Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

France

James Trimmer

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J. Trimmer
Service no. 9374
Serjeant, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, 1st Battalion
Born in Battersea; enlisted in London
Killed in action on 18 August 1916, aged 26
CWGC: “Son of Harry and Sophia Trimmer, of London; husband of Jane Elizabeth Trimmer, of 94 Wilcox Rd., South Lambeth, London.”
Remembered at Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval, Somme, France

Information from the 1901 census

In 1911 James Trimmer was a private in the 1st Battalion of the North Lancashire Regiment. He was stationed at the Bhurtpore Battacks, in South Tedworth, Hampshire. Meanwhile, his parents, Harry Trimmer, 53, a locomotive engine driver from Holybourne, Hampshire, and Sophia Elizabeth Trimmer (née Adams), 56, from Marylebone, London were living in four rooms at 94 Wilcox Road, South Lambeth, where they had lived since at least 1901. James was one of their three surviving children (of six).

Bertram Triance

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B. Triance
Service no. 164288
Sapper, Royal Engineers, 219th Field Coy.
Died on 19 November 1916, aged 28
CWGC: “Son of William and Jane Triance; husband of Elizabeth Daisy Triance, of 28 Chelsham Road, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Mailly Wood Cemetery, Mailly-Maillet, Somme, France

Information from the censuses

Publisher’s clerk Bertram Triance, who was 22 in 1911, lived at 32 Army Street, Clapham with his wife Elizabeth Daisy Triance (née Salter), 22, and baby daughter, Kathleen Margaret Triance, 6 weeks. The couple went on to have three further children.

Bertram was born in Kilburn, north-west London, Elizabeth in Walworth, and Kathleen in Clapham. Ten years earlier, Bertram lived at 55 Lower Marsh, Waterloo, with his parents, William Howard Triance, 50, a coffee house keeper from Middleton, Norfolk, and Isabella Triance, 45, from Hampstead, north London. Bertram was one of at least five children.

Information from Ian Mackarel

“I am Bertram Triance’s great-grandson. My grandmother (his daughter), Jean Louise Triance (later Mackarel) recounted the circumstances of his death to me some years ago. I took some brief notes about this and other family details at the time. The account given to his family was that he was hit by an artillery shell and died instantly. I was told that he had only joined the army 6 weeks before his death following an incident at work where he was given white feathers by colleagues. He had been exempted service previously. His widow, Daisy, subsequently married James Culverwell and had other children.”

Stanley Humphrey Tremelling

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Stanley Humphrey Tremelling
Stanley Humphrey Tremelling. Photo © Jean Murray

S. H. Tremelling
Service no. 3000
Private, London Regiment, 1st/24th Battalion
Enlisted in Kennington; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 26 May 1915, aged about 22
CWGC: “Son of the late Mrs L. M. Tremelling.”
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, France

Information from the censuses

Stanley Humphrey Tremelling, 18 in 1911, was a machine ruler working for a general printing firm. He lived with his 55-year-old widowed mother, Lucy Tremelling (nee Blundell) from Poplar and 30-year-old stepsister Hilda Tremelling (his dead father’s daughter), who was working as a dressmaker. The family lived in eight rooms at 1 Milkwood Road in Brixton.

In 1901 James Tremelling was a 53-year-old patten maker from Hayle, Cornwall and the family lived at 6 Gladstone Street in Southwark with James Tremelling’s brother Hampton, a French family of three and an American miner.

James Trace

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J. Trace
Service no. 8867
Rifleman, London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles), 1st/16th Battalions
Enlisted in Westminster; lived in Brixton
Killed in action on 1 July 1916, aged about 21
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Information from the censuses

James Trace was an office boy for a firm of solicitors. He shared four rooms at 70b Hackford Road, Stockwell with his parents and siblings. His father, unemployed cab driver John Trace, 59, was from Torbryan, Devon; his mother, Lucy Trace, 51, was from Leicestershire. Three other children lived at home: Maude Trace, 20, a dressmaker; William Trace, 18, like James a solicitor’s office boy;  and Arthur Trace, 14, an errand boy. There were seven other siblings.

James was baptised at St John the Divine, Kennington, on 4 September 1895, when his parents lived at 116 Cowley Road. At that time his father described himself as an ostler (he looked after horses at an inn).

David Townsend

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D. Townsend
Private, East Surrey Regiment, 1st Bn.
Service no. 442
Died on 8 May 1917, aged 26
Remembered at Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France

Chris Burge writes:

David Townsend was born in August 1890, the third child of Harry and Elizabeth. In the 1891 census, the couple were living at 27 Broomgrove Road, off Stockwell Road, with their three children: George, Walter and baby David. Three other families lived at the same address, a total of 17 people in one property. The overcrowding was typical of all the properties in this alley, which the social reformer Charles Booth described in his 1899 notebook as the only squalid part of the area, ‘as like a den as I have seen anywhere.’

