Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

France

George Frederick Osborne

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G. F. Osborne
Service no. 48694
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort’s Own), formerly 35391, Royal Engineers (Postal Section).  Posted to London Regiment (Post Office Rifles)
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Died of wounds on 10 July 1918, aged 23
CWGC: “Son of Lydia Osborne, of 110 Dorset Road, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Pernois British Cemetery, Halloy-les-Pernois, France

Information from the censuses

George Frederick Osborne, 15 and working as a telegraph messenger for the General Post Office (GPO), is found on the 1911 census living at 7 Bolney Street, South Lambeth, where his family had five rooms. His father, George Lewis Osborne, 36, was a plasterer’s labourer; he was born in Lambeth, as was his wife, Lydia Osborne, 35. The couple had five children, all born in Lambeth: George Frederick, 15; Alfred James, 12, at school and working as a milk boy; Thomas John Osborne, 11, William Frederick, 3; Florence Maud, 6 months. Joseph Alfred Wyld, 35, a carman in the newspaper trade, boarded with the family. In 1901 George and his family lived at 41 Vine Cottages, Bond Street.

George Ormond

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G. Ormond
Service no. G/37729
Private, Royal Fusiliers, 11th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 30 September 1918, aged 22
CWGC: “Son of Mrs H. Ormond, of 56, Larkhall Lane, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Unicorn Cemetery, Vend’huil, France, and at Waterloo Station, London

Information from Shani Wheatley

George Ormond was born in 1896. Before joining the Army, he was a van shifter working on the railway.

George’s father was William Ormond (born 1850 in Tolpuddle, Dorset. His mother was Harriet Norris (born 1858 at Fordington, Dorset). William and Harriet married in lambeth in 1877. William worked on the railway as a porter.

William’s grandfather was James Orman (born 1822 born the Hampreston or possibly the Horton area of Dorset) and his grandmother was Mary Wey (born 1830, Dorset). She is listed as Orman on the Births, Marriages and Deaths index but was buried as Mary Wey Ormond on 19 June 1851. As spelling was sometimes a hit-or-miss affair, these changes of spelling were not unusual.

Members of the Ormand family have traced their tree back to 1556, mainly from to parish records and visiting the area.

Ernest Frederick Oehring

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E. F. Oehring
Service no. 71553
Private, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 142nd Coy.
Enlisted at Camberwell; lived in Brixton
Killed in action at age 21 on 11 January 1918
CWGC: “Son of Frederick Ambrose and Alice Hannah Oehring, of 85, Ferndale Rd., Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 14-year-old Ernest Frederick Oehring was working an engraver’s errand boy. He lived at 85 Ferndale Road, Clapham, where his family had 7 rooms.  His father, Frederick Oehring, 44, was a bookbinder’s finisher, born in Lambeth. Alice Oehring, Ernest’s mother, 38, was also from Lambeth. The couple had two children, Ernest, who was born in Walworth, and Winifred Oehring, 10, born in Lambeth.

In 1901 the Oehring family lived at 29 Knowle Road.

Frederick A. Oehring’s father was also called Frederick A. Oehring. Frederick senior was a tailor born in Leipzig, Saxony and was described in the 1891 census as a “naturalised British subject”. He was 63. His wife, Caroline Oehring, was 54 and born in Lambeth. The family lived at 4 Pownall Terrace, off Kennington Road.

Alfred Edward Nunn

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A. E. Nunn
Service no. 63634
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), “A” Coy. 7th Battalion
Died on 10 May 1918, aged 19
CWGC: “Son of Alfred and Emily C. Nunn, of 108 Manor Street, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France

Chris Burge writes:

Alfred Edward Nunn was born in 1899 and baptised at St Andrew’s, Stockwell Green on 21 May 1899, the first child of Alfred and Emily Clara Nunn who lived at 7 Landor Road. Alfred’s father worked as a laundry manager and his mother as a laundress. 

The 1901 census shows that they shared their home with a daughter from Alfred’s first marriage (he was widowed). Alfred Snr was now working on the trams. A second son, George William Nunn, was born on 4 February 1903 and baptised at St Andrew’s on 22 February 1903. 

In the 1911 census, the Nunn family now lived in five rooms at 38 Landor Street, close to the Avondale music and dance hall, and the Landor Hotel Public House. Alfred Snr, aged 49, worked for the London County Council tramways as a motorman. Alfred Jnr and George were at school. The property was shared by an elderly widow and her daughter living in two other rooms and a family of three in another two rooms.

Alfred was 15 at the outbreak of war, but  conscription was introduced in 1916 and Alfred was called up early in 1917. The Surrey Recruitment Registers, a rare survival of its type, record Alfred’s details. After reporting at Wandsworth, Alfred was directed to be at Kingston by 30 March where he was assigned the service number 45901 and instructed to join the 23rd Training Reserve Battalion for basic training. Alfred was 18 years and 2 months, 5ft 7in tall, 108 lbs and had a chest size of 34in. His address was 108 Manor Street, Clapham. 

