Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Chris Burge

Frederick Ward

by

F. Ward
Private, London Regiment, ‘B’ Coy. 2nd/19th Bn.
Service no. 614287
Died of wounds on 3 April 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza) and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick Ward was born in Lambeth and baptised on 20 May 1894 at St Andrew’s, Stockwell, when his parents Edwin and Agnes Ward (née Woolsey) were living at 19 Stockwell Green, and his father worked as a decorator. In the 1901 census Frederick was the third eldest of five siblings living with their parents in four rooms at 8 Clark’s Row (between Ingleton and Robsart Streets, near Brixton Road; Ingleton Street was demolished after 1945 becoming Ingleton Street Open Space, then renamed The Slade Garden in 1958 and is known today as Slade Gardens). His father Edwin was then employed as a ‘laundry carman’. Hardship followed when Edwin died in 1902, aged 46. The family suffered further loss in 1903 when Frederick’s younger brothers Ernest and Christopher died. 

When Frederick’s 51-year-old mother Agnes completed her 1911 census return, the household consisted of five other people: her children Agnes, 22, Edwin, 21, and Frederick , 16, and boarder Charles Ward, a widower aged 59. Agnes entered ‘no occupation’ for herself and Elsie, who was disabled. Edwin worked as a restaurant porter and Frederick as a milkman’s assistant. They lived in five rooms at 5 Ingleton Street, off Brixton Road.

Edwin was married with a young child when he volunteered in October 1915, serving as a motor driver in the Army Service Corps throughout the war. Frederick was conscripted late in 1916 and was first sent to Salonika, landing on 1 March 1917. Frederick spent three months there in miserable weather. Morale was low and the men were glad to leave in June 1917 when the battalion was moved to Egypt. The battalion took part in the campaign in Palestine in 1917 and 1918. They were present at the hugely symbolic capture and subsequent defence of Jerusalem in December 1917. ‘B’ company fought at ‘Talaat ed Dumm’ in February 1918. Late in March 1918 they were part of the forces that attacked Amman for the first time. Frederick Ward was wounded and evacuated to the 76th Casualty Clearing Station where he died on 3 April 1918. 

Frederick’s brother Edwin returned to his family at 15 Medwin Street in April 1919. Agnes and Elsie lived at 5 Ingleton St until his mother passed away in 1932, aged 73. Elsie later lived with Edwin’s family in Sevenoaks, Kent. 

Frederick James Edmund Spencer

by

F.J. Spencer
Second Lieutenant, Wiltshire Regiment
Died of influenza as a prisoner of war on 9 November 1918, aged 23
Remembered at Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel, Germany 

Chris Burge writes:

Frederick James Edmund Spencer was born on 25 September 1895 in the Manchester area (Date of birth as in CWGC records, alternatively 25 September 1896 as recorded in German POW records. No registration of birth found in the GRO index.)Frederick’s half-bother Reginald Spencer Wilson was born on 31 October 1900 in Pimlico, London, after Frederick’s mother Maud Spencer married William Wilson on 25 July 1899 at All Saints Church, Stretford, Lancashire. William was an Army tailor and Maud was described as a 27-year-old spinster at the time of her marriage, which was witnessed by her sister Adeline. Maud’s address was 22 Sydney Street and she had worked as a dressmaker before her marriage. Reginald Spencer Wilson was baptised on 27 November 1900 at St Saviour’s, St George’s Square, Pimlico, London, when William and Maud lived at 22 Aylesford Street. Their address was close to the Royal Army Clothing Depot in Pimlico.

In the 1901 census, William, Maude and baby Reginald were in Lancashire again, recorded as boarders at 20 Sydney Street, Stretford, next door to Maud’s widowed mother and siblings. William Wilson was now a lance corporal. Frederick Spencer did not appear in the 1901 census. 

Maud Spencer died on 15 December 1907, while her husband was based in Aldershot. William Wilson was married for a second time in 1908 to Margaret Elizabeth McPherson on 23 July at Holy Trinity, Vauxhall Bridge Road. Margaret gave her address as 3 Bessborough Place and William his as ‘Borden Camp Hants’. 

In the 1911 census, Sergeant William Wilson was a master tailor with the 2nd Battalion Devonshire Regiment at St George’s Barracks, Malta. His wife Margaret and their children were in the married quarters, along with Reginald Spencer Wilson. Frederick Spencer’s whereabouts in 1911 are unknown. 