By the time of the 1901 census there had been three additions to the family: Florrie, Charles and Sarah Ada. The Townsends had moved next door to number 29, which was also home to the Williams family of nine. David’s mother Elizabeth died in 1904 and the family began to split up.

In the 1911 census, siblings Florence and Charles were in live-in service, while only David’s older brothers George and Walter were still in Lambeth. George was a boarder in the Wandsworth Road and Walter was still in Stockwell. Walter had married Beatrice Elsie Hurley in 1909 and their first child Walter John was born and baptised in 1910. Walter (known as Jack) made a living as a fishmonger’s assistant, Beatrice was a daily servant. Walter Townsend’s family lived in three rooms at 29 Broomgrove Road, a property also occupied by another family of nine people. We cannot find David on the 1911 census. 

David enlisted on 7 September 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war. Only burnt fragments of his service papers have survived, but his service number and other records suggest that pre-war he had been in the 4th Extra Reserve Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. All reservists had been urged to report for duty and were processed ‘with all possible speed’. 

At the time of his enlistment David was just over 24 years old, 5ft 4in tall and weighed 118lbs with a 34in chest. He gave his brother ‘Jack’ at 31 Broomgrove Rd as his next of kin. Passed medically fit, David was first posted to the 3rd East Surrey stationed at Dover. 

He was sent to France on 3 December 1914 as part of a draft of 160 men who reached the 1st East Surrey eight days later. David endured the winter in the trenches of the Ypres Salient. Spring 1915 brought a renewal of fighting, notably at Hill 60 in April and his battalion was subjected to chlorine gas in early May. Quieter months followed and they were near Morlancourt, on the Somme, by September 1915. It was noted on 16 September that two men were wounded by trench mortar fire and one other by an accidental explosion of one of their own bombs. David Townsend was wounded in the back and invalided back to England by 26 September. He would not rejoin his battalion in France until 25 May the following year.

 Almost another year of fighting had passed when the 1st East Surrey took part in the Battle of Arras in April and May 1917. An attack on Oppy Wood and Village on 8 May was a costly failure, the total of killed, wounded or missing of all ranks numbering 509. David Townsend was posted missing that day. An enquiry was made via the British Red Cross on 20 July, but eventually on 13 February 1918 private 442, David Townsend was regraded for official purposes as having died on or since 8 May 1917.

It was David’s brother Walter who received his medals in 1920 and 1921. It was also Walter who took the Army form W5080 to be witnessed and countersigned at St Andrew’s Vicarage on 17 March 1921, in order to receive his late brother’s plaque and scroll. According to Walter, David Townsend’s only other living relatives were his brother Charles and married sister Florence. Walter and Beatrice Townsend lived at 31 Broomgrove Road until around 1930, when they moved to Stockwell Grove.

Postscript: David Townsend’s brother ‘Jack’, also served in the Great War. Walter John Townsend was marked as a ‘Naval or Military absent voter’ in the 1918 Electoral Roll for Lambeth at 31 Broomgrove Road. The separate list of Lambeth’s absent voters which would have identified his unit has not survived. Between May 1915 and the war’s end Private ‘6546 Walter John Townsend’ served in the same company of the 1st East Surrey as David Townsend. It’s possible that the brothers had both been in the East Surrey Regiment before the war. chris burge

Charles John Totham

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C. J. Totham
Service no. G/20867
Private, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), then London Regiment, posted to 1st/20th Battalion
Born in Stockwell; enlisted in Camberwell
Killed in action on 2 June 1918, aged 18
CWGC: “Son of Arthur John and Emma Alice Totham, of 2a Tasman Road, Landor Road, Stockwell, London.”
Remembered at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension, France

Information from the censuses

We have not found Charles Totham on the 1911 census, but his parents and siblings are registered at 32 Eastcote Street, Stockwell, where they had two rooms. Arthur John Totham, 33, was a “contractor’s carman” from Coggeshall, Essex;Emma Alice Totham, 33, was from Castle Combe, Wiltshire. Charles’s siblings were Lilian Annie Totham, 8, and Frederick Thomas Totham, 3, both born in Lambeth.

British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

When joining the Kings Royal Rifle Corps at Battersea on 10 March 1915, Charles Totham gave his age to the attesting officer as 18 years and 272 days and his occupation as “carman”.

Totham was posted to Winchester on 12 March and then to Sheerness on 19 March, but he was found out on 19 June 1915 and discharged, “having made a mis-statement as to age in enlistment.” He had served 102 days. He returned to his family at 24 Lingham Street, Stockwell.

He was a slight lad, although at 5 feet 3 inches and weighing 121 pounds with a 35 inch chest he was not unusual. Many recruits were similarly slender and he was judged fit to serve. But he was only 15, possibly 16.

Later, he joined the Queen’s Own and died, killed in action at age 18.