Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

KIA

Victor Edwin Finch

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V. E. Finch
Service no. 2829
Rifleman, London Regiment (Post Office Rifles), 1st/8th Battalion
Killed in action at around age 21 on 25 May 1915
Remembered at Le Touret Memorial, FranceInformation from the censuses

In 1911 Victor Edwin Finch was living in 2 rooms at 11 Stockwell Green with his family. Frederick James Finch, 46, was a brewer’s drayman, born in Surrey. His second wife Elizabeth Finch, 45, was from Headley, Surrey. Victor Edwin Finch, 17, was a telegraph messenger for the Post Office. His half-siblings were Edward James Finch, 9, Alexandra Hilda-May Finch, 8, Gilbert Arthur Finch, 6 and Margery Emily Elizabeth Finch, 4. All the children were born in Stockwell.

In 1901 Victor Finch was 7 and living at 47 Stockwell Green with his father, stepmother Elizabeth and two sisters Nancy Rebecca Finch, 11, and Dorothy A. Finch, 5.
Frederick Finch was married first in 1899 to Nancy Bella Pickard, mother of Nancy, Victor and Dorothy, at St Andrew’s Church, Landor Road, in 1889. Nancy died in childbirth in 1895, and Frederick married Elizabeth May in 1900. The couple went on to have the four chiildren listed in the 1911 census.

Victor Finch’s great nephew Adrian Purkiss adds the following interesting information:

Victor Edwin Finch’s first cousin once removed was Albert George Richard Henley, Mayor of Bermonsey, who was killed on 11 May 1941 clearing incendiaries from the roof of the town hall during a bombing raid. Another first cousin once removed was Sir Cyril Stanley Pickard KCMG of the British Diplomatic service. Angela Simmons, a first cousin twice removed, married Canon Paul Simmonds, who was for many years the Vicar of St Andrew’s Church Stockwell Green where Victor Finch is remembered.

William George Frederick Feltham

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F. W. G. Feltham
Service no. 32204
Private, Lancashire Fusiliers, 18th Battalion
Lived in Clapham
Killed in action on 23 October 1917
Remembered at Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium

In 1911 a ‘Frederick William George’ Feltham, aged 20,  lived with his parents, Alfred James Feltham, 47, a railway guard, and Ann, 46, and his sisters Florence Mary, 18, a cashier, and Cecilia Anne, 16, a blouse maker, in four rooms at 13 Cavendish Grove, off Wandsworth Road. He married Agnes Mary Tidman in 1916.

Agnes married Reginald Claud Morison in 1919, who served in the East Yorkshire Regiment before and during the First World War.

Emanuel Feder

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E. Feder
Service no. 354910
Private, London Regiment, 7th Battalion
Also London Regiment, posted to 1st/19th Battalion
Killed in action, aged about 28, on 1 September 1918
Born in Soho, London; lived in Brixton
Remembered at Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA

See We Were There Too, which gives his address as 15 Lorne Road and his synagogue as Borough New Synagogue in Heygate Street (Vowler Street), Walworth Road, London SE17.

Manny Feder and Hettie Bicknell

In 1912 Hettie Bicknell (1893-1985) and Manny Feder had a daughter, Gladis Hettie (d. 2018), followed in 1913 by Deborah Frances (d. 1998). Hettie and Manny married in 1914 in Islington. Hettie gave birth to a third daughter, Peggy G. Christey (d. 1934) in 1926. The Brixton and Kennington electoral rolls to 1936 record Hettie Feder as living at 15 Lorn Road with George Christey (d. 1962), after which they appear to have married and moved to Downton Avenue in Streatham.

Information from the censuses

The 1911 Census has a match for a “Manny Feder”, born around 1890, living at that time at 58 Wardour Street, in the borough of Westminster, with his parents, Wolf Feder, 58, a clothes dealer who emigrated from Russia, and Dina Feder (née Herz), 44, who emigrated from “Austria” (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Two of their 5 children survived: Manny Feder, 21, and his brother David Feder, 18, both born in west London, assisted in the family business. The family lived in 3 rooms (including kitchen).

Ten years earlier, in 1901, they were living at the same address. The census describes the Feder parents as “naturalised British subjects”.

The 1891 census clarifies the family’s origins, giving Littin, Russia as Wolf’s birthplace and Tardiff, Austria, as Dina’s (she is listed as Dora). David is listed as Esidorf. Sara Prolen, a married 35-year-old domestic servant born in Poland, lived with the family, who were then resident at 33 St James Residences, Little Pulteney Street, Westminster.

Notes
(1) Birth years vary between the censuses, with Manny listed variously as 1890 and 1889. Haziness about Western-style years and varying first names were normal for Jewish families at this time.
(2) Littin (various spellings), Russia, was a Jewish shtetl (village), now in Ukraine. I have been unable to identify Tardiff.

Manny’s brother David served as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery and survived the war. In 1919 he gave his address as 117 Lambeth Walk, S.E.

Information from Wolf Feder’s certification of naturalisation (23 January 1896)

Wolf Feder swore that he was a subject of Russia, born at Taurogen (Tauragė [Lithuanian], Tovrik [Yiddish], Tauroggen [German], Taurogen [Russian], now in Lithuania), the son of Isaac and Janie Feder, that he was a clothier, married with two children, “Many” aged 6 and “Davis” aged 2.

