Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Died

John Frederick King

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J. F. King

Service no. 231178
Private, London Regiment, 2nd Bn. (Royal Fusiliers)
Died 21 March 1918, aged 39
Remembered at Chauny Communal Cemetery British Extension, Aisne, France

John Frederick King, a carman, joined the Army twice. First he volunteered for the Army Service Corps (Horse Transport) on 5 January 1915. His medical description paints a picture of someone short and stocky: 5 feet 2¼ inches tall with a 40-inch chest. He had a mole on the back of his neck and scars on the left side of his back and left leg. At the top of his form he has signed a note: “I am willing to allot from date of enlistment 6d. [sixpence] per day of my pay to support my wife and family.” He had left behind Jenny (née Hawkins), Frederick Ernest, 9, and Agnes Louise, 8.

This period of service lasted a mere three days. On 7 January he was discharged as “not likely to become an efficient soldier.” As the war progressed, however, this opinion may have been revised or King may have been subject to the compulsory draft. Whatever happened, he later joined the London Regiment and died near Aisne in March 1918.

John Thomas Wotton

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J. T. Wotton
Service no. 13413
Corporal, East Surrey Regiment, 13th Battalion
Died on 6 March 1917, aged 29
CWGC: “Husband of A. L. Wotton, of 65, Cottage Grove, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Abbeville Community Cemetery Extension, France

Wotton was born in Herne Bay, Kent, the son of Thomas Wotton, a carriage painter from Birchington, Kent, and Mary Ann (née Mount), from Herne Bay. By 1901 the family had moved to 187 Wirtemberg Street, Clapham and John’s father was working as a railway guard. Two siblings had joined John and the household included two boarders.

In 1911 John Thomas Wotton, then 22, was working as a potman and barman at the Wirtemberg Arms at 165 Wirtemberg Street, Clapham. He lived above the premises with the licensee and three other staff. The street was renamed Stonhouse Street in 1919 — and the pub has likewise been renamed The Stonhouse. His parents had moved to Tennyson Street, Battersea.

 In 1913, aged 24, when Wotton married Annie Lillian Ellis, 26, at St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, he gave his address as 65 Cottage Grove, Stockwell. The couple had two children: Howard John Wotton (born 1914) and Iris Constance Wotton (born 1915). Annie died in 1975, aged 88.

Arthur Worby

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A. Worby
Service no. G/61093
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
Died on 16 November 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of John and Mary Ann Worby, of 76 Crimsworth Road, Wandsworth, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Worby, 12 in 1911, lived at 76 Crimsworth Road, South Lambeth. His father widower John Worby, 53, was an Army pensioner from Cambridge. There were five siblings on the census return – their places of birth reflecting their father’s Army career. Emma Worby, 24, was born in Chatham, Kent; Jessie Worby, 20, a laundress, was born in Port Royal, Jamaica; John Worby, 15, an errand boy, was born in Dublin; Frank William Worby, 16, an errand boy, was born in Middlesbrough; Arthur Worby, 12, was born in South Lambeth. Arthur’s nephew, Arthur Worby Gridner, 1, lived with the family.

Information from Howard Anderson, great-nephew

“Arthur Worby came from a military family, his father John Worby was career soldier, leaving the Royal Engineers as a Quarter Master Serjeant (the old spelling) after 21 years service. Arthur was one of 11 children, most born in barracks around the world, one was my grandmother Jessie, born on a troop ship in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Arthur Worby’s sister Jessie married Albert Allen (a common Stockwell name) who was an Old Contemptible who survived the war. In the 1st Middlesex Regiment, he was Mentioned in Despatches 3 times for staying behind with the wounded. His son Ted repeated that at Arnhem in 1944, being awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross for gallantry, for staying with the wounded when the Germans overran the town.”

Arthur Worby was brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley, who married his sister Ethel Maude Worby.
Visit 1stmiddlesex.com for more information.

