Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

DOW

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.

Arthur Webb

by

A. Webb
Service no. 651657
Serjeant, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), 21st Battalion
Died of wounds on 31 August 1918, aged 35
CWGC: “Son of James and Mary Jane Webb, of 22, Kendoa Rd., Clapham, London. Native of Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France and St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, London SW9

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

The Army was evidently impressed by draper Arthur Webb. Shortly after he presented himself at the London Regiment’s Camberwell recruiting office in June 1915 he started on a trajectory through the ranks. Exactly a month later, he was appointed paid Lance Corporal. By the end of July he was Corporal, by October Lance Serjeant, and before he was posted to France he was Acting Serjeant. By January 1917 he was Serjeant.

Webb’s conduct was excellent – but not perfect. There was one black mark against his name: for being late for company parade some time in May 1917, for which he was reprimanded.

It was all over on 31 August 1918, when Webb died of a gunshot wound to the neck, “penetrating the spine” as noted in his file.

What else do we know about Webb? Physically, he was short (or rather, not tall) and not well built. He stood 5 feet 4½inches, with a 36½ inch chest (plus 2½ inches). He weighed 8 stone 10 pounds. He left a collection of effects, all forwarded to his mother, including the usual photos, letters, discs, pipe and notebook, but also two pairs of glasses, a watch and chain and, a small surprise,  a rosary in a tin box. We have plenty of evidence that Webb was an Anglican: his documents state it clearly, he is remembered on the memorial plaque at St Andrew’s, Landor Road and he lived in a Church institute with his mother, he may nevertheless have been “High Church” enough to find comfort in the use of a rosary. Or it may have merely been his good luck charm in a world in which every iota of luck was worth keeping beside you.

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Webb, 27 in 1911, worked as a commercial clerk. One of six children, he lived with three siblings, two boarders and his widowed mother, Mary Jane Webb, 51, the caretaker at 57 Stockwell Road, a “preventive home” for girls, dedicated to training girls for domestic service. The property had 14 rooms, most probably not for habitation. The siblings were Henry James Webb, 30, an insurance clerk; Florence Webb, 23, no occupation; Alfred Webb, 21, an insurance clerk. The two boarders were Church of England ministers: John Smith, 24, single, from Hackney, and Harry Thomas James, 25, from Penarth in Glamorgan.

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. 

John Frederick Wake

by

J. F. Wake
Service no. 75115
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 10th Battalion; formerly 42273, 99th Training Reserve Battalion
Born in Battersea; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in South Lambeth
Died of wounds on 18 May 1918, aged 19
Remembered at St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France

Information from the 1911 census

John Frederick Wake was a 12-year-old schoolboy in 1911. He lived with his family at 25 Bognor Street, Battersea (this street has now disappeared but was once in a tight knot of streets off Thessaly Road). John’s father James Stowe Wake, 43, was a painter’s labourer born in Westminster; his mother Elizabeth Wake (née James), 39, was born in Lambeth. John had five siblings (two had died): Sydney Albert Wake, 14, a messenger boy; James Stowe Wake, 9; Ivy Kathleen Wake, 6; Daisy Isabell Wake, 6; George Edward Wake, 1.

Frederick Tomlin

by

F. Tomlin
Corporal, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 108th Coy., Service no. 42235; formerly 4151, London Regiment.
Died of wounds on 24 March 1918, aged 38.
CWGC: “Son of John and Emma Tomlin; husband of Ethel Tomlin, of 98, Dalyell Rd., Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Noyon New British Cemetery, Oise, France.

Frederick Tomlin, a married salesman originally from Tring, Hertfordshire, lived at 98 Dalyell Road, Brixton, and enlisted in May 1916. Tomlin’s physical development was described as “good” by the examining officer: he was 5 feet 2 inches tall, had a 36-inch chest and weighed 10 stone. He sustained a gunshot wound to his back on 23 March 1918 and died of his wounds. He was the father of five children.

John Tanner

by

J. Tanner
Company Serjeant Major, East Surrey Regiment, 9th Bn.
Service no. 187 (previously 4056)
Died of wounds on 6 August 1917, aged about 41
Remembered Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium and at the London & South Western Railway Roll of Honour, Waterloo Station, London

Chris Burge writes:

John Tanner was born in 1876 and baptised at St Barnabas, South Lambeth on 16 June, the fourth child of house painter William Tanner and Jane Lightfoot who lived at 7 Wellington Terrace, Horace Street (now renamed Luscombe Street). 

John spent all his early life in Lambeth. By 1891, then aged 15, he worked as a cabinet-maker and lived with his parents and six of his 10 siblings at 13 Horace Street. Plans from 1889 to rename and renumber part of Horace Street show the Tanner family’s home to be close to the premises of George Boxall & Co. Ltd and the working man’s refuge, the Surrey Arms public house on the corner of Wilcox Road.

