Building trades are very much part of my Stocking ancestry. My Dad worked for his father’s firm of J Stocks & Sons in the 1950s. His great uncle William Henry Stocking built up the firm of W Stocks & Sons, creating an earlier dynasty of builders and decorators in the 1900s, one for which several of his brothers, cousins and sons also worked.

Building a building dynasty

The fifth of 19 children, William Henry Stocking was born on 21 October 1880 and was baptised on 19 July 1882 at St Philips, Avondale Square, Camberwell, aged 2, with his four older siblings. His father, James Thomas Stocking (my 2xgreat grandfather) was engaged in labouring and later, more skilled work, in the building trade. While the family was living at Victory Place, Camberwell, he attended Rolls Road School (as did most of his siblings) and was still at school in 1891, by which time the ever-growing family had moved to 44 Bowles Road. Ten years later, aged 21, he is recorded with the rest of the family at 44 Herman Road, working as a Builder’s Labourer.

On Christmas Eve 1905, he married Rosina White at St Peter’s, Walworth. He was 25, she was 21, the daughter of a Cordwainer (shoemaker). William is now working as a Paper Hanger, as is his father. Rosina White is working – possibly for her father – as a Boots Dresser. The witnesses to the marriage are the groom’s brother, Aaron Archibald Stocking, and his sister, Elizabeth Bridgetina Stocking. William no longer seems to be living with his family; his home address is shown as 21 Blewett Street.

Extract from parish marriage register of St Peter’s Church, Walworth

The 1911 census finds them living at 4 Aulay Street, Ossory Road, in the Old Kent Road area of London. The road no longer exists, demolished for a large supermarket and car park. The London Picture Archive has a photograph of the street from the 1970s, showing it closed off by bollards at one end. The census form shows that the couple had been married for five years and had had one child, the three year old named simply as Rosina Stocking. Her full name when registered was Rosina Alice Lilian Emma Stocking. Her father is working as a House Decorator.

There is a WW1 record at Ancestry.co.uk for a William Henry Stocking, a Private in the Royal Army Service Corps, Regimental Number DM2/228056, entitled to the Victory Medal and British War Medal. ‘Our’ William would have been 34 by the outbreak of the War, a married man with two young children. By 1916, conscription was extended to all men, married or single, up to the age of 41, so he may have been forced to join up. Certainly, when his youngest daughter Florence Stocking was baptised in January 1918, her father is described in the church register as a Soldier .

By the time the 1921 census was taken, they have moved a little way further South to 224 Sumner Road, Peckham. The census form shows that the family has increased to include four more children: William Henry Stocking (b.1911); Alice Maud Mary Stocking (b.1913); Samuel Stocking (b.1915) and Florence Stocking (b.1917). This street does still exist, but it is now lined with what look like modern low-rise social housing set around a park (Google Street View). All five children are still in full-time schooling. William Henry Stocking senior is now described as a Builder & Decorator (Employer).

At the outbreak of WW2, The 1939 Register finds them at 195 Commercial Way, Peckham, which cuts across Sumner Way, where they lived throughout most of the 1930s. This is now the B216, and there does not appear to be any pre-war housing here now. William is described as a Master Builder, and as well as his wife, the household comprises his unmarried daughter Florence Stocking, married daughter Rosina and her Painter & Decorator husband Wilfred G Lawrence and their children.

According to FlyingBombsandRockets,V1 & V2 Peckham and Nunhead, Commercial Way and nearby streets suffered damage from V1 and V2 bombs during WW2. I do not know how long they stayed at Commercial Way, but by 1953, electoral registers show them at 67 Fenham Road, Peckham. The houses in this street seen on Google Street View are Victorian/Edwardian terraced houses with bay windows on the ground floor. The couple were still living at Fenham Street when William Henry Stocking died, aged 85, on 23 February 1966. He was buried at Camberwell New Cemetery. Probate was granted to his widow and two sons, William Henry Stocking and Samuel Stocking, both Master Builders.

