Stockwell War Memorial

Friends of Stockwell War Memorial & Gardens

officer

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 Gillard

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F. Gillard
Second Lieutenant, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 9th Battalion
Died age 20 on 24 August 1918
CWGC: “Only son of Frederick and Harriet Eliza Gillard, of 25 Studley Road, Clapham, London.”
Remembered Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France

Information from the 1911 census

The Gillard family lived at 48 Akerman Road where they occupied 5 rooms. Frederick Gillard, 41, was a lithographic printer, born in Blackfriars, London. Harriet Gillard (née Roberts), 34, was also from Blackfriars. Frederick Gillard, 12, their only son, was born in Kennington, as were their 3 daughters:
Amy Gillard, 10
Rose Gillard, 9
Florence Gillard, 7
There was a boarder, Christopher Wright, a single grocer’s assistant from Bermondsey, south-east London.

The obituary in The Times of 5 September 1918 reads:

SECOND LIEUTENANT F. GILLARD, K.O.Y.L.I. [King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry], was killed on August 23, aged 20. He was the only son of Mr. and Mrs Gillard of 25, Studley-road, Clapham. He enlisted at the age of 18 in the Inns of Court O.T.C. [Officers Training Corps], and was given a commission seven months later. He was through some heavy fighting the latter part of last year, and returned home on leave last July, but rejoined his regiment on August 10. His colonel writes:- “The battalion had made a successful attack, and we were holding a front-line position within about 40 yards of the enemy. Your boy was was in charge of a half-company, and was holding absolutely the foremost position, and holding it very stoutly, too. The enemy counter-attacked very heavily, and it was greatly owing to the fine fight put up by your son’s platoon that we were able to beat him off with heavy casualties. Unfortunately, after the counter-attack had been beaten off, your boy was reorganizing his platoon when a stray bullet struck him in the head, killing him instantly. I need hardly say that your boy was a great favourite with the platoon, and was liked by everybody, officers and men alike. He will be greatly missed, and I only hope that he was doing his duty splendidly when he was killed will prove a little consolation to you for your loss.” Lieutenant Gillard was a member of the staff of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company (Limited).

With thanks for additional information and images to Gwynn Jenkins, who came across the portrait and the framed obituary in the attic of her house in Forthbridge Road, Clapham. Gwynn says: ‘He has pride of place in my house and am happy for him to be included in your website for more to see and understand the tragic loss of such gallant young men – he’s a daily reminder of what sacrifice really means.’

Reginald Percy Dickason

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R. P. Dickason
Second Lieutenant, Middlesex Regiment, 6th Battalion attd. 1st Battalion
Died age 20 on 14 February 1917
Son of Harold Burfield Dickason, of 155 Clapham Road, London.
Remembered at Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, France

British Army WWI Officers Service Records 1914-1920

Reginald Percy Dickason was educated at King’s College School and Pitman’s Metropolitan School. Pitman’s, opened in 1870, was the first school of business education in the world, and covered office routine, accounting and law, and shorthand and typing. Possibly Dickason was training to be a court reporter, for he transferred out of the 3/25th London Cyclists, which he joined as a private on 1 April 1915, to the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.

This corps was originally part of the London Territorial Force and consisted mainly of men connected with the law courts. On 4 August 1916 he was accepted for admission to No. 8 Officer Cadet Battalion at Lichfield, and a little over three months later he left for France, serving with the Middlesex Regiment.

He survived for just under four months, dying near Clery-sur-Somme. In July 1920 the Army wrote to Dickason’s father Harold Burfield Dickason to tell him that his son’s body had been moved to the cemetery at Peronne, assuring him that the removal was done “carefully and reverently.”

Dickason, born on 3 December 1896 and an only child, was 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed over 10½ stone and measured 40½ inches around the chest. He had the distinction of being the only man on the Memorial whose family included an elephant hunter.

Information from the 1911 census

Reginald Percy Dickason was 14 in 1911 and living with his family at 155 Clapham Road, where they occupied 10 rooms. Reginald was an only child. His father, Harold Burfield Dickason, 36, was an orchestral musician who was born in Highgate. His mother, Esther Dickason, 35, was from Lambeth. Harold’s brother, Percy Dickason, 34, an elephant hunter, and an aunt, Charlotte Hare, 69, lived with the family, along with a boarder, John Greenslade, 35, a stone and wood carver. Lily Cawley, 15, a general domestic servant born in Lambeth, lived in.

Information from the family
After Reginald died, his parents Harold and Esther went on to have another child, a son. This son later joined the Army and fought in World War 2. Esther died in the 1930s.

