Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Belgium

Alfred Herbert Watts

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A. H. Watts
Service no. 44390
Rifleman, Royal Irish Rifles, 15th Battalion; formerly London Regiment
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Lambeth
Killed in action on 14 October 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Mrs S. J. Watts, of 28 Rosetta Street, South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Heuvelland, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Watts’s name is included in Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914–1918. 

Information from the censuses

Alfred Herbert Watts, a 13-year-old schoolboy in 1911, also found work as a milkboy. He lived at 28 Rosetta Street,  South Lambeth, where his family had five rooms. Alfred’s father, George Henry Watts, 49, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire was a carman, working for the London & South West Railway. His mother, Sarah Jane Watts (née Doel), 46, was from Yarnbrook, Wiltshire. They had two other children: Water Henry Watts, 22, a packer in a tea warehouse, and Elsie May Watts, 17, a dressmaker.  Daisy Laura Neale, 9, a niece from Heywood, Wiltshire, lived with the family, as did Albert Taylor, a 35-year-old single boarder, whose occupation is unrecorded.

Arthur Spurgeon Waterman

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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.

George William Wakelin

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G. W. Wakelin
Service no. G/11762
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 10th Battalion
Born in Clerkenwell; enlisted in Chelsea; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action on 27 July 1916, aged 29
CWGC: “Son of George Fordham Wakelin and Alice Ann Wakelin, of Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at London Rifle Brigade Cemetery, Comines-Warneton, Hainaut, Belgium

Information from the censuses

George William Wakelin, 24, lived at 40 Sidney Road, Stockwell, where he shared seven rooms with his parents George Wakelin, 70, a rent collector from Hanover Street, London, and Alice Ann Wakelin (née Barnes), 51, from Leckhampton, Gloucestershire, and two siblings: James Wakelin, 22, a commercial clerk for Army & Navy Stores and Catherine Wakelin, 21, a telephone operator.

George Edwards Verney

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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.

Herbert George Underwood

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H. G. Underwood
Service no. A/200471
Rifleman, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 10th Battalion
Enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 10 August 1917, aged about 34
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911, Herbert George Underwood, a motor cab washer, was 28 and living with his widowed mother and siblings in four rooms at 4 Dorset Road. His mother, Anne Underwood, 69, was from Northamptonshire. She had had 9 children, six surviving. Herbert’s brother Albert George Underwood, 26, was a brass trimmer in a foundry, and his sister Rose Underwood, 30, was a domestic servant born in Shoreditch, east London. Dressmaker Edith Murray, 21, a niece to Herbert and his siblings, lived with the family.

George Charles Toze

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G. C. Toze
Service no. 9451
Serjeant, King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), 1st Battalion
Born in Kennington
Died on 24 May 1915, aged 27
CWGC: “Son of John and Nellie Toze, of 11 Stockwell Green, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres, Belgium

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 George Charles Toze, aged 21, was registered as a Lance Corporal in the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), at the Clarence Barracks, at Spithead Forts, Portsmouth, Hampshire. He was born in Kennington. He was born in Kennington and baptised at St Peter’s, Vauxhall on 5 February 1890, the son of John Toze, a harness maker, and Ellen (known as Nellie) (née Fisher), from Bampton, Devon. The family lived at 236 Upper Kennington Lane. 

Meanwhile, at 11 Stockwell Green, his widowed mother (John Toze died in 1907), Nellie Toze, 43, a housekeeper from Bampton, Devon, shared her two-roomed home with two sons, Cyril Stanley Toze, 19,  an unemployed labourer, and Frank Albert Edgar Toze, 16, an errand boy, and a boarder: Arthur Miles, 43, a married brewer’s labourer from Watford. Hertfordshire. Nellie had had 10 children; only four survived. George’s father John Toze is on the 1901 census.