On 13 February 1893, John joined the East Surrey Regiment at Kingston, Surrey. His Army career spanned over 12 years and included two years in Malta and nine years in India. He had extended his service twice while in India and by 1901 was promoted to full Corporal. John reluctantly left the Army at the termination of his period of service on 17 March 1905. 

In 1900, while he was in India, John learnt of the death of his father William. His mother Jane was obliged to earn money as a laundress and his married sister Mary Peagam and her husband Frederick, a railway carman, shared her Horace Street home. Following Frederick’s example John began work as a railway goods porter for the London & South Western Railway at the nearby Nine Elms complex. In 1906, John married 23-year-old Ellen Dunn, but he was widowed within a year. On 5 April 1908 he married Ellen May Taylor at St Stephen’s, South Lambeth. 

In the 1911 census, John and Ellen were living in three rooms at 57 Dashwood Road in Battersea with their two infant children, Ellen, aged two, and William, one. The property was also home to a family of four living in four rooms. Ellen was pregnant with their third child and John was still working as a railway goods porter. Lucy was born in May 1911, followed by Alice in August 1912 and Winifred in April 1914. By the outbreak of the war, John and family were living in a ‘two up, two down’ property at 11 Ely Place, off the Dorset Road in Stockwell. 

At the outbreak of war John Tanner put aside family responsibilities and on 20 August 1914, aged 40, volunteered to rejoin his old regiment. As an former NCO he was welcomed back. His medical was a formality – he was recorded as 5ft 4in tall and weighing 135lbs with a chest size of 37in. He was initially posted to the 3rd reserve battalion based at the Grand Shaft Barracks  in Dover, with service number 187. His soldierly qualities were soon recognised and by November 1914 he was promoted to Company Serjeant Major, WO Class 2. 

John was part of the effort to train the recruits of Kitchener’s New Army, an all-volunteer (at least initially) portion of the British Army. Only burnt fragments of his service papers have survived but his movements over the following 16 months between Dover, Purfleet, Shoreham and back to Dover indicate he was working with the 10th reserve battalion. When he was sent to France in April 1916, he joined the 9th East Surrey, who were manning trenches near Wulverghem, south of Ypres. The enemy was very active in April and May and casualties were sustained on an almost daily basis until the 9th East Surrey moved south in July and were on the Somme by early August. 

An attack on an enemy strongpoint near Guillemont on 16 August lacked effective artillery support and was repulsed with heavy losses. The battalion was to move to new positions on 21 August and while going forward John Tanner was with two ‘D’ company officers when the group was hit by shell-fire. The acting Company Commanding Officer and Second Lieutenant G.C. Rivers was killed, Second Lieutenant G. Lillywhite was wounded and John Tanner was wounded in the neck and hand. He was invalided back to England by 17 August 1916 and admitted to Eastbourne Central Military Hospital. It was his first chance to meet his three-month-old daughter Elsie Maud, who born in May. Nine months later, John was fit to return to active duty.

He rejoined the 9th East Surrey in early May 1917. The battalion had been moved north in anticipation of the coming offensive at Ypres. The ‘big push’ on 31 July would turn into ‘Passchendaele’. Constant rain and shelling had turned the battlefield into a quagmire. According to future playwright, Second Lieutenant R.C. Sherriff of  ‘C’ company ,’The shelling had destroyed everything. As far as you could see it was like an ocean of thick brown porridge’. Sherriff was wounded on 2 August as the battalion struggled to take up forward positions which were little better than waterlogged holes in the ground full of slime with rain-soaked sandbags that disintegrated when touched. Between 3 and 7 August constant shelling and an infantry attack on their line caused many casualties. The battalion Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel H.V.M. de la Fontane was hit by a sniper on 5 August after coming forward to encourage his men. The keeper of the battalion’s war diary set out the casualty list in painstaking detail. It stretched over four pages with the names of all ranks killed, wounded or missing arranged in neat columns as if still on parade. On the bottom of the first page, alongside the date of 5 August 1917, is written ‘6/8/17 187 C.S.M. Tanner (died of wounds)’. John Tanner had been evacuated to no. 32 Casualty Clearing Station at Brandhoek, which had been brought as near to the front line as possible. Despite being staffed with some of the best medical teams available, John Tanner succumbed to his wounds and was buried shortly after at Brandhoek.

John left a widow and six children, the eldest Ellen, then aged nine, later recalled hearing of her father’s death: ‘Father was well known in the community. I never cried in front of other people… you are taught that. I waited until I got to bed and then had a good cry, just as I’m sure Mum did when she was on her own.’ Ellen also remembered that for a long time after her mother couldn’t bear to see her husband’s photograph in the dining room and turned it to the wall. 

John’s family were living at 39 Hartington Road at the end of the war. His widow Ellen started a new life when she married Robert Carter in 1921. Ellen was living in Lambeth when she passed away in 1950, aged 63.