Conrad O’Neill Daunt

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Conrad O'Neill Daunt
Conrad O’Neill Daunt. Photo by kind permission of Will Daunt

C. O’N. Daunt
Lieutenant, Royal Air Force, South Lancashire Regiment, 8th Battalion
Died age 27 on 29 September 1918
Son of Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt, LRCP (Licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians of London), of 176 Clapham Road, Stockwell, London, and the late Annie Elizabeth Daunt (nee Vellacott).
Remembered at Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery, Bray-sur-Somme, France

Conrad Daunt appears to have been listed as Canadian – at least he is remembered as so on the Veterans Affairs Canada website. The RAF was established late in the war (1 April 1918).

Brother of Giles Vellacott Daunt

Conrad O’Neill Daunt, born in 1891, and his brother Giles Vellacott Daunt, born in 1895, were two of five children of Irish physician and surgeon Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt and Annie Elizabeth Daunt (née Vellacott) of 176 Clapham Road. Both boys were educated at City of London School.

Conrad returned to England from Canada to fight in the war and initially served as a Private with the Second Canadian contingent. He was offered a commission with the South Lancashires, and served with them through 1917. In 1918 he was transferred to the Royal Air Force (established in April) and promoted to Lieutenant.

Will Daunt, great-nephew to Giles and Conrad, writes: “Conrad and Giles Daunt were my great uncles, and, although we knew where they were buried (and have visited Conrad’s grave), we had not realised their names were on the memorial. My grandfather, Francis O’Neill Daunt, was their elder brother and, as a doctor (like his father), was probably a little safer (although he met mygrandmother on a hospital ship coming back from Gallipoli). Sadly, I never knew him because he died in the early 1950s. His two sisters, known as Dorothy and Peg, never married and, like him, spent most of their adult lives in Hastings/St. Leonards.”

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 Conrad O’Neill Daunt was living with his uncle, Walter John Vellacott at his farm at Tunnel House, West Thurrock, Essex. Walter Vellacott, 32, was born in Barnstaple, Devon. His wife, Elizabeth, 27 was from High Bickington, Devon. They had 2 children: Margaret Annie Vellacott, 4, born in Homehurst, Esex, and William Walter Vellacott, 7 months, born at West Thurrock. Conrad was 20 and working as a farm pupil. There was a visitor on the night of the census: Moss T. Reick, 44 and married, an evangelist from Berlin, Germany. The servants were Annie Suckling, a single 21-year-old domestic servant from Essex, and governess Ruth Florence Reynolds, 32, single and born in Singapore.

Meanwhile, Conrad’s family lived at 118 Newington Causeway (convenient for Guy’s Hospital). Physician and surgeon Francis Eldon Horsford Daunt, 51, born in Kinsale, County Cork, and his wife, Annie Elizabeth Daunt, 46, from Tavistock, Devon, had five children, including Francis Eldon Daunt, 22, a medical student, Giles Daunt, 14, Helena Margaret Daunt, 11. Frances Willmore, 40, a general domestic servant born in Lambeth, lived in.

Victor Leslie Corben

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V. L. Corben
Second Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers
Secondary Regiment: Rifle Brigade, attd. 52nd Battalion
Died age 23 on 22 July 1918
Son of Fred and Esther Margaret Corben, of “Stonehaven”, 55 St Albans Avenue, Bournemouth. Born in London.
Remembered at Lambeth Cemetery, London SW17

In July 1918 Victor Leslie Corben, a Second Lieutenant attached to the Rifle Brigade, was on leave in London when he started to suffer headaches and fever. He was admitted to the 3rd London General Hospital (this building, now known as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, sits opposite Wandsworth Prison). A few days later, appendicitis was diagnosed and on 7 July he was operated on by an Army surgeon. He had further surgery to drain a pelvic abscess but died the next day at 10.40am.

Corben’s personal effects, a suitcase and a small parcel of personal property, were sent to his father, Fred Corben, a stone merchant of “Hillside”, 51 Union Road, Clapham.

The will was proved by his father, who undertook to settle any debts left by his son. “The loss of the boy is indeed a severe blow to us,” Fred wrote to Major Bright of the Rifle Brigade at Colchester in August, thanking him for his sympathy and for the settlement of Victor’s accounts.

