My great great uncle Aaron Stocking was 34 years old when he was killed in action at Bourlon Wood, France on 1 December 1917. His wife of two years was pregnant with a son he would never see. He was awarded the Military Medal; I hunted for years for a citation but a letter he wrote during the war has recently shone light on his bravery. Research into his descendants revealed some marital twists and turns …

Uneventful early years

Apart from being the seventh child in a family which would total 19 children, as far as I can tell, there was little out of the ordinary in Aaron’s early life. He was born on 22 August 1883, baptised with his maternal grandfather’s first name at St Philips, Avondale Square, on 13 April that year. Ancestry’s school records show that, like most of his siblings, he attended Rolls Road School, being enrolled on 20 October 1890 when he was seven years old. The 1891 census shows him with ten siblings and parents. By the time he was 18, in 1901, he is still at home at 44 Herman Road with the rest of the family, working in a Tea Warehouse.

The following year, on 18 April 1902, he was confirmed at St Mary Magdalen Church (Ancestry), although I am not sure why. After the death of his mother in 1907, he moved with his father and some of his unmarried siblings to 18 Beechfield Road, Catford. He is enumerated there in the 1911 census, his occupation recorded as Gas Fitter for the South Suburban Gas Company.

Marriage and War Service

In 1915, he both joined the Army and got married.

Extract from St Luke’s, Hackney, marriage register (Ancestry)

On the marriage certificate of 6 September 1915, he is described as a Soldier. He had joined the First 22^nd Battalion of the London Regiment, and first served in France on 3 March 1915 according to his medal roll index card at Ancestry. He was 32 years old at the time of the marriage and gives the same address as his bride – 201 Morning Lane, Hackney – as his residence; he was probably on leave and staying at her family home. Their witnesses were Jane Flack, possibly the bride’s mother, and Lily Kirk. Oddly, his father James Thomas Stocking is described as an Estate Agent – the only document to record him as such. He is more usually shown on records as a Builder’s Labourer or similar.

Aaron served in WW1 like several of his brothers and brother-in-law. Sadly, he was not to return. He was entitled to the British, Victory and 15 Star medals, and served in France between 15 March 1915-10 April 1916, and again – with a different regimental number – from 18 June to 1 December 1917 (Ancestry). He rose to the rank of Sergeant and was killed in action at Bourlon Wood, near Cambrai (Battle of the Somme) on 1 December 1917. The Battalion’s war diary at Ancestry for that day and the previous 24 hours records constant shelling and machine gun fire, and enemy aircraft flying low. They were nearly out of rations, but received some from another battalion as they had suffered even greater casualties. Sergeant Stocking was one of several ‘other ranks killed’ in a 48 hour period from 30 November-2 December 1917. He is commemorated on the war memorials in Bermondsey and Louverval, Cambrai.

Aaron was awarded the Military Medal, although until recently, I had not been able to find details of the reason why.

In October 2025, I was excited to hear from a third cousin, a descendant of Aaron’s sister Susan Caroline Stocking. Angela’s father and aunt gave permission for me to publish a number of family photos and a transcript of the letter, below, written by Aaron from behind enemy lines:

Transcript of letter from Aaron Archibald Stocking to his sister, dated 7 January 1916: Published with permission of Angela Mckay and family, descendents of Susan Caroline Stocking, October 2025.

Aaron’s letter was to ‘Kit’, also known as Kate, his sister Catherine Alice Stocking who, by then, had married Charles Hall, the ‘Charlie’ mentioned, and had had four children. They were clearly close, and the letter shows not only his bravery under extreme conditions, but also his concern for other members of his family. These are his younger brother Archie, who went to France in June 1916 and John Arthur Stocking, his older brother, known as Jack. Oddly, he makes no mention of his wife.

Although the notes on the letter suggest Aaron died shortly after writing it, it was in fact written almost a year before his death.

His widow, Emma Ann Stocking, gave birth to their only son, Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking three months later, on 3 March 1918. The dates of her husband’s service and the baby’s birth suggest he was conceived during his last period of leave before returning to the front line. The couple had been married for two years but had probably not seen each other much during that time.

