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Arthur Worby

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A. Worby
Service no. G/61093
Private, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
Died on 16 November 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of John and Mary Ann Worby, of 76 Crimsworth Road, Wandsworth, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley

Information from the 1911 census

Arthur Worby, 12 in 1911, lived at 76 Crimsworth Road, South Lambeth. His father widower John Worby, 53, was an Army pensioner from Cambridge. There were five siblings on the census return – their places of birth reflecting their father’s Army career. Emma Worby, 24, was born in Chatham, Kent; Jessie Worby, 20, a laundress, was born in Port Royal, Jamaica; John Worby, 15, an errand boy, was born in Dublin; Frank William Worby, 16, an errand boy, was born in Middlesbrough; Arthur Worby, 12, was born in South Lambeth. Arthur’s nephew, Arthur Worby Gridner, 1, lived with the family.

Information from Howard Anderson, great-nephew

“Arthur Worby came from a military family, his father John Worby was career soldier, leaving the Royal Engineers as a Quarter Master Serjeant (the old spelling) after 21 years service. Arthur was one of 11 children, most born in barracks around the world, one was my grandmother Jessie, born on a troop ship in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Arthur Worby’s sister Jessie married Albert Allen (a common Stockwell name) who was an Old Contemptible who survived the war. In the 1st Middlesex Regiment, he was Mentioned in Despatches 3 times for staying behind with the wounded. His son Ted repeated that at Arnhem in 1944, being awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross for gallantry, for staying with the wounded when the Germans overran the town.”

Arthur Worby was brother-in-law to Thomas James Woodley, who married his sister Ethel Maude Worby.
Visit 1stmiddlesex.com for more information.

Henry Charles Wickens

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H. C. Wickens
Service no. 238091
Driver, Royal Field Artillery, “C” Bty., 342nd Bde.
Born in Westminster; enlisted in Lambeth
Died on 22 October 1918, aged 29
CWGC: “Son of Mr and Mrs H. Wickens, of 28 Wyvil Road, London.”
Remembered at Brookwood Military Cemetery, near Pirbright, Woking, Surrey

After volunteering in 1914 and completing his training, Henry Charles Wickens served with ‘C’ battery. He became seriously ill (the details are unknown) and died in the military hospital at Millbank, London in 1918.

In 1911 Henry Charles Wickens, then aged 22, was an assistant in a fish shop. He lived with his parents, Alfred Wickens, 49, who worked for a jam maker and was born in Camberwell, and Harriett Wickens, 47, whose place of birth is unknown. Henry was one of three children (the other two lived elsewhere) and the family occupied three rooms at 123 Wandsworth Road.

In 1913 Henry married Clara Caroline (née Davison), a cap finisher, at St Anne’s, South Lambeth Road. Their child, Henry Charles, was born in 1916, when Henry, then working as a doorman, and Clara lived at 75 Hercules Road, Lambeth. 

In 1920 Clara married Henry F. Glasgow and died in 1927, four months after the birth of their fourth child.

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

WICKENS, H.C., Driver, R.F.A.
After volunteering in 1914, and completing his training he served at various stations with his battery engaged on important duties. He was unsuccessful in obtaining his transfer overseas and falling seriously ill, died in hospital at Mill Bank in 1918.
“His memory is cherished with pride.”
27, Wyvil Road, Wandsworth Road, S.W.8.

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Henry Charles Wickens, 22, lived at 123 Wandsworth Road, Stockwell and earned his living as an assistant in a fish shop. He was born in Leicester Square. He lived with his parents, Alfred Wickens, 49, who worked for a jam maker, and was born in Camberwell, and Harriett Wickens, 47, whose birthplace was not known. Henry was one of three surviving children (two had died). The family shared three rooms. In 1901 they family lived at 116 York Road, Lambeth.