William Wilson left the Army in 1912 on the termination of his second period of service, with the intention of returning to 3 Bessborough Place. He had been in Egypt before his final discharge in Jersey. He soon moved his family across Vauxhall Bridge to Lambeth and was in Kennington by 1913 and first appeared at 22 Guildford Street in 1915, an address close to St. Barnabas Church. It was in March 1915 that Frederick’s half-brother Reginald joined the Army as a boy solider and was with the 5 Coldstream Guards. Reginald was an office boy at the time of joining and gave 22 Guildford Street as his home address. The recurrence of a childhood ailment was not helped by an operation to drain an abscess on his right kidney and Reginald was discharged unfit on 29 December 1916.

Frederick Spencer volunteered at the end of 1915, or early January 1916, and served as Private F/2792 in the Middlesex Regiment (data from Medal Index card of Frederick James Edmund Spencer). His service number and first date of entry in France on 4 May 1916 indicate he served in the 23rd Battalion, nicknamed the 2nd Football Battalion, of the Middlesex Regiment. Frederick Spencer served for around a year on the Western Front before he was recommended for a commission. He was gazetted on 1 August 1917 as a temporary 2nd Lieutenant in the Wiltshire Regiment, the notice appearing in the 1 September 1917 issue of the London Gazette. 

F.J.E. Spencer was one of several junior officers who joined the 2nd Wiltshire at the Wytschaete Sector from the Rouen base in October 1917. The keeper of the battalion’s war diary noted on 6 October 1917 that: ‘2/Lts G.R Gosling, G.D. Chapman, C.D. Baker, G.M. Jeans and C. Hirschhorn joined from Rouen and posted to “C”, “B”, “D”, “A” and “D” Coys. respectively.

Frederick Spencer’s arrival was noted on the 10 October 1917: ‘2/Lt F.J.E. Spencer arrived from Rouen & posted to “B” Coy.’

Like Frederick, William Robert Gosling (MM) and Cecil Hirschhorn were commissioned from the ranks. All had been the afforded the status, privileges and responsibilities of officer gentlemen, literally on a temporary basis for the duration of the war. As far as the battalion’s war diary is concerned, 2/Lt F.J.E. Spencer remained an anonymous figure for many months until he was noted as being on leave on 16 March 1918, one of the last of his original group to be granted leave. A fact that saved his life, at least in the short term. 

The 2nd Wiltshire were holding a part of the front in the Savy area, south-west of St Quentin when they were in the path of the enemy’s spring offensive which broke on 21 March 1918. Subjected to an intense five-hour bombardment, they faced an infantry assault of overwhelming numbers and were forced to give ground over the coming days. They were not relieved until 1 April 1918, by which time the battalion had lost 23 officers either killed, wounded or missing. Of other ranks, four were killed, nine wounded and 597 were missing. The battalion had in many senses ceased to exist. 

Among the missing were Frederick’s fellow officers 2/Lts W. R. Gosling and C.D. Baker. It had been a fluid and chaotic period, but there was no indication when, or if, Frederick Spencer had rejoined, what remained of his battalion by April, or when they had moved north again in mid-April. A composite battalion was formed from what was left of the 2nd Wiltshires and 2nd Bedfordshire on 19 April 1918. Between 25 and 28 April this composite formation was heavily engaged in the area south of the Yser Canal near a feature called the ‘spoil bank’. According to the 2nd Bedfordshire war dairy, ‘Captain Smith (Wilts R.) and part of his company were captured on 26 April 1918’ after the enemy crossed the canal. It is possible 2/Lt. F. J. E. Spencer was taken prisoner here, but his name does not appear in either the 2nd Wiltshires or 2nd Bedfordshire official war diaries. It is only German records which show he was taken prisoner in the Wytschaete area on 25 April 1918. 

Frederick was held at the Offizierlager, Mainz, a camp housing up to 700 prisoners. His records gave his address as 22 Guildford Road and incorrectly referred to his father as W. Spencer. Frederick James Edmund Spencer died in the camp hospital on 9 November 1918 of ‘infolge lungenentzundung und grippe’– he had contracted influenza. A death certificate was issued at the Festungslazarette I.Mainz dated 11 November 1918, the date of the ceasefire, and a copy passed to the International Red Cross, stamped ‘Comminqué famille 29.11.18’. 

