Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

France

Edwin John Burlington Green

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E.J.B. Green
Service no. 2637
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery, 236th Bde.
Killed in action 6 October 1916, aged 32
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, France

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Edwin John Green was born in the summer of 1883, the fifth child of parents Edward and Eleanor Green when the family was living in Camberwell. By 1891 there had been another child born and by 1901 Edwin was one of eight siblings, and like his father, Edwin worked as a slater. The family was then living at 104 Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell.  

By the time of the 1911 census, Edwin, along with sister Ada and brothers Trevor and Clarence, was still living with parents Edward and Eleanor. Edwin’s father, now 65, was still working as a slater but Edwin was now carman, his younger brother Trevor a shorthand typist and Clarence a clerk. The six adults occupied nine rooms at 49 Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell.   

Edwin married Harriet Jane Porter in 1913 and their first child, Edwin Frederick Burlington Green, was born later that year.

Despite Harriet expecting a second child, Edwin followed his brother Trevor’s example and joined the Army in May 1915. Edwin volunteered at 105 Holland Road (now Minet Road), Brixton, the HQ of the 6th London Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, Territorial Force (the batteries of this brigade were later re-designated as the 236th Brigade, RFA). So began a long and intensive training period for Gunner, 2632, E.J.B Green. Edwin and Harriet’s second child, Arthur Percy Burlington Green, was born two months later, on 6 July 1915.

Months past and Edwin was still in England. His departure to France was delayed until 1916, possibly the 13 June 1916, if the records of Gunner 2630 Henry Eugene Saunders of Stockwell are a guide. Harriet was expecting her third child at his time, and Alice Eleanor Burlington Green was born on 3 August 1916. The grim news from the Battle of the Somme must have filled Harriet with dread. It was in August that Edwin’s battery joined the Somme offensive.

Edwin had been in action in mid August and again in September between periods of relief and had returned to action at the beginning of October 1916 on the Somme. A time referred to as the Battle of Transloy Ridge. It was here that Edwin John Burlington Green was killed. Very unusually for an ‘other ranks’ soldier, Edwin’s death is recorded in the brigade’s war diary on 6 October with the battery position near ‘High Wood’.

C/236 Btty were shelled in their new position … and had to evacuate it. Gnr Green E.J.B was killed and one wounded ( Sgt Irons). Two or three others were buried but successfully dug out and remained at duty.

Harriet suffered further heartache when her baby daughter Alice died in October 1918, close to the anniversary of Edwin’s death. Harriet Jane Green remained in Lambeth for many years, passing away in 1972, aged 87.

Thomas William Gray

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T.W. Gray
Lance Corporal, London Regiment, 1st/24th Bn
Service no. 1909 
Died 22 April 1915, aged about 23
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France 

Thomas William Gray was born in 1892 in Plumstead, southeast London, the second child of Walter and Helen Elizabeth Gray.  As a child, Thomas lived in Hare Street, within sight of the Thames. It was a short walk downhill to the Woolwich ferry, with the vast complex of the Victoria and Albert Docks across the river. The area was home to the Woolwich Arsenal and a Royal Engineers barracks but still had the open space of Woolwich Common and Shooter’s Hill on its southern boundary. 

By the time of the 1911 census, the family was living in the crowded environment of Lambeth. Walter and Helen were now in their fifties. Six of their eight children had survived into adulthood, but it was just Thomas, then 18, and his sister Annie, 17, who lived with their parents.  The family included an elderly widowed aunt. Walter worked for a biscuit manufacture as a commercial clerk, Thomas was as a clerk at tourist agent and Anne was a costumier’s dressmaker. The family had four rooms at 16 Thorne Road, a house they shared with two other families.

Thomas was one of the thousands who volunteered in the first week of August 1914. He had gone to the drill hall in nearby Braganza Street (previously New Street), Kennington, where the 24th (County of London) Battalion (The Queen’s) was based.  As part of the Territorial Force, battalion was mobilised on 5 August, but were under-strength and needed to large numbers of new volunteers from Lambeth and beyond.  

Thomas was on the move in mid-August when The Queen’s marched to a camp in the St Albans-Hatfield area. Training continued through the autumn and winter until the battalion left for France, disembarking at Le Havre on the 16 March.  Thomas  had already been promoted Lance Corporal.  Between March 28 and April 18 The Queen’s were mostly employed to dig  trenches at Lapugnoy, near Bethune in northern France. A hot march on 19 April took The Queen’s into the front line trenches at Richebourg Saint-Vaast.Sporadic shelling wounded one man on 20 April, killed another and wounded two on 21 April. It was noted that ‘1 NCO was wounded from A company’ on 22 April 22. Thomas Gray’s war had been cut brutally short.