Stanley Franklin Whiting

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S. F. Whiting
Service no. F/13871
Aircraftman 1st Class, Royal Naval Air Service, H.M.S. President II
Died of illness on 27 January 1918, aged 20
CWGC: “Son of Benjamin F. and Augusta Whiting, of 85 Lark Hall Lane, Clapham, London.”
Remembered at Wandsworth (Streatham) Cemetery, Garratt Lane, London SW17

Information from the censuses

In 1911 Clapham-born Stanley Franklin Whiting was 13 and living in a six-roomed house at 85 Lark Hall Lane, Clapham, where his family had lived since at least 1901. His father, Benjamin Franklin Whiting, 40, was a corn and coal merchant, born in Battersea; his mother, Augusta Whiting (née Burkitt), was from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. Stanley had a brother, Eric Whiting, 8, born in Clapham. An older brother had died some time after the 1901 census. Clara Banham, a 26-year-old domestic servant from Kentish Town, lived in.

George Robert Henry Wedderburn

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G. Wedderburn
Private, London Regiment, 19th Bn.
Service no. 611750
Died of illness in early 1919, after discharge, aged 26
Buried in Southwark 6 March 1919

Chris Burge writes:

George Wedderburn (left) and a friend. Courtesy of Elaine Collins.

George Wedderburn was born on 30 August 1892, the first child of George Wedderburn and Clara Wilmott  of 5 Chapel Street (since renamed Mowll Street), Stockwell. George was baptised on 18 October 1892 at Christ Church, North Brixton, with the given names George Robert Henry. George Snr, originally from Newcastle, worked as a stable groom for the Waine furnishing company at 131-139 Newington Butts, close to the Elephant and Castle. Clara was born and raised in Lambeth. When George’s younger brother Joseph Alfred was born in 1896, the family were still in Chapel Street and George’s father was described as a ‘comedian’, a hint of another side to the lives of the Wedderburn family. 

By 1901, eight-year-old George was one of four children and the Wedderburn family were living at 14 Buff Place, Camberwell. George’s father was described as a horse dealer. Three families making a total of 17 people were living at the same address. Although close to Camberwell Green and the surrounding amenities, Buff Place was one of a group of side alleys described by the social surveyor Charles Booth in 1899 as comprising ‘shoddy three storey buildings’.

In the 1911 census, George was now one of eight children. His parents were both 37 and the children’s details were set out in the clear hand of their father: George, 18; Joseph, 15; Robert, 13; Clara, 10; James nine; Isabella, seven; Samuel, four; and Gladys, two. Their father was still working as a domestic groom, while Joseph was a newsboy and George Jnr was a labourer. Large families were the norm, but in this case the family of ten were crammed into just four rooms at 21 Ely Place, South Lambeth, was one of a group of turnings off Dorset Road that were all marked as a poor area when visited ten years earlier by Booth. 

Towards the end of 1915 with conscription looming, it was clear that both George and his brothers Joseph and Robert would not escape service. In the case of George, only his discharge papers have survived. They tell the story of a man broken in mind and body, revealing that before the war George had wholly, or in part, earned his living as a variety artist, performing for around five years in various Moss Empire theatres. His family later said he was known to perform comical songs and dances in a double act with his father.  

George’s Army life began at the end of November 1915 when he chose to attest under Lord Derby’s Group Scheme in which men enlisted under the promise that unmarried men in their group would be called up first. He joined the reserve of 19th London Regiment, a Territorial Force unit whose administrative base was in Camden Town, near St Pancras Station. George was given the service number 5116. Perhaps it was no coincidence that music-hall artists brother Henry Arthur and Ronald Gladstone Moon joined 19th London Regiment at the same time. Brixton and the surrounding area was popular with variety artists for its good transport links. Henry Moon gave a Brixton Road address when he attested in Lambeth on 30 November 1915. His service number was 5100, and his brother Ronald’s was 5121. 

George was given compassionate leave to marry Mabel Jane Wright on 28 May 1916 at St Paul’s, Lorrimore Square, Southwark, which was close to Mabel’s home in Lorrimore Road. After this, George returned to his unit and within four months was sent to France.