At the end of the war, the balance of Frederick James Edmund Spencer’s account and war gratuity, which amounted to £98 15s 1d, was paid to his only blood relative, his half-brother Reginald Spencer Wilson. A RNVR record dated April 1919 shows Reginald Wilson had been a ship’s steward and part of the Mercantile Marine Reserve when he volunteered to work on mine clearance for a period of six months. Reginald passed way in Essex in 1927, aged 27. 

When the Stockwell War memorial was unveiled in 1922, William Wilson and family were still living at 22 Guildford Road, which remained their home until at least 1939.

Harold Measday Snelling

by

H.M. Snelling
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), 1st/9th Bn.
Service no. 4746
Killed in action on 1 July 1916, aged XX
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France, at Sandwich War Memorial and on a now lost wooden war crucifix outside St Anne’s Church, South Lambeth Road

Cousin of Frederick William Snelling and William Thomas Snelling

Chris Burge writes:

Harold Measday Snelling was born in Ramsgate, Kent in 1898, the third child of Frederick and Ellen Sophia (née Rogers) Snelling. In the 1901 census, Frederick worked as a baker and confectioner from premises at 15 King Street in the centre of Ramsgate, two doors from the Prince Albert public house. Ellen’s younger sister Rose Rogers assisted with the business as did a journeyman baker and his sister. 

By 1911 the Snelling family had moved to the more genteel surroundings of the market town of Sandwich, where Frederick ran his bakery from 9 The Cattle Market, in the heart of of the town. Frederick and Ellen were now 43 and had been married 20 years. Frederick listed his three children (one had died) in age order on his 1911 census return: Winifred, 19; Frederick John, 16; Harold, 13. He added Annie Lilian Rogers, his wife’s younger sister, as a visitor. Ellen, Winifred and Frederick John all worked in the business. The family were the sole occupants of the five-room property. 

According to the 1911 census returns, Ellen managed to be in two places at once on census day. She also appeared as a visitor on the return of Frederick’s brother, Charles Henry Snelling, whose family were living at 154 Glengall Road, Peckham. Frederick William and William Thomas were two of Charles Henry Snelling’s six children.

Charles Henry Snelling and family moved to 260 South Lambeth Road around 1914 at which time Harold Snelling seemed to be living with his uncle and working in London. Harold was baptised as an adult at St Anne’s, South Lambeth, on 22 December 1914. His cousin Frederick William Snelling, a civil service clerk, had volunteered at the beginning of the war. Harold volunteered around May 1915 in Central London joining the Queen Victoria’s Rifles. He was drafted to the 1st/9th Battalion in France on 30 March 1916, joining the battalion in a group of 38 men. The QVR were out of the line for most of March, April and until they moved to Hebuterne, south of Gommecourt, at the end of May. They suffered numerous casualties in the front line until the final week of June when the QVR were digging service and assembly trenches in preparation for the beginning of the Somme offensive. On 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the QVR were part of the ill-fated diversionary attack at the northern extreme of the Somme sector at Gommecourt. The battalion suffered horrendous casualties in one day’s fighting. Among the officers six were killed, five were wounded and five missing; in other ranks 51 were killed, 290 wounded and 188 missing; a total of 16 officers and 529 men. Harold Measday Snelling, an acting corporal at the time, was posted missing on this day . 

An article appeared in the Deal, Walmer & Sandwich Mercury on 26 August 1916, entitled, ‘SANDWICH LAD MISSING’: 

‘The following appears in the “St Anne’s (South Lambeth) Parish Magazine’ for August regarding the youngest son of Mr. Frank Snelling, baker, of the Cattle Market, Sandwich, who was recently announced missing:- “News reaches us that Harold Snelling. A member of our choir and A.S.M of our scouts, has been posted missing since July 1. He was in the Queen Victoria Rifles somewhere in France. We fear there is not much hope of his having been saved. It is just possible that he may be a prisoner of war, but confess it is unlikely. We are very sorry, and yet not a little proud. He was one of those people who do not talk a lot, but put a lot of reality into anything they undertake. Not least did Harold count his faith in Jesus Christ, and so we confidently believe he is all right where-ever he is.’

In the course of time, Harold Measday Snelling was officially presumed to have died on, or since, 1 July 1916. His cousin Frederick William Snelling was killed on the Somme on 18 September 1916 and another cousin, William Thomas Snelling, was killed in 1917 during 3rd Ypres.