However, when Fred applied to the Army for funds to cover his son’s funeral expenses, he was turned down. Your son died in England, of an illness not related to his service, they said. Fred was outraged, barely concealing his anger in a note written on 10 December 1918. For him, the appendicitis was clearly connected with the wounds Victor had sustained the previous year, and also with a bout of trench fever. “I was never consulted in reference to the operations which were performed on him at the hospital,” he complained. “[Yet] as soon as he had passed away in his country’s service I was called upon to pay for the coffin in which he was to be buried. … This seems to me a gross injustice.”  The Army was intransigent: “No grant for Army funds is admissable,” it stated.

Victor Corben was born in Clapham on 23 February 1895, and after boarding at Cranleigh School, Surrey, worked in mechanical engineering. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed just over 10 stone. The 1911 census shows the Corben family living in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther Margaret, 48, was from Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was “assisting in the business,” as was Leslie’s brother Frank H. Corben, 20. A servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, had been with the family for at least 10 years (she appears on both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). Later Fred and Esther moved to “Stonehaven,” 55 St. Albans Avenue, Bournemouth.

Information from the 1911 and 1901 censuses
In 1911 the Corben family lived in 10 rooms at 51 Union Road. Fred, then 49, was a stone merchant, born in Lambeth; his wife, Esther, 48, was born in Chelsea. Their daughter Florence, 25, was described as “assisting in the business”, as was Frank H. Corben, 20. Victor Leslie Corben, 16, meanwhile, was a pupil at Cranleigh School at Cranleigh, Surrey.

Victor is on the 1901 census as a six-year-old, although Florence is not. In 1901 there was a second son, Fred N. Corben, then aged three. He is not on the 1911 census, and may have died in the intervening years (the 1911 census shows that the Corbens had lost one child by that date). The household kept a live-in servant, Mary Bower, 26, from Langton Matravers in Dorset, who had been with them for at least 10 years (she appears on the 1901 and the 1911 censuses). In 1901 the family kept two servants, the other being Florence Dawson, aged 20, who was born in Battersea.

Arthur Ernest Newton Chance

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A. E. N. Chance
Sub-Lieutenant, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Howe Bn. R.N. Div.
Killed in action 13 November 1916, aged 24
Remembered at Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France

Information from the 1911 census

In 1911 the Chance family was living in 7 rooms at 24 Winslade Road, London SW2. Lambeth-born Henry Chance, 56, was a journalist; Margaret Anne Chance, 54, was born in London. The household, all of whom were born in Lambeth, included their daughter, Margaret Isabel Layder, 28 and granddaughter Margery Florence Layder, 6; son Harry William Chance, 25, a black-and-white artist” (he was probably an illustrator working only in monochrome, probably using graphite); and Arthur Ernest Newton Chance, 19, an insurance clerk. Henry and Margaret Chance had 5 children, 4 of whom survived until 1911.

Arthur Ernest Newton Chance, one of four children of journalist Henry Chance, and Margaret Anne Chance, enlisted in the Navy on 10 August 1911, aged nearly 20. He was previously an insurance clerk. He was commissioned  as a Temporary Sub Lieutenant in November 1915 and joined the British Expeditionary Force in July the following year. He died at the Somme on 13 November 1916.

Chance’s record lists the vessels he served on before the war and after it started – all very straightforward – and describes him as 5 feet 5¼ inches, with red hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. It also gives an outline of his court martial. He was tried on 13 September 1916 for “(1) uttering a forged document (i.e. forged cheque for £3/10/-) on or about 15 July 1916; (2) for ditto on or about 21 July 1916; (3) for behaving in an scandalous manner unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman in giving a cheque signed by him in a fictitious name having no account in that name.” He was found guilty on all three charges and sentenced to be cashiered and imprisoned (without hard labour) for six months. Unfortunately, the record does not show where these events or how Chance’s life ended at the Somme.

The 1911 census shows the Chance family living in seven rooms at 24 Winslade Road, Brixton. The household included Chance’s sister, Margaret Isabel Layder, 28, and her daughter Margery Florence Layder, 6. Arthur’s brother, Harry William Chance, 25, was a “black and white artist” (he produced monochrome illustrations, probably for magazines or newspapers).

Royal Naval Division data

Born 26 November 1891
Missing, assumed killed in action
Enlisted 10 August 1911
Hawke Battalion D/652 22 August 1914 – 26 October 1914 to Chatham Depot & Sea-Service (HMS “Digby”)
Commissioned Temporary Sub Lieutenant RNVR 12 November 15
Howe Battalion draft for BEF 7 July 1916-13 November 1916
Discharged Dead
Father, H. Chance, 24 Winslade Rd., Brixton Hill, London SW, later of: 317 Clapham Rd., London SW
1914 Star issued to mother 20 August 1925