Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

Died

William Anthony Cox

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W. A. Cox
Service No. L/15560
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 12th Bn.
Died 26 September 1916, aged about 21
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Chris Burge writes:

William Anthony Cox was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland in 1895, the first child of James and Alice Cox. William’s father was a serving soldier and all four of their children were born in Ireland. In 1901 the family were living in married quarters at the Shorncliffe Army Camp in Kent.  

In the 1911 census, James and Alice lived with their three surviving children, William, Elena and Jim in Ramsgate on the coast. William was working as gardener; his father, an Army Pensioner, worked was a valet attendant. It is not known when the family came to the Stockwell area, but James Cox appeared on the electoral roll in 1915, living at 15 Portland Place South, South Lambeth.

William Cox’s service number indicates he volunteered in either late April or early May 1915.  Ready, or not, he was posted to the 1st Middlesex in France on 29 September, just five days after the 1st Middlesex had suffered terrible losses at the Battle of Loos.  Several quiet months followed and the  early part of 1916 was mostly spent in the Cuinchy sector.  William Cox’s transfer to the 12th Middlesex by September 1916 suggests he may have been wounded at some stage and did not return to his original battalion. The 12th Middlesex were among the forces that attacked Thiepval on 26 September, advancing uphill under a creeping barrage with the support of a single tank, first used by the British Army in battle 11 days earlier.  The majority of the 138 men killed that day are remembered on the Thiepval Memorial.  

William Anthony Cox was initially posted missing, leaving his family in an emotional limbo his death was presumed to have occurred on 26 September 1916.

James and Alice Cox remained at 15 Portland Place South until at least 1927.  

Victor Leslie Corben

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V. L. Corben
Second Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers
Secondary Regiment: Rifle Brigade, attd. 52nd Battalion
Died age 23 on 22 July 1918
Son of Fred and Esther Margaret Corben, of “Stonehaven”, 55 St Albans Avenue, Bournemouth. Born in London.
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London SW17

In July 1918 Victor Leslie Corben, a Second Lieutenant attached to the Rifle Brigade, was on leave in London when he started to suffer headaches and fever. He was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital (this building, now known as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, sits opposite Wandsworth Prison). A few days later, appendicitis was diagnosed and on 7 July he was operated on by an Army surgeon. He had further surgery to drain a pelvic abscess but died the next day at 10.40am.

Corben’s personal effects, a suitcase and a small parcel of personal property, were sent to his father, Fred Corben, a stone merchant of “Hillside”, 51 Union Road, Clapham.

The will was proved by his father, who undertook to settle any debts left by his son. “The loss of the boy is indeed a severe blow to us,” Fred wrote to Major Bright of the Rifle Brigade at Colchester in August, thanking him for his sympathy and for the settlement of Victor’s accounts.

However, when Fred applied to the Army for funds to cover his son’s funeral expenses, he was turned down. Your son died in England, of an illness not related to his service, they said. Fred was outraged, barely concealing his anger in a note written on 10 December 1918. For him, the appendicitis was clearly connected with the wounds Victor had sustained the previous year, and also with a bout of trench fever. “I was never consulted in reference to the operations which were performed on him at the hospital,” he complained. “[Yet] as soon as he had passed away in his country’s service I was called upon to pay for the coffin in which he was to be buried. … This seems to me a gross injustice.”  The Army was intransigent: “No grant for Army funds is admissable,” it stated.

Victor Corben was born in Clapham on 23 February 1895, and after boarding at Cranleigh School, Surrey, worked in mechanical engineering. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed just over 10 stone. The 1911 census shows the Corben family living in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther Margaret, 48, was from Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was “assisting in the business,” as was Leslie’s brother Frank H. Corben, 20. A servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, had been with the family for at least 10 years (she appears on both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). Later Fred and Esther moved to “Stonehaven,” 55 St. Albans Avenue, Bournemouth.

Information from the 1911 and 1901 censuses
In 1911 the Corben family lived in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was a stone merchant, born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther, 48, was born in Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was described as “assisting in the business”, as was Frank H. Corben, 20. Victor Leslie Corben, 16, meanwhile, was a pupil at Cranleigh School at Cranleigh, Surrey.

Victor is on the 1901 census as a six-year-old, although Florence is not. In 1901 there was a second son, Fred N. Corben, then aged three. He is not on the 1911 census, and may have died in the intervening years (the 1911 census shows that the Corbens had lost one child by that date). The household kept a live-in servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, who had been with them for at least 10 years (she appears on the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). In 1901 the family kept two servants, the other being Florence Dawson, aged 20, who was born in Battersea.

Albert Tom William Cook

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A. T. W. Cook
Service no. Z/447
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion
Died on 11 July 1916
Remembered at Lambeth (Tooting) Cemetery, London SW17

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

COOK, A. T. W., Rifleman, Rifle Brigade.
He volunteered in 1914 and was drafted to the Western Front the following year. During his service in France he fought at Ypres and was severely wounded in the Battle of the Somme. He was invalided home to hospital and subsequently succumbed to his injuries in July 1916. He was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
“Whilst we remember, the sacrifice is not in vain.”
23, Brooklands Road, South Lambeth, S.W.8.

Augustus Charles Cook

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A. C. Cook
Service no. G/1381
Private, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 2nd Battalion
Died age 41 on 10 July 1917
Son of Matthew John Cook, of Clapham, London, husband of Mary Ann Cook, of 11 Devonshire Square, Bromley, Kent.
Born in Clapham, enlisted in Bromley, lived in Bromley
Remembered at Basra War Cemetery, Iraq

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Augustus Charles Cook, then 34, lived with his wife, Mary Ann Cook, 29, and their five children in four rooms at 11 Devonshire Square, Bromley. He was born in Clapham and his father, Matthew John Cook, lived there. He enlisted in Bromley.