William Edward Smith

by

W.E. Smith
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 12th Bn.
Service no. S/2933
Killed in action on 25 September 1915, aged 18
Remembered at Ploegsteert Memorial, Hainaut, Belgium

Chris Burge writes:

William Edward Smith was born in Lambeth on 18 April 1897 and baptised on 16 May 1897 at St Saviour’s, St George’s Square, Pimlico. He was the first child of William Timothy, from Bethnal Green in east London, and Esther Annie Smith (née Butt) from Pimlico, on the north side of the Thames, who were married at St Mary the Less, Lambeth, in 1895. William Edward was born while his parents were living at 3 Hotspur Street, Kennington and William’s father worked as a ‘carman’. At the time of the 1901 census, the family were living in a five-storey tenement block at 279 Tooley Street, close to Tower Bridge and William’s father was working from home as a self-employed newsagent. 

The 1911 census shows how the family had grown since Edward was born. William Snr was now 38 and Esther, 33. In their 15 years of marriage eight children had been born with five surviving infancy: Edward, 13; Lilly, six; Sidney, three, Frederic, two; and Violet, three months. Esther’s widowed father John Butt was living with them, along with a niece Nellie Tilbrook, who may have been a visitor. William Snr was still working as a self-employed newsagent. Home for the Smith family was now 53 Lambeth Walk where they lived in five rooms as the sole occupants of the property. There were a further three more additions to the family: Ernest, born in 1912, Ivy (1914) and Winifred (1918).

At the outbreak of war William Edward Smith was 17 and the only child in the Smith family likely to play an active part in the conflict. A few damaged pages of his service papers have survived, smudged and barely legible in places but it is clear that he was caught up in the surge of volunteering in late August and early September 1914. He enlisted in London on 9 September, falsely claiming to be 19. At a little over 5ft 10in tall, weighing 8st 12lbs and with a 35in chest, he was not obviously underage. He was recruited to the Rifle Brigade as Rifleman S/2933 Smith, W.E. and initially posted to the newly formed 9th Battalion but was transferred on 1 October to the 12th Rifle Brigade who were at Blackdown near Aldershot, Hampshire. His conduct sheet shows him overstaying a pass at Blackdown and smoking on parade both there and when the battalion had moved to Grayshott by March 1915, and irregular conduct on parade in April at Larkhill. The long months of equipping and training the battalion came to an end when they embarked for France, sailing from Southampton on 21 July 1915 and landing at Le Havre on 22 July 1915. 

The battalion were first in trenches near Fleurbaix in early August and then Fauqissart on the Aubers Ridge. They worked on service and communications trenches in early September before returning to the front line trenches in the same area on 16 September. Orders were received on the 21st for an attack on enemy positions in conjunction with the Meerut Division, to take place on the 25th. The enemy were alerted by the explosion of a mine in their sector and an artillery bombardment. The attack was a costly failure with nearly all the officers either killed or wounded; of the other ranks, 43 were killed, 213 wounded and 76 missing, but believed killed. Rfm S/2933 Smith W.E. was originally listed in the battalion casualty returns as wounded on 25 September. This was revised on 19 November to killed in action on that day.

At the end of the war the Smith family were living at 16 Priory Place and it was William’s father who completed Army Form W5080 in order to receive his son’s medals, plaque and scroll. He listed the entire Smith family on the form, which was witnessed and countersigned at All Saints Church. 

Alfred Frank Smith

by

A.F. Smith
Sapper, Royal Engineers, 19th Light Railway Train Crew Coy.
Service no. 266259
Killed in action on 14 June 1917, aged 21
Remembered at St Quentin Cabaret Military Cemetery, Hainaut, Belgium

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Frank Smith was born in Lambeth on 5 January 1896 and baptised at All Saints Church in Devonshire Road (the area was redeveloped as the Lansdowne Green Estate). He was the second child of Frank and Kate Caroline Smith (née Farley), both of them originally from Andover in Hampshire. The Smiths were living at 8 Riverhall Street in South Lambeth at that time. Frank worked as a ‘horse keeper’ for the London & South Western Railway. By the time of the 1901 census, Alfred was the second of four children with an older sister and two younger brothers. The family were living in the four rooms of the property at 20 Fountain Street, near Wandsworth Road, along with Kate’s brother George Farley, another L&SWR horse keeper. 

