Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

France

Daniel McConlough

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D. McConlough
Service no. 305225,
Corporal, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment)
Died on 7 August 1916
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

This is a tentative identification. There is only one D. McConlough in the CWGC database. He can be found on the census in Liverpool and I know of no association with Stockwell.

Douglas B. Maybank

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D. Maybank
Service no. R/24284
Serjeant, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 20th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action on 29 June 1918 age 30
CWGC: “Son of Harriet and the late William Maybank, of Stockwell; husband of Florence Maybank, of 29, Tasman Road, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Sandpits British Cemetery, Fouquereuil, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

MAYBANK, D., Sergt., King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
He was mobilised at the outbreak of war, and being almost immediately drafted to France took part in the Retreat from Mons. He also served at the Battles of the Marne, the Aisne, Ypres, the Somme, and in many subsequent engagements. He gave his life for King and Country on the Cambrai front in the Advance of 1918, and was entitled to the Mons Star and the General Service and Victory Medals.
“A valiant soldier, with undaunted heart he breasted life’s last hill.”
29, Tasman Road, Landor Road, S.W.9.

Information from the censuses

In 1911, aged 23, Douglas Maybank lived at 22 Aytoun Road, Stockwell with his family. Like his father, he was a grainer and marbler (he painted wood grain effect and stained paper or other materials to look like marble). William Maybank, 50, was from Epsom, Surrey; Harriett Maybank 48, was from Ellingham, Norfolk. They had 5 surviving children (of 6), all of them born in Stockwell:
Douglas Maybank, 23
Gladys Maybank, 19, a clerk
Leslie Maybank, 16, an office boy
Donald Maybank, 11
Gwendoline Maybank, 10
A cousin, 47-year-old single house painter Harry Dewdney (described on the 1901 census as “deaf and dumb”), and a nephew, 17-year-old single office boy Leo Maybank, lived with the family.
In 1901 the Maybanks lived at 10 Moat Place, off Stockwell Road.

William May

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W. May
Service no. 16628
Private, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 2nd Bn.
Died, aged 31, on 16 July 1916
Son of Henry and Mary Ann May; husband of Mary Ann May, of 22, Spring Grove, Reading.
Remembered at Thiepval and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Initial identification via family member Naomi Moghaddam:

William May, born 22 January 1885. Died aged 31, leaving behind a wife, Mary Ann May, and two children.

Herbert William May

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H. W. May
Service no. 129402
Private, Machine Gun Corps, 2nd Battalion, formerly 8343, London Regiment
Enlisted at Lambeth
Died of his wounds on 22 October 1918 at age 19
CWGC: “Son of Mr and Mrs W. C. May of 76A Thorparch Road, Wandsworth Road, London. Native of Box, Wiltshire.”
Remembered at Etaples Military Cemetery, France

British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920

Herbert William May first joined the London Regiment in April 1915 when he was about 16. He enlisted at St John’s Hill, Wandsworth and was accepted into the 23rd Battalion of the London Regiment (Territorial Force).

May was 5 feet 7 inches tall, 128 pounds (just over 9 stone) and 35½ inches around the chest (with 2½ inches expansion). His vision was judged to be good as was his physical development. He stated that he was 19.

This was a lie and on Christmas Day 1915 he was discharged “having made a mis-statement as to age”. He had served 205 days.

Later he joined the Machine Gun Corps, and was died of wounds at Etaples, where there was a high concentration of hospitals treating the wounded.

Information from the 1911 census
Herbert William May, 12, lived in a 3-roomed apartment at 51 Riverhall Street, South Lambeth. He was born in South Lambeth. His parents, Walter Charles May, 40, a general labourer, and Mary Ann May, 45, were both from Box, Wiltshire. Three of their 6 children survived:
Mary May, 18, a kitchen hand for the Express Dairy Company, born in Westminster
Herbert William May, 12, born in South Lambeth
Raymond Wilfred May, 4, born in South Lambeth

