders, including a producer of plays from Dublin and a pair of music hall  artists. Ten years previously, the Whittingham family lived at 63 and 64 Delaune Street, Newington. John Whittingham was described as a “cab proprietor”.