The wedding of Thomas’ sister Annie Alice May on 22 December 1917 to Robert Bessant, a former neighbour, must have brought some comfort to the family. Bessant had volunteered for The Queen’s in September 1914 but was discharged unfit in April 1916, having never served in France. 

At the end of the war Thomas’s parents received a small pension. The REgister of Soldiers’ Effects shows that the war gratuity was split between his father and May Elizabeth Martin, a dressmaker from Southwark, who we can infer was probably Thomas’s sweetheart.

Members of the Gray family remained at the Thorne Road address until at least 1932.

The Queens’s memorial is in Kennington Park.

Frederick Walter Grey

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F. W. Gray
Service no. 35426
Private, Essex Regiment, 2nd Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Clapham; enlisted in Clapham
Died age 34 on 12 April 1917
CWGC: “Husband of Alice Gertrude Gray, of 43, High St., Marylebone, London.”
Remembered at Athies Communal Cemetery Extension, Pas de Calais, France

Robert Grainger

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R. Grainger
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 1st Bn.
Service no. 201552.
Died on 18 July 1917, aged 31
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France

Brother of John Albert Grainger

Chris Burge writes:

Robert Grainger, the first child of Robert Grainger and Amelia Sarah Lea, was born on 17 March 1866 and baptised four days later at St Andrew’s, Lambeth, when the family address was recorded as 17 Windmill Street and Robert Snr worked as a carman (carter). 

In 1891, the Grainger family lived at 83 Thomas Street (now Warham Street) near Kennington Oval. They later moved to 16 Surrey Lodge, a complex of social housing on Kennington Road.

School records show Robert and his next youngest brother Frederick attending nearby Walnut Tree School in 1893. Robert stayed with his family during their various moves over the following years until on 19 March 1907 he walked the short distance from his home in the Hayles Buildings on St George’s Road, across the busy Elephant and Castle junction to the Army recruiting office at 38 New Kent Road. Within a week he had been posted to the depot of the Lincolnshire Regiment. He was discharged medically unfit after just 163 days. 

At the outbreak of the war, Robert and his younger brother John were living near Clapham Junction railway complex and working as goods porters. In December 1915, Robert Grainger attested in the final days of Lord Derby’s Group Scheme, with the obligation to come if called up later on. His medical, which took place at Wandsworth Town Hall on 12 December 1915, recorded him as 29 years and 9 months, 5ft 9in tall, 10 stone, with a 37in chest and physically strong but with bad teeth.

He was issued with a grey armband with a red crown, and have his National Registration card stamped, “ATTESTED 12 DEC 1915”. His call-up date followed Lord Derby’s group schedule and Robert reported to the Wimbledon recruitment centre on 1 March 1916. Robert Grainger was now private 3806 of the 3/5th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. 

There was no immediate expectation that this Territorial Force unit would go overseas. It moved to Cambridge on 1 January 1916, then Crowborough and was in Tonbridge by October 1916. A year after Robert was first in uniform, on 27 December 1916, he married Beatrice Harriet Salmon at St Jude’s, Southwark. The couple gave their address as 63 Hayles Street, which was Beatrice’s home. Robert had first met Beatrice when they were both living in the Hayles Building some nine years before, when she was just 16. 

Robert was a trained signaller and was sent to France on 29 March 1917 (he was renumbered 201552). He had been in the Arras sector when he was posted from the 7th East Surrey to the no. 1 company of the 1st Bn East Surrey on 10 June 1917, they were north-east of Arras. June had ended with a quiet five days in trenches opposite the shattered Fresnoy Wood. Specific mention was made of good communications between HQ and front companies by use of ‘Fullerphones’, buzzer, pigeon and lamp. Early in July, orders were received that a ‘two company’ strength raid was to be made on enemy trenches at Fresnoy. Preparations and training followed after nos. 1 and 4 company had been chosen for the task. Bad weather delayed the raid from the 15th to 4am on the 18th. The raid casualties were two officers wounded, other ranks four killed, 20 wounded and 14 missing. The missing were not thought to have survived. 

On 18 July 1917 Beatrice was informed that her husband had been reported missing. She was left waiting for further news, her hopes fading as the months past until finally Robert Grainger was officially presumed to have died on or since 18 July 1917. 

German documents show that Robert did die on that day. His identity disc was retrieved when his body was buried and returned to British authorities. The disc was the only possession returned to Beatrice. Inexplicably this happened twice, once in July 1918 and again in November 1920. On both occasions Beatrice dutifully acknowledged receipt of the item posted to her address at 52 Hayle Buildings, St. Georges Road SE 11. 