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

Alfred Willis

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A. Willis
Lance Corporal, Royal Engineers, 39th Coy. AA Section.
Service no. 563845
Died on 7 March 1919, aged 21.
Remembered at Cologne Southern Cemetery, Germany

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Willis was born in Clapham in 1897 to Arthur and Ellen Mary Willis who had married in 1894. Both of Alfred parents were from Kent. Arthur was listed on the 1897 Electoral Roll at 4 Larkhall Lane, Stockwell. In the 1901 census, the family of three were living a 2 Larkhall Lane and Arthur was working as a hay and straw salesman. Alfred’s younger sister Marion Edith Willis was born in 1902.

By the time of the 1911 census the Willis household had moved to 267 South Lambeth Road, situated just beyond the Stockwell Terrace, and consisted of Arthur, 43; Ellen Mary, 42; Alfred, 13; Marion Edith, nine; and Ellen Laura Dowell, 37, Arthur’s cousin by marriage. One of Arthur and Ellen’s babies had died in infancy. Arthur still made his income as a salesman of hay and straw. The family lived in some comfort in a two-storey house with seven rooms and a basement.  

Alfred Willis was conscripted around May 1916, a date estimated from the war gratuity paid to his father in 1919. Alfred joined a Territorial Force unit of the Royal Engineers as denoted by his original army service number T/2833. His service papers have not survived but the papers of Sapper 563844 (T/2384) V.H. Prodham provide a guide. Prodham, a clerk from Ealing, worked for the Gas, Light & Coke Company in Horseferry Road, Westminster and was conscripted into the ‘London Electrical Engineers’, his service reckoned from 8 May 1915. At the outbreak of the war the London Electrical Engineers, who specialised on searchlights, were based at 46 Regency Street, Westminster, on the north side of the Vauxhall Bridge. London experienced its first Zeppelin raids on 31 May/1 June 1915 and a double ring of searchlights and anti-aircraft guns was established around London in 1916. Zeppelin raids continued into 1916 with bombs dropping on Brixton and elsewhere in South London. Gotha bombers began raids in May 1917. Between June 1917 and May 1918 they made about 17 attacks on London. 

There is some ambiguity in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records as to which AA company Alfred served in and whether Alfred was deployed in England or France before the 1918 Armistice. Both the 39th Coy. AA Sect. and 3/Coy AA Sect. are mentioned in CWGC documents; they had both operated in France from 1916. There was also a no.39 AA Company based at Bower’s Gifford on the Isle of Sheppey operating six three-inch 20-hundredweight guns plus eight searchlights, as part of the Thames and Medway AA Defence Command. Commonwealth forces entered Cologne on 6 December 1918, less than a month after the Armistice, and the city was occupied under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles until January 1926. Alfred’s death was not combat-related and he may have passed away during the third wave of influenza pandemic in 1919 while serving in the army of occupation.

Alfred’s parents remained at 267 South Lambeth Road with Ellen Laura Powell until about 1930.

Stanley Herbert Williamson

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S. H. Williamson
Service no. TF/265478
Private, Royal Sussex Regiment, 2nd/6th battalion
Died 29 August 1917, aged 21
Remembered at Rawalpindi War Cemetery, Pakistan

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Stanley Herbert Williamson was born on 5 January 1896, the sixth child of George and Matilda Williamson. Stanley was baptised at St.Gabriels, Pimlico, on 4 March 1896 when the family lived at 7 Clarendon Street and Stanley’s father worked as a dairyman. By 1901, the Williamsons had moved nearer to Westminster and the family had grown by one.

In the 1911 census the family had moved south of the river, living at 105 Kennington Road, Southwark. Stanley and five of his siblings lived with their parents, occupying eight rooms. Stanley’s father was now a wharfman. Stanley, then 15, was a ‘forwarder’ (he undertook the processes following sewing and including covering) and older brother Walter a ‘finisher’ in the bookbinding trade.

Stanley volunteered in the first days of November 1914, travelling to Brighton to join a newly formed cyclist battalion, the 2nd/6th battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. His original service number was 920. The battalion had converted to infantry by November 1915 and on 4 February 1916 sailed from Devonport to India. Stanley’s death in 1917 was not combat related.

He had nominated his father as next of kin and sole legatee. George Williamson received his son’s war gratuity and medals in 1919 and 1920. Stanley’s parents lived at 4 St Martin’s Road, close to the site of the Stockwell Memorial, for around a decade after the Great War.