Henry Joseph John Farrant

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H. J. J. Farrant
Service no. 254446
Private, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 3rd Battalion
Killed in action, age 18, on 28 August 1918
Born in Stoke Newington, north London; lived and enlisted in Tottenham, north London
CWGC: “Son of Mr. H. J. Farrant, of 121, Peabody Cottages, Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London.”
Remembered at Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery, Bray-sur-Somme, France

National Roll of the Great War 1914-1918

FARRANT, H. J. J., Private, Royal Fusiliers.
He joined in November 1917 and after his training was drafted to France, where he took part in the Battle of the Somme. On 28th August 1918 he was killed in action at Albert.
He was entitled to the General Service and Victory Medals.
121, Peabody Cottages, Lordship Lane, N.17

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Henry J. J. Farrant was 11 and living with his family at 51 Abbotsford Avenue, South Tottenham, where the household occupied 8 rooms. Henry John Farrant, 54, a former ironmonger now working as a “commission agent”, was born in Limehouse, east London. His wife, Alice Jane Farrant, 52, was born in Kingsland, Hackney. They had 2 children: Alice M. S. Farrant, 16, and Henry J. J. Farrant. Both children were born in Stamford Hill. The household included 3 boarders: George Walker, 39, a warehouseman, born in London, his wife Florence J. Walker, 36, born in Brixton, and their son, Archibald Walker, 11, also born in Brixton.

A strong connection between Henry Joseph John Farrant and the Stockwell area of London is yet to become apparent. It is possible that he went to school at Stockwell Grammar or some other local establishment. There is only one H.J.J. Farrant in the military records.

Alfred Thomas Evans

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A. T. Evans
Rifleman, London Regiment (London Irish Rifles), 2nd/18th Bn.
Service no. 593075
Died 23 December 1917, aged 19
Remembered at Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel

Alfred Thomas Evans was born in 1898 and baptised at St Paul’s, Clapham on 1 May. He was the youngest of William Charles and Mary Evans’ four sons. The family lived in six rooms above their grocery shop at 270 Wandsworth Road.  

In the 1911 census, Alfred, then 13, lived at home with this parents and older brothers William Charles, Bertram Horace and Henry Edgar.  His father, a tea dealer and grocer, ran the family business with the assistance of his son William. Bertram worked as an engineer, and Henry was a leather worker. 

The shop lay between New Road and Howard Street, with a butcher and baker to either side. The Bell public house was two doors away and is still standing. The atmosphere of the area can be judged from this 1910 photograph.

October 1911 brought sadness for the family when Bertram, the second son, died aged 21. He was buried at Norwood Cemetery. Happier times followed when Alfred’s older brother William married Ada Florence Hall at St Philips, Balham, on 23 March 1913. Their first child was born in January 1914.  

William seems to have made a last-minute decision to attest on 9 December 1915, under Lord Derby’ scheme, two days before its closure. The scheme, devised because recruitment was not keeping pace with casualties, urged men aged 18 to 41 who were not in a reserved occupation to come forward, on the understanding that single men would be called up before married men or widowers with children. William was not called up until the beginning of 1917.

Alfred was conscripted in mid-1916, enlisting in London. His first destination was Salonika by ship across the Mediterranean, landing on 30 March 1917.  His battalion moved to Egypt on 12 June, landing at Alexandria, and entrained for Ismalia where they settled in at Moscar Camp the following day. 

The comforts of the camp were described by one soldier: ‘Moscar, itself, was a permanent camp of tents with ample accommodation for everyone and water to be had by merely turning on a tap. Melons and fruit in abundance and in great variety and ideal swimming in Lake Timsah only a short distance away…’

What followed was the Battle of Sheria in November and the assault to capture Jerusalem in December.  

News reached the Evans family that Alfred’s older brother William had been wounded in the head and was invalided to England on 16 December 1917.  A week later,  at Christmas time, William and Mary received the news that Alfred had been killed in action on Christmas Eve, near Jerusalem.  

Alfred’s brothers William and Henry ran the family business in the Wandsworth Road for many years after the war. His father died in 1931, aged 67,  Henry in 1940, aged 47, and William in 1963, aged 75.

Leonard George Henry Erdbeer

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L. G. H. Erdbeer
Service no. 30085
Private, Grenadier Guards, 4th Battalion
Died age 21 on 13 April 1918
Son of Henry and Helen Erdbeer, of 9 Stockwell Grove, Stockwell, London.
Remembered at Merville Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 the Erdbeer household of 9 Stockwell Grove consisted of Henry Erdbeer, 43, a “general tinsmith” born in Poplar; his wife Ellen Elizabeth Page Erdbeer, 34, born in Brighton; Charles Morris, 72, Helen’s father and a retired tram conductor from Guestling, Sussex; Leonard George Henry, 13 and still at school; Doris Jessie, 12; and Alec Charles, 10. All the children were born in Stockwell. The family occupied 6 rooms.

Erdbeer means strawberry in German.