Training complete, Alfred was posted to the 7th Battalion of the Royal West Surrey Regiment. No records exist to say exactly when Alfred was sent to France. Spring 1918 was a time of crisis on the Western Front when the enemy threatened to break through, the 7th RWS were in the forward zone to the east of Amiens. March and April were a time of retreat and counter-attack. An assault on Hangard Wood on 26 April resulted in further casualties, a total of five officers and 141 other ranks. The first week of May was quiet as the 7th RWS worked hard to improve trenches, build shelters and erect barbed wire. The records note on the 4th May 1918, ‘2 O.R. wounded by shell whilst on way to join Battn, in the line’. 

Alfred Edwin Nunn was among the wounded and later died of his wounds on 10 May 1918 in one of Rouen’s many hospitals. 

Alfred Snr and Emily lived in Manor Street, Clapham until Alfred’s death in 1929 at the age of 67. Emily was living in Epping, Essex when she passed away in 1943, aged 75. Alfred’s brother George William died in 1979, aged 76.

James Henry Newman

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J. H. Newman
Service no. 3409
Private, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Enlisted at Kennington, resided at South Lambeth
Killed in action on 17 September 1916, aged about 18
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Information from the 1911 census

James H. Newman was a 13-year-old schoolchild in 1911. He lived with his parents and 6 of his 11 siblings in four rooms at 39 Horace Street, Stockwell. His father, James, 51, was a railway guard from Sturminster Newton, Dorset. His mother, Mary Jane, 51, was from Holt, near Wimbourne in Dorset. James’s sisters Maud and Violet, 19 and 15, were domestic servants.

Information from the 1901 census

James Henry Newman was 3 in 1901 and living at 39 Horace Street with his family. His parents were from Dorsetshire – father, also called James, was a 41-year-old railway breaksman from Sturminster Newton and his mother, Mary J. Newman and also 41, was from Wimbourne. The 5 children registered on the census were:
George W. Newman, 13, a milkman’s assistant
Annie Newman, 12
Maud M. Newman, 9
Bessie Newman, 6
Violet Newman, 5
James H. Newman, 3, named on the memorial

Information from the 1891 census

In 1891 the family were living at 35 Horace Street. James Newman senior is described as a railway porter. The census shows that there were two older children:
Elizabeth Newman, 7
Florence Newman, 5
George Newman, 3, and Annie Newman, 2, appear in the 1901 census
There was a lodger, James Cunningham, a 22-year-old cab driver born in Lambeth, and a visitor from Sturminster, 21-year-old Elizabeth A. Bleathman.

Information from the 1861 census

James Newman senior appears on the 1861 census as a one-year-old living in Sturminster. His father, George Newman, 25, was an agricultural labourer, married to 28-year-old Mary A. Newman, who like George was born in Sturminster. At that point they had two children, James and his two-year-old sister Ann. They lived at Church Street, Sturminster.

Arthur John Newman

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A.J. Newman
Rifleman, Rifle Brigade, 2nd Bn.
Service no. S/15670
Missing in action on 23 October 1916, aged about 26
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Chris Burge writes:

Arthur John Newman’s origins were in north London. He was born in Highgate, the third child of Alfred and Mary Elizabeth Newman (nee ????), and baptised at St John Holloway in Islington, on 20 April 1890; his older brother Alfred Edward was baptised on 6 January 1884 at the Archway Road Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, and his sister Edith Charlotte was baptised 16 October 1887 at St John Holloway, Islington. The family were living in Kentish Town at the time of the 1891 census and had moved to Pimlico by the time of the 1901 census. Arthur’s brother Alfred Edward was married in 1905 and set up home in Kent. 

By the time of the 1911 census, Arthur, Edith and their parents had moved to south London and were living at 19A Goldborough Road, off Wandsworth Road. Arthur‘s father was now 51 and his mother 50 and had been married 28 years. Arthur was working as a clerk, and both his parents and Edith were employed as office cleaners. The Newmans lived in four rooms of a sub-divided property that housed another family of six living in three other rooms.

Fragments of Arthur’s service papers have survived and show that he volunteered under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme on 4 December 1915, attesting at the Lambeth recruitment centre. He was not called up until 15 February 1916 and was processed at Whitehall, when he was posted to the 6th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a reserve battalion who were based at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, off the northern coast of Kent. On 14 June 1916, after four months of basic training, Private S/15670 Newman was sent to France in a draft of men destined for the 2nd Battalion. He reached the front on 9 July 1916. The keeper of the battalion’s war diary noted on 11 July that a draft of one officer and 50 other ranks reported for duty and were posted to C and D companies.

Arthur Newman joined the battalion when it was in billets after moving north from the Somme to the Loos sector. Several periods of trench duty in the Hohenzollern sector followed during the rest of July, August and September. By mid-October the battalion had returned to the Somme and took part, in deteriorating weather and ground conditions, in a divisional attack during the final stages of the offensive. Their assault on enemy position near Le Transloy on 23 October resulted in a loss of eight officers either killed or wounded and 230 other ranks killed, wounded or missing. Arthur was reported missing and his next of kin informed within a few weeks. In August 1917, ten months later, Arthur’s family were informed that he was officially presumed to have died on, or since, 23 October 1916. 

After the end of the war it was Arthur’s father Alfred who completed Army Form W5080 which listed the relatives of a deceased soldier in order that he could receive his son’s medals, plaque and scroll. Alfred took it to All Saints Church, XXXXXXXXX, to be witnessed and countersigned on 30 May 1919. 

Arthur’s parents were still living at 19A Goldsborough Road when the Stockwell War Memorial was unveiled in 1922.