Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

France

Isaac Spooner

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I. Spooner
Service no. 25552
Private, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment), 9th Battalion, formerly 015439 R.A.S.C.
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Battersea; lived in Wandsworth
Killed in action on 1 September 1918, aged 24
CWGC: “Son of James and Matilda Spooner.”
Remembered at Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France

In 1911 ironmonger’s assistant Isaac Spooner, 17, lived at 39 Brooklands Road, Stockwell, where his family had six rooms. His father, James Spooner, 55, from Newham, Hampshire, was a train engine driver for London & South Western Railway; his mother, Matilda Jane (née Hector), 55, was from Brixton. Three of Spooner’s six siblings lived at home, his sister Norah, 31, a dressmaker’s assisant, and two brothers, Henry, 27, a carman, and Sidney James (Isaac’s twin), 17,  a draper’s assistant (who also served in the Army Service Corps, was wounded by a bomb and survived – he died in 1929, aged 36). 

Spooner enlisted in Battersea 0n 6 October 1914, giving his occupation as carman. He was 5ft 4½in, 8⅔st, with a 36in chest. He had blue eyes, brown hair and a sallow complexion, with a scar in the centre of his forehead and on his left cheek. His physical development was judged to be ‘Good’. On 8 July 1915 he joined the Expeditionary Force to France. On 20 August 1917 he was transferred to the West Riding Regiment.

Matilda, Spooner’s widowed mother, died aged 62 of sarcoma of the jaw on 20 November 1918, 11 weeks after her son was killed in action. 

Information from the 1911 census

Ironmonger’s assistant Isaac Spooner, 17, lived at 39 Brooklands Road, Stockwell, where his family had  6 rooms. His father James Spooner, 55, from Newham, Hampshire, was a train engine driver for London & South West Railway; his mother Matilda Spooner, 55, was from Brixton. Three siblings (of six) lived at home: Henry Spooner, 27, a carman in Walworth; Norah Spooner, 31, a dressmaker working in Oxford Street; Sidney Spooner, 17, a draper’s assistant in Balham (and possibly Isaac’s twin). James and Matilda had a total of eight children (one died).

Reginald Charles Southon

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R. C. Southon
Service no. 13008
Private, Essex Regiment, 2nd Battalion
Born in Hampstead, enlisted in Westminster, lived in Stockwell
Killed in action on 23 October 1916, aged about 19
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Reginald Charles Southon, 14, was an errand boy living at 27 Rossiter Road, Balham, where his family shared 5 rooms. He was born in Hampstead, north London. His father, John Charles Southon, 46, was a gas meter maker born in Clerkenwell, married for a year to Reginald’s stepmother, Olivia Estall, 48, from Peterborough. Reginald had a younger brother, Ernest John Southon, 12, born in Clerkenwell. Sarah Combs Tournies, 79, a widow from Lambeth, boarded with the family.

Harold Measday Snelling

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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.

Frederick William Snelling

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F. W. Snelling
Service no.1676
Lance Corporal, London Regiment (Prince of Wales’ Own Civil Service Rifles), 1st/15th Battalion
Died on 18 September 1916
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France and on the St Michael’s Church War Shrine, Stockwell Park Road

Frederick William Snelling was born on 3 November 1891 in Mile End, east London, the second son of Charles Henry Snelling, a grocer born in Ramsgate, Kent, and Emily Jane Snelling (née Knudson), from Limehouse, east London. He was baptised at St Anne’s, Limehouse on 6 December at which time the family lived at 121 Canal Street.

In 1911 the family were living at 154 Glengall Road in Peckham, southeast London. Nineteen-year-old Frederick worked as a ‘boy clerk’ in the Post Office. There were five other children (one had died as a young child), including William Thomas Snelling, then 16, a junior clerk for a law firm; an older brother, Charles Henry, who was a 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of London; and three sisters, Elsie Emily, 11, Ethel Mary, three, and Ethel May, nine months. Charles Henry Snr was now a timekeeper for a lock and safe company. The Snelling family later moved to 260 South Lambeth Road, Stockwell.

Frederick enlisted at Duke Street in the West End of London served in Europe from 18 March 1915 to the day of his death, 18 September 1916. 

At the time the 1939 Register was conducted, Charles and Emily Snelling were living at 44 Lansdowne Way, Stockwell with their youngest daughter, Emily May (later Bragg). Charles Snelling died in 1941 in Lambeth at the age of 76, and Emily in Folke stone, Kent in 1954, aged 87.

Brother of William Thomas Snelling and cousin of Harold Measday Snelling

Edwin Charles Smart

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E. C. Smart
Service no. 263068
Rifleman, Monmouthshire Regiment, 1st Battalion
Born in Walworth; enlisted in Battersea
Killed in action on 3 September 1917, aged 35
CWGC: “Husband of Elizabeth Ann Smart, of 12, Thorparch Rd. Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Loos Memorial, France

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

On 7 November 1917 Elizabeth Ann Smart, widow of Edwin Charles Smart, wrote to the War Office: “Will you please let me have my marriage and other certificates which I have forwarded to you on 20th of Sept,” she said. “…I am sorry to trouble you only I have a [illegible] means a [illegible] £5 to me and of which I would be glad, being left with four young children.” Although some of the letter has been so damaged that it I am not able to read it, it is clear that Elizabeth is struggling to manage on the money she has coming in. Clearly the possession of these certificates, perhaps to show the relevant authorities at the local pension board, would make a difference.

Smart was killed in action on 3 September 1917, leaving Elizabeth with the children. These included her son by a previous relationship Emlyn Thomas Campbell, 13, and three she had with Edwin: Eliza Louise, 6, Alice Maisie, not yet 5, and Edwin Alexander, 3, all born before they married at Lambeth Register Office on 5 December 1914.

Smart enlisted on 11 December 1915 when he was 34 and 7 months. He was described as 5 feet 8 inches and 10 stone. His chest measured 36 inches (which he could increase to 39). His physical development was “good.”