Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Belgium

Ernest Frank Whiting

by

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.

Henry Ingham White

by

H. I. White
Service no. 550898
Rifleman, London Regiment, 12th Bn (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)
Died 15 August 1917, aged about 30
Remembered Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belguim
Son of William George and Emma White, of 11, Stirling Rd., Stockwell, London.

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Henry Ingham White was born in 1887, the youngest of William George and Emma White’s two sons. He was baptised on 20 July 1887 at St Barnabas, Pimlico, where William and Emma had been married seven years before. The family lived at 3 Union Street, Pimlico Bridge. Henry’s father worked as a ‘shopman’.  Within a decade the White family had moved to 11 Stirling Street, off Clapham Road. Young Henry was still at school, this brother William John, then aged 17, assisted their father who managed a trunk shop.

In the 1911 census, the four members of the White family were living in relative comfort as occupants of the seven-room property at 11 Stirling Street. The census revealed that only two of William and Emma’s six children had survived into adulthood. William John, then 28, and Henry, then 22, were part of the family business. Henry’s father was the manager of a trunk and bag manufacturer, his brother William John was the secretary, while Henry was a ‘fancy leather worker’. The location of their premises and full extent of their business is not known.

The key surviving document in understanding the war service of Henry Ingham White is his entry in the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects. A low service number of 3308 was added beneath the 550898 number and his war gratuity amounted to £13. The 3308 service number may not appear on Henry’s medal records, but the Soldiers’ Effects information indicates someone who joined in 1914.

When Henry Ingham White decided to volunteer, his links with Pimlico drew him to 58 Buckingham Gate, Westminster, home of the Queen’s Westminster Rifles, the 16th Battalion County of London Regiment. The QWR had departed for France on 1 November 1914 and were recruiting for their reserve. Perhaps Henry met Frederick Watson Haggett from Clapham as he stood in line on 7 November 1914. New recruits were posted to the battalion’s 2nd or 3rd reserve for training. Henry White became private 3308, and Frederick Haggett private 3309. Frederick Haggett and men with similar numbers were drafted in France at the end of June 1916, soon to be on the Somme. It is possible Henry was held in England for other duties. It is certain that Henry was in France by 19 April 1917, a replacement for men lost in the Arras offensive.

The QWR were in action in July and August 1917 near Ypres in what is commonly known as Passchendaele. Henry was wounded on, or shortly before, 15 August after trenches held by the QWR were heavily shelled. He was evacuated to the 3rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station at Remy sidings, some five miles behind front lines. Hundreds of casualties passed through the Station between 14-16 August. Henry Ingham White was one of the five deaths noted on the 15 August 1917.

It was a bitter blow for Henry’s father who had lost both his wife Emma and sister Caroline in 1916. William George White passed away in 1924, aged 65. An image of Henry’s CWGC headstone and the White family grave may be found here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10778460/henry-ingham-white.

Thomas Frederick Wellington

by

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.

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.”

Gilbert Roland Webb

by

G.R. Webb
Service No. 5768
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery, 45th Bty
Died on 6 April 1916
Remembered at Dickebusch New Military Cemetery, Belgium

Chris Burge writes:

Gilbert Roland Webb was born in Bristol in 1893, the first child of Francis James and Emily Charlotte Webb. Gilbert was baptised on 1 March 1893 at St Clement’s Church, Bristol. By the time of the 1901 census, Gilbert the was oldest of four siblings. His father worked on print machines. By the time of the 1911 census, Francis James Webb had brought his family to London and was living in Lambeth. When Gilbert’s father completed his census return, the household consisted of Francis James Webb, 44 ; Emily Charlotte Webb, 41; Frederick George Webb, 17; William Edward Webb, 15; Lilian Emily Webb, 13; Frances May Webb, 11; Arthur Frank Webb, 8; Albert Joseph Webb, 6; Ernest James Webb, 4; Thomas John Webb, 2; and baby Emily Charlotte Webb, 1. In 25 years of marriage, Gilbert’s mother had borne 15 children, with 10 surviving infancy. The family of 11 were living in six rooms at 3 Wheatsheaf Lane, a subdivided property housing 11 other people at 3a Wheatsheaf Lane, close to the Mission Hall, the Wheatsheaf Public House and Wyvil School.

Gilbert was not in Lambeth in 1911 as he was by now a serving soldier, a gunner in the 133rd Battery of the Royal Field Artillery, counted on census day as in barracks at Ewshot near Farnham, Hampshire. Mobilised at the beginning of the war, Gunner Webb was part of the 45th Battery of the 42nd Brigade RFA attached to the 3rd Division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) which landed in France on 18 August 1914. Gilbert Webb’s battery supported all the 3rd Division’s actions in 1914, at Mons, on the Marne and on the Aisne and was present in the Ypres salient in 1915. In late March and early April 1916 the six 18-pounder guns of Gilbert Webb’s battery fired in support of operations at the St Eloi Craters, a nasty place, three miles south of Ypres where there had been much mining and counter-mining activity. The explosion of three large mines by the British on 27 March led to a gruesome struggle for control of the craters. The 42nd Brigade had fired 11,063 rounds in the week prior to 2 April. As the British barrage continued, the batteries near the Dickebusch Road and Lake were badly hit by counter-battery fire, including gas shells, on 6 April 1916. Gunner Gilbert Webb died of his wounds on this day.

Members of the the Webb family were living at 2 Horace Street, off Wilcox Road at the end of the war and up to 1925. Gilbert’s mother had died at the beginning of 1914 in Kent, aged 43. Gilbert’s father Francis James Webb passed away in Lambeth in 1934, aged 67.

George Joseph Watts

by

G. J. Watts
Service no. S/1117
Private, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 1st Battalion
Born in Westminster; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 23 April 1915, aged 34
CWGC: “Husband of Elizabeth J. Watts, of 75 Thorparch Road [this is an error, it is 95 Thorparch Road], Wandsworth Road, Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

When Watts, who was born in Westminster in 1881, attested on 12 October 1914, aged 34, he was working as an outside porter. He declared that he had  previously served in the 2nd battalion of the Royal West Kents, and was discharged in 1905 at the end of his term. He was 5ft 5in, just under 8½st with a 36½in chest. He had blue eyes, dark brown hair and a fresh complexion, with ‘profuse’ tattooing on both forearms and calves. His physical development was judged to be ‘Good’. He joined his battalion on 4 January 1915, was appointed  unpaid lance coproral on 12 February and and was posted missing  on 23 April. He had served a total of 194 days. His widow Elizabeth was left to bring up three children, Rose Elizabeth (born 1906), Lilian Maud (1909) and Violet May (1911).