By the time of the 1911 census Alfred was the second eldest of nine. His parents had been married 17 years, and all of their children were born in Lambeth. The family of 11 were now living in the four rooms of the property at 25 Bolney Street, off Dorset Road. Alfredt’s father still worked as a horse keeper for the L&SWR, Albert’s sister Elsie worked as domestic servant and Alfred worked as van guard for the L&SWR. 

There are no surviving records to date Alfred’s conscription into the Army. It could have been at any time between June 1916 and February 1917 when the Light Railway companies were formed at Longmoor Camp at Bordon in Hampshire. On the Western Front, the use of light railways to carry goods, men and ammunition as close to the front line as possible started in 1917. Experienced railwaymen were recruited for the ‘Railway Operation Division, Royal Engineers’. For example, sapper 218699 Edward Victor Harrington from Essex was a clerk on the Great Eastern Railway who was originally rated B1 when medically examined in September 1916. Harrington was not called up until 2 January 1917, when he joined at Longmoor. Men like Harrington and Alfred Smith did not receive infantry training and were sent to France within weeks of joining. Harrington was qualified as a shunter and, like Albert, served in the 19th Light Railway Train Crew Company, until he was killed in action on 28 March 1918 while attached to the Canadian Light Railway section. 

Alfred Frank Smith was killed in action in unknown circumstances on 14 June 1917. The only document that may contain further information is a summary diary of the ‘19th Light Railway Train Crew 16 Feb 1917 to 01 Sep 1917 Coy’ held at the Royal Engineers Museum library at Chatham, Kent.

Sydney (or Sidney) Herbert Rogers

by

S. Rogers
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 1st Bn.
Service no. G/43526.
Died on 23 October 1918, aged 32.
Remembered at Remembered at Vis-En-Artois Memorial, Pas de Calais, France

Chris Burge writes:

Sydney (aka Sidney) Herbert Rogers was born in Lambeth in 1886 and baptised at All Saints, South Lambeth on 24 October 1886. His parents, William and Mary Rogers, were living at 5 Gladstone Street, off Wyvil Road, in Stockwell, at the time and his father worked as a porter for the London & South Western Railway, which employed many of Gladstone Street’s inhabitants. 

The 1891 census shows Sydney was the second youngest of six siblings and the Rogers family lived in four rooms at the Gladstone Street property, which was shared with a family of three in two other rooms. The Rogers family were still living at the same address ten years later when Sydney’s father was 56 and his mother 51. Sydney worked as a printer’s messenger, his older sister Alice as a domestic servant and his younger brother Tom was still at school. Sydney’s widowed grandmother Mary lived with them.

Sydney’s mother died in 1911, leaving just his sister Alice and brother Tom living with their father at Gladstone Street. William Rogers was still working as a railway porter for the L&SWR and Alice, 26, was looking after the family. Tom, 21, was now an engine stoker for the L&SWR. The property also housed another railway porter’s family with three young children, living in two rooms. 

In 1911, Sydney was one of Alice Swan’s three boarders at 72 Fulwell Road in Teddington, Middlesex. All three boarders worked as railway engine stokers for the L&SWR which had a locomotive shed at Fulwell Junction. 

Sydney Herbert Rogers was conscripted in around March 1916. (Estimated from the £12 War Gratuity paid to William Rogers as recorded in the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects.) He first served in the 1/7th Battalion, a Territorial Force unit, as private 6064 Rogers, but there are no surviving records to say exactly when and where he was transferred to the 1st Middlesex, and was renumbered. (The pages of Middlesex Regiment Medal Roll show a number of men transferred from the 1/7th to the 1st Middlesex in the service number range G/43440-G/43720, with the first casualty in this range on 16 January 1917.) Sydney Herbert Rogers’ service in the 1st Middlesex probably dates from the beginning of 1917. Their main actions in 1917 and 1918 are listed here.

Sydney was killed in action during the final advance in Picardy when the end of the war was in sight. His 74-year-old father William was the sole beneficiary of Sydney’s will which amounted to £133 2s 1d when probate was granted on 8 January 1919. 

Alice married George Griffin in 1917 and by 1925 the couple had moved to 5 Gladstone Street to be with William, who died in 1926, aged 81. They were still in residence when the street was renamed Trenchold Street in the 1930s (it was redeveloped in 1948; its one remaining landmark is the Builders Arms pub).