He landed at Le Havre on 13 August, spent nearly a month at the infantry base and finally reached the 1/19th London on 23 September 1916. It was the height of the Somme offensive and his battalion, which had already suffered heavy casualties attacking High Wood, were briefly out of the front line. Back in the Line, intense shelling buried men alive or dead. In October the battalion withdrawn from the Somme only to be sent north to the Ypres sector. Trench conditions were always at their worst in winter and sporadic shelling invariably added to the casualty lists. George was admitted to a Field Ambulance on 14 January 1917 with a high fever and was in hospital in Boulogne a week later before being transferred to England on 30 January.

George’s health deteriorated to the point that on 8 June he was sent to convalesce at Summerdown Camp near Eastbourne. His condition worsened and by August 1917 he was transferred to the 1st London General Hospital after displaying the classic symptoms of neurasthenia, an illness now renamed dysautonomia, an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. It may have been what is commonly known as shell shock. After 32 days George was moved to the Tooting Grove Military Hospital where he stayed for 148 days and was described as ‘nervous and excited at the least thing’. In February 1918, George was moved again, this time to the 4th General Hospital at Denmark Hill were he stayed for 51 days, still suffering from neurasthenia. Finally on 29 March 1918 George was transferred to the Maudsley Neurological Clearing Hospital, Denmark Hill and appeared before a medical board on 19 April 1918. The board found him to be permanently unfit for service and awarded him a pension, but only for six months. He was discharged on 10 May 1918 after spending 41 days at the Maudsley, free to return home to Mabel at 81 Lorrimore Road, Kennington. When completing his discharge papers, George wrote ‘Variety Artiste (if possible) Gardening or Farming’ in the section asking about what kind of work he desired.

It is not known if George had found employment by the time his pension expired, but there was a new beginning when he became a father in 1918. Following family tradition, George and Mabel named their son George Bruce Wedderburn. 

George Wedderburn died in early 1919, he was laid to rest in Southwark [where?] on 6 March 1919. The authorities refused Mabel’s claim for a war pension.

Mabel was still living at 81 Lorrimore Road in 1945 when her son George Bruce Wedderburn was a ‘service voter’ at the same address in the 1945 election. He had been in the Army since 1939. Mabel was living in Norwich when she passed away in 1984, aged 89. George Bruce Wedderburn died in Norwich in 1998, aged 79. 

William Charles Viney

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W. C. Viney
Service no. 179460
Gunner, Royal Garrison Artillery, No 1 Depot
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Camberwell; lived in Lambeth
Died on 21 February 1918, aged 31
CWGC: “Husband of Florence Emily Viney, of 3 Portland Place South, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, London SW17

Information from parish records and 1911 census

William Charles Viney, 25, and Florence Emily Sheaff, 27, married at All Saints Church, Newington, on 27 August 1911. William described himself as a stock keeper of confectionary, and his father, William Viney, as a general labourer. The 1911 census shows William Viney as boarding at 7 Freemantle Street, Newington (the address he gives on his marriage record), where he lived with engine fitter Alfred Webster and his family. Viney’s occupation here is given as “store keeper”.

Frederick Charles Vincent Upton

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F. C. V. Upton
Service no. 189301
Air Mechanic 2nd Class, Royal Air Force, 116th Squadron
Died on 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), aged 18
CWGC: “Only son of Frederick William and Annie Upton, of 2 Portland Place South, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Aylesbury Cemetery, Buckinghamshire

Information from the 1911 census

The Frederick Charles Vincent Upton who is in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database appears as Frederick William Upton on the 1911 census. This is somewhat confusing especially given that the census return was completed by his father. It is possible that the CWGC has made an error over the identity of this casualty as some details do match.

Frederick William Upton in the 1911 census was an 11-year-old schoolboy born in Farnham, Surrey, the only son (as corroborated in the CWGC database) of Frederick William Upton, 39, a coffee shop keeper from Betsham, Kent, and Annie Upton, 37, from Farnham, Surrey (she is described as “assisting in the business” on the census). They had three daughters: Ivy Blanche Upton, 14, born in Aldershot, Hampshire; Edith Gertrude Upton, 8; born in Farnham, Surrey: Hilda Annie Upton, 6, born in Farnham. The family lived in 5 rooms at 2 Portland Place South, near Clapham Road. This street has now disappeared (apart from a few houses) and has been replaced by Portland Grove. The area sits within the Mursell Estate.