My 2xgreat grand uncle William Thomas Stocking (1864-1923) had 13 children with his wife Elizabeth Ellen Smith. By the time he died in 1923, aged 58, they had been married 38 years. Four of their children died in infancy. World War I also took its toll, on a son, daughters and sons-in-law. Their stories are told here.

The lost children

Their first child William Robert Stocking was born two weeks after their marriage in 1885. He died, aged just six years old, in the July-September quarter of 1891. His younger brother, James Henry Stocking, their second son, was born in 1889 and died in the same quarter of the same year. I do not know if they died of the same illness – I have not found any report of accidental deaths in the British Newspaper Archives, although that isn’t conclusive. Whether by accident or disease, the deaths of their two young boys around the same time must have been a terrible shock to the parents and other children.

The years 1904-1910 were to see three more or their children dying: Eliza Kathleen Stocking was born and died in the last quarter of 1904. Robert Sidney John Stocking was born a year later, on 20 December 1905, but died a few months short of his fifth birthday in June 1910. The previous year, in March 1909, daughter Rose Lillian Stocking, born in June 1908, died aged under one year old.

The toll of war

William and Elizabeth’s youngest child Thomas Henry George Stocking was only four years old when WW1 broke out. Barely three years later, by the end of April 1917, two of their sons-in-law had died, leaving two young widows and five very young children between them.

Maud Eliza Stocking, born in 1891, married Albert Dowsett on 22 February 1914. I haven’t found his Army Service Record, so don’t know when he joined up, but they had two children: Albert William Dowsett, born 20 November 1914, and Maud Sarah Elizabeth Dowsett, born in 1916. Private R/22124 of the 10th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps (London Regiment) died of wounds received in battle on 11 April 1917.

The Wartime Memories Project shows that, in 1917, the 9th Battalion were in the thick of fighting in France and Flanders:

In 1917 they fought in the German retreat to The Hindenburg Line, the First and Third Battle of the Scarpe at Arras, The Battle of Langmark and the First and Second Battle of Paschendaele.

The Wartime Memories Project. 9th Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Visited 23 July 2023.

The Battle of Arras was fought in April 1917, so it is likely that this is where he sustained his wounds. He is commemorated at Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery, Saulty, France.

Maud and her children are living close to her parents at the time of the 1921 census; she was at Cherry Garden Street, Bermondsey, just round the corner from her parents at 1 Pottery Street. She has a married lodger, whose income perhaps helped make ends meet. By 1939, she was working as an office cleaner. She died in 1954, aged 63.

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Her younger sister Florence Hannah Stocking, born in 1893, married before the outbreak of war on 12 August 1912. She and her husband, Walter Denney, a house decorator, had three children: Walter William Benjamin Denney (1913), Florence Sarah E Denney (1914) and George W Denney (1916). Again, I haven’t found her husband’s service record, but like her sister Maud, she received an army pension for their children. He was killed in action in France on 23 April 1917, less than two weeks after Maud’s husband died. He was a Private in the 10th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, no. 13875.

The Battalion, known as ‘The Stockbrokers’ due to the large number of banking staff who joined it, was also involved in the Battle of the Scarpe at Arras, so it would seem that Walter was killed in the same battle as his brother-in-law. This image from The Long Long Trail (Imperial War Museum) shows the battalion at Arras. Was Walter one of these men?

Florence remarried, aged 26, in April 1919. Her second husband James Joseph Garratty, had also served during the war, as a stoker in the Royal Navy. His naval service record (Stokers’ Service) suggests his postings were all to shore-based vessels, including HMS Pembroke II and HMS Wallington, between 1914 and demobilisation in early 1920. He was 21 years old when they married, which suggests he lied about his age when he signed up (aged 17).

Florence and James went on to have a son of their own – George T Garratty, born in the first quarter of 1921. At the time of that year’s census, the baby was five months old. The family is living at 432 Devon Buildings, Tooley Street, not far from the rest of the Stocking family. James is working as a Stoker for a Cereal Miller, Gillman & Spencers Ltd., of 43 Princess Street, Rotherhithe. By the outbreak of WW2, they are at 161 Abbeyfield Road, Bermondsey. James is a Stoker for an oil refinery, while both his son Henry and stepson George are working for a Cereal Miller, possibly Gillman & Spencers.

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No doubt still reeling from the loss of two sons-in-law in April 1917, a year later the family was to hear the news that their own son, Walter William Benjamin Stocking, was missing in France. Walter was born in 1895 and married, on 6 June 1915, Esther Moss at St Crispin’s, Bermondsey. At the time, his occupation is given as ‘Under Housekeeper’, although his employer isn’t shown on the marriage record. His brother-in-law Albert Dowsett (see above) was one of the witnesses. It seems the two men signed up at the same time, as Walter’s service number – R/22125 – was the next after that of Albert’s, although they were assigned to different battalions of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

Private Stocking 22125 of the 9th Battalion KRRC was finally declared dead, his official date of death accepted as 21 March 2018, the date he was posted missing. He died of wounds, aged 22. Operation Michael, which started the German Spring Offensive, was initiated on the date Walter went missing/died. According to Wikipedia, it was launched from the Hindenberg Line near Saint-Quentin i France. The offensive heralded the end of the First World War for Germany. Rifleman Walter Stockingis commemorated at Pozieres Cemetery, on The Somme.

His son Walter Robert William Stocking was born just over a year after their marriage, on 23 June 1916. Without his service record, I do not know if he was granted leave to see the baby. Esther Stocking remarried in 1922, to Henry Dunn. By 1939, they are at 233 Bermondsey Street, where Henry is working as an ‘Assistant Timekeeper’. They have two ‘children’ – Henry and Rose, now in their teens. Walter Robert William Stocking is also living with them, working as a Bakery Assistant. He married in 1942, and died in 1997, but I know nothing more about his life.