Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

KIA

Alfred Grout

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A. C. Grout
Service no. 13775
Private, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 8th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in London; lived in Stockwell
Killed in action age 20 on 25 September 1915
CWGC: “Son of Mrs C. S. Grout, of 6 Garden Row, Stockwell, London, and the late George Grout.”
Remembered at Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos, France

Information from the 1901 census

In 1901 Alfred Grout, then 6, and his siblings lived with their widowed mother at 30 White Hart Street in Kennington. The census merely gives his mother as “C. Grout” and does not state where she was born. She was 31. Her children are listed as:
Emily Grout, 10
George Grout, 8
Alfred Grout, 4
Ernest Grout, 4
All the children were born in Lambeth.

Sidney Wallace Griffiths

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S. W. Griffiths
Service no. 25351
Private, The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 6th Battalion
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Lambeth; lived in Clapham
Killed in action age 19 on 2 July 1918
CWGC: “Son of William and Caroline Griffiths, of 8 Aldebert Terrace, Albert Square, Clapham Road, London.”
Remembered at Bouzincourt Ridge Cemetery, Albert, France

Information from the censuses

In 1911 the Griffiths family was living at 8 Aldebert Terrace, South Lambeth. William Griffiths, 53, was a blacksmith working for the railway, from Mornston in Glamorganshire. Carrie Griffiths, 46, was from Oldswinford, Worcestershire. They had 6 children, all surviving in 1911.
Thomas Griffiths, 15, was a junior clerk in a stationery company
William Griffiths, 13
Sidney Griffiths, 12
Mildred Griffiths, 9
Albert Griffiths, 7
Charlie Griffiths, 1
All the children were born in Lambeth.
Theodore Arthur Hill, a single 32-year-old theatrical actor from Blackheath, south-east London, boarded with the family. In Ten years previously, in 1901 the Griffiths family was found at 183 South Lambeth Road living with 4 boarders.

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.

Philip Thomas Wilson Grant

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WW1 officer Philip Thomas Wilson Grant
Philip Thomas Wilson Grant

P. T. W. Grant
Second Lieutenant, Wiltshire Regiment, 8th Battalion attd. 5th Battalion
Killed in action, age 18, on 15 October 1915
Born 30 November 1896
Son of Philip and Isabel Emilie Letitia Grant, of 52 Stockwell Park Road, Stockwell, London
Remembered at Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey and on the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

Information from the 1911 Census

In 1911 the Grant family were living at 52 Stockwell Park Road, where they had 10 rooms. The family consisted of Philip Grant, 41, a butcher born at Withington, Lancashire; his wife Isabel, 35, born at Irvinestown, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland; two children born in Stockwell and still at school – Philip Thomas Wilson, then 14, and Isabel Winifred Jessie, 11. There was also a boarder, Henry Harling Denning, 28, a cashier born in Bristol, and a live-in servant, Lily Ellett, 17, born in Lambeth.

Information from the 1901 Census

Ten years previously, the family were living at 1 Sidney Road, SW9, with George Wilson, 23, and also a butcher, born in Stratford, Essex, who is described as “brother-in-law”, as well as an 18-year-old servant, Jane Ray, born in Fulham.

St Olave’s School

The picture of Grant is taken from a presentation by Peter J. Leonard available on the St Olave’s School website at www.saintolaves.net. When you enter the site, click on ‘Welcome’ then on ‘Chaplaincy’ and scroll to the bottom. There is a thread on St Olave’s at the Great War Forum.

Grant attended the school between May 1908 and December 1912.

Frederick James Grant (Frederick Vincent Grant)

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F. J. Grant
Service no. 654451
Rifleman, London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles), 2nd/21st Bn
Died 30 December 1917, aged 24
Remembered at Chatby Memorial, Egypt

This identification was made by Chris Burge, who writes:

Frederick James Grant was born on 26 March 1893, the first son of Frederick James and Eliza Rose Grant. Frederick was baptised when nearly three years old at St Barnabas, Kennington, on 16 January 1896 when the family was living at 18 Thorne Street. By 1901, Frederick was one of six children and the family lived at 12 Vauxhall Walk, a densely populated area running along the Albert Embankment with its gasworks, distillery and crossed by the London & South Western Railway. Fredrick’s father made his living as a railway carter.

By the time of the 1911 census, the Grant family appeared to have fallen on hard times. Both Frederick and his father were out of work and while his mother Eliza Rose continued to find work as a charwoman. Somehow Frederick’s mother had managed to raise seven children (three others had died). The family of nine persons lived in just four rooms at 51 Conroy Street. The address no longer exist but it was close to Fountain Street, off the Wandsworth Road, and around half a mile from what would become the site of the Stockwell War memorial.

Frederick’s circumstances seems to have driven him into Army, as he enlisted in 1912 joining the Royal Fusiliers. When and how this service ended is not known, but he had sufficient reason not to disclose his real name when he joined the Army a second time, enlisting at Camberwell using the alias of Frederick Vincent, some time late in 1916 or early 1917.

Late in 1917, Frederick James Grant (aka Fredrick Vincent) was one of around 2,200 troops who boarded HMT Aragon at Marseilles, bound for Egypt. Reaching Malta on December 23, a few days where spent celebrating Christmas. Disaster struck on 30 December abut 10 miles outside Alexandria port when the Aragon was stuck by enemy torpedoes. The vessel sunk in twenty minutes. Frederick James Grant was one of the 610 to die that day.

It is the Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects that reveals Frederick James Grant served as Frederick Vincent. The £3 war gratuity paid to his father Frederick at the end of 1919, indicates he had served for no more than 12 months at the time of his death.

Frederick’s parents had continued to live in Conroy Street throughout the Great War and after. Fredrick’s mother Eliza Rose passed away in 1926 aged 55, and his father Frederick James Grant passed way in 1938, aged 72.