Joseph Temple Mandale

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J. Mandale
Service no. 1728
Lance Corporal, The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 8th Battalion
Died on 20 November 1915 age 34
Born in Lambeth; enlisted at Camberwell; lived in Vauxhall.
CWGC: “Husband of G. E. Mandale, of 49 Cambridge Street, Pimlico, London.”
Remembered at Douai Communal Cemetery, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911, Joseph Temple Mandale, 30, born in Brixton, was living at 61 Bessborough Place, Pimlico. He worked in the wine trade, was married to Gertrude Eleanor Mandale, 20, from Westminster, and had a baby, born in Pimlico, so new he had not yet been named.
In the 1901 census, Mandale lived at 3 Regent Place, in the parish of St Margaret And St John. He was 20 and worked as a porter in a wine cellar. His mother, Marie E. Mandale, 46, was a dress-maker, born in Paris. The previous census, 1891, shows that a 10-year-old Joseph was living with his mother, then 32, and father, another Joseph Mandale, a solicitor’s clerk born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, at 17 Vicarage Terrace, Fulham. There was a younger son, John D. Mandale, then 5.

Note: Some of the ages and names do not add up correctly and Joseph T. Mandale is listed as Joseph J. in the 1891 census.

Frank Clifford John Mason

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F. C. J. Mason
Service no. PS/2538
Private, Middlesex Regiment, 17th Battalion
Born in Stockwell; enlisted in Lambeth
Killed in action age 16 on 24 August 1916
CWGC: “Son of Maud Mary and Arthur Petherick (step-father), of 22, St. Michael’s Rd., Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Euston Road Cemetery, Colincamps, France and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from British Army Records 1914-1920

On 12 July 1915 Frank Clifford John Mason, an only child living with his mother and stepfather, lied about his age in order to enlist in the British Army and join the war effort. He was born in September 1899 and was two or three months shy of his 16th birthday. He claimed to be 19, and this was accepted. A little over a year later he was dead.

Frank’s birth father was also called Frank Mason and was described in the 1901 census as a “manager specialist”, then aged 58 and born in Pimlico. The 1891 census lists him as a “chef & manager” and shows that he had a previous family. He was married to Esther, at 54 seven years older than himself, and there was a grandson, one-year-old Thomas F. M. Tickling. The family lived at 22 Stansfield Road, Stockwell.

Some time after 1891 Frank senior became a widower and in 1899 he married again, this time to Maud Mary Mason from Ipswich, who was almost half his age. Soon there was a child, the Frank listed on the Memorial.

But Frank senior died in 1904, leaving Maud a widow and Frank junior without a father. Less than two years later, in 1906, Maud married again, this time to a man considerably younger than herself. Arthur Petherick, shown as 31 on the 1911 census, was a railway clerk born in Dorking in 1880. The family, Maud, Arthur and Frank junior, now lived at 22 St. Michael’s Road with three boarders.

On 12 July 1915, less than 12 months after the war started, 15-year-old Frank joined up. He claimed to be a 19-year-old clerk.

Mason was puny, even by contemporary standards. The examining officer described Mason’s physical development as “slight”, and he stood only 5 feet 4 and a half inches tall with a 32½-inch chest. He was immature emotionally as well. While training at Northampton, in March 1916, he was in trouble for insubordination and for making improper remarks to an N.C.O., for which he was punished with 14 days’ detention.

But the war was soon over for Mason. He was posted to France on 21 April 1916 and just over four months later, on 24 August, he was killed in action, having served a total of 1 year and 44 days. He had not yet reached his 17th birthday.
On 28 August 1918, Frank’s effects – photos, disc, diary and postcards – were forwarded to his mother and stepfather. The army asked for acknowlegement of receipt, but Mrs Petherick replied questioning the whereabouts of her son’s other possessions. “I wish to point out,” she said, “that seeing these other items were recoverable from my son’s body, there were other things such as watch, cigarette cases, fountain pen etc which should have come to hand.” In common with most of the rest of the civilian population, she had no real understanding of the conditions soldiers were fighting in.

Maud herself did not live long after this. The records show that a she died in March 1919 in Epsom, Surrey and by March the following year Arthur Petherick, Frank’s stepfather, was answering the war pensions board’s queries. He stated that his stepson had never been married and had no siblings, half-siblings, grandparents, nephews or nieces or children. Frank’s half-sibling from his father’s first marriage is not mentioned.

Information from the 1911 census

22 St Michael’s Road, 11-year-old Frank Clifford John Mason’s home in 1911, is described as a 7-room tenement. He lived here with his mother Maud Mary Petherick, 37, from Ipswich, Suffolk, and stepfather Arthur Petherick, born in Dorking, Surrey and 3 boarders.