In order to receive her husband’s Plaque and Roll, Beatrice was obliged to complete Army Form W5080, a statement naming all living relatives of a deceased soldier. Beatrice took the completed form to St. Jude’s Vicarage in Southwark to be witnessed and countersigned on 9 October 1919. Apart from herself, she listed Robert’s parents and his four remaining siblings who all lived at various addresses in Stockwell. 

Beatrice Harriet Grainger did not remarry and remained in Southwark for many years. She died in 1971, aged 

John Albert Grainger

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J. A. Grainger

Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 6th Bn.
Service no. G/14181
Died on 12 July 1917, aged 26
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais France

Brother of Robert Grainger

Chris Burge writes:

John Albert Grainger was born in 1891 and baptised in Kennington on 25 January, the fourth child of Robert and Amelia Sarah (née Lea) Grainger. John’s father, who was born in Cork, Ireland was a carter; his mother, Amelia, was born in Clerkenwell. 

In the 1891 census, the Grainger family were living at 83 Thomas Street (now Warham Street) in the parish of St Mark’s, Kennington, close to the open space of Kennington Park and the Oval Cricket Ground. 

By the time of the 1901 census, there had been two more additions to the family. The Grainger family had moved to 14 Mitre Street, North Lambeth, close to Waterloo Station. John’s father was recorded as a cartage foreman and his older brothers Robert Jr and Frederick worked as errand boys or porters. When the social researcher Charles Booth visited the area in 1899 he described Mitre Street as having ‘a few fairly comfortable remaining but the majority [were] poor to very poor’. 

The Grainger family soon moved to Weston Street, close to London Bridge Station, and by 1907 were living in the Hayles Buildings, St George’s Road. 

In the 1911 census, the Grainger family had returned to Kennington and were living at 236 Hillingdon Street. John’s father Robert Snr described his occupation as a ‘Cartage manager for the Railway’. All six of their surviving children (Amelia had given birth to 11 in total), lived in the family home. Robert Jnr, 25, was a cellarman; Frederick, 24, a porter; Amelia, 21, a tobacco worker; John, 20, a porter; Alfred, 20, and Benjamin, 15, Post Office telegraph messengers. They shared five rooms and another family of three shared just one room at the same address. 

After the outbreak of war, John’s parents moved to Morat Street and then Camellia Street, near Nine Elms. Robert Jnr had been living with his younger brother John at 16 Bramfield Road, Clapham, half a mile from the Clapham Junction railway complex where the brothers worked as ‘goods porters’. 

Robert Jnr attested under the Derby Scheme (see Alfred Thomas Evans) on 12 December 1915, and was not called up until 1 March the following year. Six weeks later John, then aged 25, was conscripted. After reporting locally, he was directed to Kingston where he joined the Royal West Surrey Regiment. His details were recorded in the pages of the Surrey Recruitment Registers: he was 5ft 11in, 144llb, with a chest size of 37in. He was assigned to the 12th Battalion.

Little is known of John’s military service after this, other than at some stage he was posted to the 6th Battalion RWS as private G/14181, J. Grainger. The 6 RWS were involved the Arras offensive in April and May 1917 on its southern extreme, near St Leger. After a period of rest, on 1 July they returned to the front line trenches south-east of Arras. Their part of the trench was attacked and shelled on the 11th and 12th. Casualties reported were: ‘4 OR killed and 3 wounded’. 

At the end of the war, John’s parents should have received his medals and war gratuity. But there is no entry for Private 14181 J. Grainger in the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects. Some time after his parents  moved from Stockwell to Norwood Amelia applied for her son’s medals. They were finally issued on 17 February 1930. The Arras Memorial was not unveiled until 31 July 1932.

Jesse William Goff

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photo of soldier Jesse William Goff
Jesse William Goff. Photos © Sue and Ron Falder

P. W. Goff (erroneously given for J.W. Goff)
Service no. 300319
Rifleman, London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade), 1st/5th Battalion
Born in Clapham; enlisted in London; lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 1 July 1916 (the first day of the battle of the Somme), aged 19
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Jesse William Goff is consistently misnamed as P.W. (Percy William Goff) – in his Army records, on his medals cards, in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database, on the Thiepval Memorial and at Stockwell War Memorial. Why this should be is still a mystery to his descendants. The family have his medals and death plaque – they give his Army number so there is no question that this is the correct man.