It seems that his widow went to live with their eldest son, William Henry Stocking, as it is his home address given on her own probate record, which shows that she died on 20 May 1968 at 29 Palmeira Road, Bexleyheath. She was buried four days later in the same cemetery as her husband.

William Henry Stocking worked his way up from a Builder’s Labourer, via paper hanging and house decorating, to become a Master Builder in his own right, establishing a dynasty of Builders through his sons, rather like our grandfather, his much-younger nephew.

Rosina Stocking (1908-1975): A broken marriage?

Rosina Alice Lillian Emma Stocking was the eldest child, born on St Valentine’s Day 1908, three years after her parents’ marriage. Early in 1930, she married Wilfred George Lawrence, a Painter & Decorator who may have worked with or for her father. At the time of the 1939 Register, Rosina and Wilfred are living with her parents at 195 Commercial Way. They have two children: Rosina Lawrence, born in 1930, a few months after her parents married, and Wilfred William Lawrence, born 9 March 1932.

Just under a decade later, Wilfred George Lawrence died, aged 41. He died in Guy’s Hospital in London on 1 August 1948, of Carcinoma Ventriculi (stomach cancer). His usual address is 21 Brecknock House, Sumner Road, and his occupation is recorded as Builder’s Under Foreman.

Extract from digital death certificate for Wilfred George Lawrence (GRO)

He was buried at Camberwell New Cemetery on 6 August. The London Picture Archive has a photo of the Sumner Estate from the 1950s, showing tenement blocks – Brecknock House may well have been one of these post-war buildings. I have not found a record of administration nor probate of his estate.

His married sister, E Chattington, of 15 Brecknock House, was the informant; was his widow too upset to register the death? Other clues suggest that the couple may have separated some time before his death.

The 1939 Register entry for Rosina Alice Lilian Emma Lawrence has been updated with a new surname – Couchman – with the amendment date apparently shown as 1947, before her husband’s death (although these updates were made for NHS records, so the date may not be conclusive or related to this change). However, when she died on 7 December 1975, her probate entry also gives an alternative name of Rosina Alice Lilian Emma Couchman. The record shows her home address as 18 Elsa Road, Welling, Kent, but provides no information about to whom administration of her estate was granted.

I took a chance and simply did a Google search for the name Couchman and 18 Elsa Road, Welling and an index to wills site Toms Wills – the index to UK wills 1931-1939 found an entry for Sydney Harvey Couchman, 18 Elsa Road, Welling. A further search for the details at the government’s FindAWill site revealed that he died on 9 February 1963 at Brook’s Hospital, Shooter’s Hill. His usual address was 18 Elsa Road, and probate was granted to Rosina Alice Lillian Emma Couchman ‘widow’.

I have not been able to find an official marriage for the couple. He was born in Lambeth in 1904, is working as a Gas Fittings Gauger for the South Met. Gas Co. on Old Kent Road at the time of the 1921 census, and married Norah Enright in 1927 in Chelsea. The couple appear together on The 1939 Register at 16 Pimlico Road, Westminster, where he is working as a Fitter of Gas Appliances, and she is a Shopkeeper (General). In 1945, civilian voters’ lists at Ancestry.co.uk show them both registered at 56 Bourne Street, Westminster but the following year, the electoral register shows Norah, but there is no sign of Sydney Harvey Couchman.  

By 1948, he is living with Rosina ALE Couchman at 65 Byrne Road, Balham, according to electoral registers that year. He and Norah appear to have separated, although she kept her married name, and he and Rosina are living together as man and wife. Between 1948-1951, Norah Couchman continued to live at 56 Bourne Street, with Mary Lillian Couchman. She was her daughter, born at the end of 1927. By 1954, Sydney Harvey Couchman and his ‘wife’ Rosina have moved to 18 Elsa Street, where they continue to live for another decade. His legal widow outlived her husband and his partner, dying in Westminster in the Summer of 1984.