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 the Goff family lived at 63 Chelsham Road, Clapham, where they had seven rooms. Jesse William Goff, then 13 and an only child, lived with his father, William Percy Goff, 43, a prudential assurance agent from Poole, Dorset, and Grace Mary Goff, 38, an assistant mistress at a London County Council school. There was a boarder, Frank Cutten, 28, a compositor from Chichester, Sussex.

Sue and Ron Falder have sent the photo of Jess, above, and the text of two letters he wrote to his Aunt “Op” (Annie Margaret Carroll (nee Williams) Jesse’s mother’s sister, who is Sue Falder’s grandmother, at 42 Risingholme Road, Weald Village, Harrow, Middlesex.

They provide a vivid portrait of the hard work required at the front, and of the dry good humour life there brought to the surface. He sounds both hard-working (“hard work and fresh air”) and sweet-natured in his expressions of affection for his young cousin Molly and the newborn baby.

The first letter is dated 28 May (1916). He mentions the fact that Jim (Op’s husband) may be called up. By January 1916 compulsory conscription was in place. It applied to unmarried or widowed men between 18 and 41, but on 25 May 1916 married men were included. Those in trades that were considered vital to the war economy – the so-called “starred occupations” – were exempt. I am not sure who “our boss” mentioned in the letter is, but it could be Jess’s sardonic description of his own mother.

Sue and Ron Falder have sent the photo of Jess, above, and the text of two letters he wrote to his Aunt “Op” (Annie Margaret Carroll (nee Williams) Jesse’s mother’s sister, who is Sue Falder’s grandmother, at 42 Risingholme Road, Weald Village, Harrow, Middlesex.

They provide a vivid portrait of the hard work required at the front, and of the dry good humour life there brought to the surface. He sounds both hard-working (“hard work and fresh air”) and sweet-natured in his expressions of affection for his young cousin Molly and the newborn baby.

Jesse William Goff's letter home on 19 June 1916
Jesse William Goff’s letter home on 19 June 1916

The first letter is dated 28 May (1916). He mentions the fact that Jim (Op’s husband) may be called up. By January 1916 compulsory conscription was in place. It applied to unmarried or widowed men between 18 and 41, but on 25 May 1916 married men were included. Those in trades that were considered vital to the war economy – the so-called “starred occupations” – were exempt. I am not sure who “our boss” mentioned in the letter is, but it could be Jess’s sardonic description of his own mother.

My Dear Op,

I have just got your address from Ma.

I was going to write before but I could not remember the name of your street. I remembered the number of the house that was all.

Well I am out here again & very near where I was before in fact we pass some of our old billets daily.

It is rather warmer than before in more ways than one. Nevertheless by dint of hard work & fresh air we manage to keep ourselves alive & fit. Mind you it’s not all cakes & ale but our various little “grouses” would fill a book.
We go out & work every day with picks & shovels just like navvies (the only difference is that the latter get about three times the pay). Sometimes we get a little shelling or “strafing” sometimes not, usually the former but we have managed without any casualties so far. Our week usually consists of seven days (working) & after a lengthy discussion today we have come to the conclusion that the man who could put forward an invention that would get another 24 hrs out of a week, would make his fortune.

I have heard from Ma about Uncle “Jim” & the “garrison duty abroad” business. Really I should not think that he would be called up at all. I’m sure I don’t know how our “boss” will get on if the age limit extends much more. But I must not express my own views on the subject as this epistle has to pass through other hands.

“Let’s” hope it will be all over soon.

Shall be pleased to hear from you when you can spare the time. Hope you are all well: I am quite fit. Love to both of you. Lot’s of kisses for Molly and I can only say “the other”. I do not know the name or sex.

Anyhow just mention that “he or she” has got a cousin.

Yr Loving Nephew, Jess.

The second letter was written on Friday 23 June, just a few days before he was killed, on 1 July 1916. He mentions the “official P.C. [postcard]”, shown left.

My dear Op & Jim

Thanks very much for your letter and parcel. Many of us enjoyed the contents. As a matter of fact it arrived at a most opportune moment – we were in the trenches.

That is the reason I was unable to write there and then, but I hope you received the official p.c.

We had a rather rough time up there but are very now resting (& very glad too).

Really there is next door to no news. One cannot say everything & – well all that remains is I am quite well and the weather has not been at all good.

We see rather more life & more grub now since we have left the “navvies”. I don’t think anyone was very sorry to leave.

By the way I’m afraid I’m putting the cart before the horse. I don’t think I told you that we moved and are now with our regiment.

My address for the future will be No. 255 A Coy. London Rifle Brigade B.E.F. France.

Now I’m afraid that is all.

Best of love to Molly & the new arrival.

Y. Loving Nephew Jess