So, what of Rosina Alice Lillian Emma Stocking’s children with her ‘first’ husband, Wilfred George Lawrence? The eldest child, Rosina E Lawrence, born in 1930, married Alan George Cochrane in Southwark in 1951, when she was 21. Through the 1950s, they are registered to vote at 11 Vowler Street, Southwark and at 153 John Ruskin Street in the 1960s. By the 2000s, they appear to have moved to Lyng, near Norwich in Norfolk. Alan George Cochrane died there; I have not yet found a death record for his widow. They do not appear to have had any children.

Her brother, Wilfred W Lawrence, was born in 1932. Sadly, he appears to have died aged just 10, in Lewes, Sussex, in 1942 and was buried in Camberwell New Cemetery, where his father was later interred. Unfortunately, his death certificate is not currently available as a digital image from the GRO, so I do not know the cause of his death. He may have been in hospital in Lewes, or may have been evacuated there during the war.

William Henry Stocking (1911-1977): Decorator and Builder

Named after his father, William Henry Stocking was born a few months after the 1911 census was taken – so his first official appearance is on the census of 1921, when he was aged 10. He is living with his parents and siblings at 224 Sumner Road, Peckham, at school full-time. In 1928, aged 17, he also makes an appearance in the local newspaper, accused of stealing fruit. This is one of several such stories covered by the Bromley and West Kent Mercury of 31 August 1928.

With a friend, he was found guilty of stealing plums from an orchard in Orpington, Kent, was fined 5s and ordered to pay 5s for the damage to the trees. He followed in his father’s footsteps – and may well have worked for him initially – as he is described as a Bricklayer on his marriage certificate. On 29 August 1936, at St Luke’s Church, Camberwell, he married Winifred Emily Maud Durkin.

The witnesses are the groom’s younger brother Samuel Stocking, and Richard Arthur Durkin, possibly a brother of the bride. Her father is named as Richard Sabey Durkin, who was working as a Commissionaire … in a cinema perhaps? Although she has no occupation shown on the marriage certificate, in The 1939 Register she is shown as a Cardboard Box Maker and Sewing Machinist. Her husband is still working as a Bricklayer, and they are living at 132 St Donatt’s Road, Deptford. We know from his father’s probate entry that he became a Master Builder. By the early 1950s, electoral registers show the couple at 24 Palmeira Road, Bexley, Kent. Google Street View shows it as a modest end of terrace house with ground floor bay window, in what looks like a pleasant residential street of identical Edwardian villas. The couple do not appear to have had children. William Henry Stocking died, aged 65, at Shepway in Kent, in 1977. His widow died in Bexley on 1 December 1999.

Alice Maud Mary Stocking (1913-1986): Twice married

Named after her paternal grandmother, Alice Maud Mary Stocking was born on 15 February 1913 and baptised at All Saint’s, Peckham on 2 March that year. Her father is described as a Decorator, and the family home was at 224 Sumner Road.

Aged 21, on 20 May 1934, she married 28 year old widower Alfred James Frost, a Nickel Polisher. He lived in the same street, at 192 Sumner Road. Both their fathers signed the register as witnesses. They were married at Camden Church, Camberwell (Peckham Road), which was originally built in 1795, and enlarged in 1814. It suffered bomb damage during WW2 and was demolished in the 1950s, but in the 1930s would still have looked splendid with its polychromatic brickwork.

Her husband’s first wife had died in 1930 aged just 23, two days after their first wedding anniversary. The previous day, she had given birth to a son, Thomas Alfred Frost, who would have been two years old when his father remarried. By the outbreak of WW2, young Thomas was living as an evacuee in Worthing, Sussex. His father and stepmother had by then had two children: Brian Frost (b.1937) and Barry Frost (b.1943). Alice was widowed young, her husband dying aged 37 in September 1943, leaving her with a six year old son and baby boy; her stepson Thomas would have been 13. Various other family trees on Ancestry suggest that Alfred Frost died in Salerno, Italy, on 23 September 1943, but I have not been able to verify that.

FreeBMD and Ancestry have a marriage index record for Lewes, Sussex in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1944 which suggests that Alice – as Frost, Alice M M – may have married a William Anderson, just over a year after her husband’s death. Had she and the children moved away from South London during the later part of WW2? There is a death index entry for Alice Maud M Anderson, born 15 February 1913, at Bexley, Kent in the Jul-Sep quarter of 1981, when she would have been 73 years old. I know nothing about her second marriage, nor her second husband.

Both her sons married in 1965 and entries at FreeBMD suggest that Brian Frost had three children, while Barry Frost had two sons. They seem to have settled in Gravesend according to electoral registers.

Samuel Stocking (1915-1989): Another master builder

The fourth child of William Henry Stocking and his wife Rosina White was born on 10 March 1915 in Camberwell. He was baptised three weeks later, at Holy Trinity, Peckham, on 24 April 1915. His father is described as a House Decorator, and the family address is 224 Sumner Road. He is at school full-time, living at the same address with his family, when the 1921 census was taken. In 1938, he married Emily Maud Josephine Adlam in Peckham; the same year, he is enumerated in the electoral register with his parents at 8 Clifton Square, Peckham. When war broke out in September 1939, he and his wife are listed in The 1939 Register at 67 Fenham Road, Camberwell. He is working as a Bricklayer, following in his father’s footsteps, while she is a Milling Machine Operator. They are sharing the house with a family headed by Henry S Adlam and his wife Emily B Adlam – probably Samuel’s parents-in-law.

The only birth registration I have found for any children is that of a Peter S Stocking, whose birth was registered in Oxford in Oct-Dec 1943. Had his mother evacuated away from South London for the birth? In the 1940s they are back living with the in-laws (although by 1949, Emily’s father appears to have died, as only her mother is registered to vote with them at 67 Fenham Road). Perhaps she too died, as by 1952, they are living at 29 Palmeira Road, Bexley.

Their son Peter Samuel Stocking was also registered to vote with them at the same address from when he first reached voting age, to the time of his marriage, in April-June 1965, in Bexley. He had two children and was registered to vote in Tonbridge, in Kent, in the 2000s and may still be alive.

Samuel Stocking died in 1989 in Tunbridge Wells; he was 74 years old.  His widow outlived him for some time, dying aged 88 on 6 June 2006, in Tonbridge, Kent.

Florence Stocking (1917-?): The youngest daughter

Florence was born on 23 December 1917 in Camberwell and baptised at St Luke’s Church in Peckham on 18 January the following year; her father is described as a Soldier in the Church baptism register. At the outbreak of WW2, The 1939 Register records her as the only one of the children still living at home with their parents at 197 Commercial Road, Camberwell. She is working as a Mantle Machinist. Six months later, she married Frank Edward Rouse in Camberwell. In 1939, he had been living at home with his parents and siblings, working as a Sheet Metal Worker. He had been born in Bermondsey in 1916. He may have served in the forces; their only child (as far as I can tell) was Jacqueline A Rouse, born in the Spring of 1946 in Lambeth. Ancestry has a WW2 Royal Artillery tracer card for a Frank Edward Rouse who enlisted on 12 December 1940 (Reg. no. 1739269) and served for the duration of the war, being demobbed in March 1946.

After the War, they appear to have settled at 36 Thurlow Hill, Norwood, as the couple is registered to vote there throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Frank may have died in 1987: there is a death index entry for a man of that name, born in 1916, who died in Ashford in Kent. I have not been able to verify a death index record for his wife, nor any further records for their daughter. There are several marriage records for Jacqueline A Rouse in Greater London in the 1970s, but without any corroborating evidence, I haven’t been able to verify any.