Emma Ann Flack had been born in Upton Park, Essex on 14 June 1893 and in 1911 was working, aged 17, as a Blouse Machinist and living with her parents and younger sister Winifred Ethel Flack in Bethnal Green. When her son was born on 2 March 1918 – almost three years to the day after his father had first served in France – she was living at 14 Beechfield Road, Catford, with many of her husband’s family as neighbours.

Extract from digital birth certificate for Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking (GRO)

The baby’s father is described as Sergeant R. W. Surrey Regiment (Gas Company Fitter) deceased, recording both his military and civilian occupations – although the Regiment is not quite right. By the 1921 census, she and three year old Stanley are living with her sister-in-law Lavinia, her husband Frederick James Monk and their five young sons at 14 Beechfield Road.

She appears to have stayed at 14 Beechfield Road throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but by 1935 she is listed in the electoral register at 2 Nyon Grove, Lewisham. Two other people – a Mr and Mrs Bird – are registered to vote at the same address, so she was perhaps lodging with them. By 1938, however, she is registered at 36 Neuchatel Road, Lewisham and is still living there at the time of The 1939 Register. Nearby, at number 42 Neuchatel Road, are her parents and unmarried sister. There is no sign of her son, Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking, who would have been 21 years old. A search of The Register shows that he was living at Pierce Cottage, off the High Street, West Ashford, in Kent, working as a Porter/Signal Man, living – probably lodging with – a Mrs Curtis and her grown up daughters.

His mother continued to be registered to vote at 36 Neuchatel Road until November 1947 when, at the early age of 54, she died. Unfortunately, the death indices at FreeBMD and elsewhere record her under the surname Hocking, in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1947 in Lewisham, but the record can’t be found in the GRO index. I am therefore unable to order her death certificate and find out how she died. She was buried in Lewisham on 17 November 1947 (record at Deceased Online, not viewed for detail).

Marriage twists and turns: descendants

Aaron and Emma Stocking’s only child married twice. Records show his wives and their former husbands also entering into a number of marriages, perhaps relationship breakdowns caused by the pressures of the second world war. Unfortunately, we only have the facts, not the stories behind them.

Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking married Kathlyn Mabel Holmes (also sometimes recorded as Kathleen) five years before his mother died, in the Summer of 1942, in Lewisham. There is a Land Army index card for her at Ancestry (below) which shows her at her parents’ address in Forest Hill (where she was also living in 1921); she was working as an Interviewer but appears to have resigned on 21 December 1939.

Stanley and his wife appear in electoral registers at various addresses in the borough of Lewisham throughout the 1940s. Initially, from searches at FreeBMD, I thought that they had had four children, a boy and three girls, born in Lewisham between 1943 and 1949. By 1951, they seem to have moved to Bexley in Kent, where they are registered to vote at 24 Steyning Grove, Mottingham until at least 1961.

A hint that there was another child came from a newspaper article of 1953. The Kentish Independent of 17 April that year reported that Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking, 35, a Goods Guard of Steyning Grove, Mottingham, was fined £5 for stealing coal from a railway siding. His defence was that one of his five children had a chill. The coal was only worth 1s 3d (British Newspaper Archive at FindMyPast). The birth of a girl was registered at Hampstead, London, under her mother’s maiden name in the Jul-Sep quarter of 1938, with a late entry shown in the indexes at FreeBMD in the last quarter of 1943. I do not know if Stanley was the child’s father, but she took his surname and appears from the article to have been included in his number of children.

In 1962, Kathlyn M Stocking is registered to vote at 99 Crutchley Road, Lewisham. She appears to be living at the address on her own, although at least some of her children would have been old enough to vote by then. Where was Stanley? A marriage index record from 1963 (FreeBMD) may provide the answer: Stanley A A Stocking married Violet M Strawford in Woolwich in 1963 and had by then presumably been divorced from Kathlyn.

A series of marriages, divorces and remarriages

Violet was herself (presumably) a divorcee. She had been born in 1914 as Violet M Newington, and had married Bernard J Strawford in Woolwich in 1937. She appears with him – a Bricklayer like his father – at 318 Erith Road, Bexley, in The 1939 Register. However, by 1947, she is registered to vote at 54 Paroma Road, Woolwich, with her parents. She and Bernard presumably divorced as, in 1950, he married Helena Sheehan in Dartford, and is registered to vote with her and his parents at 87 Woolwich Road. The phone book of that year records him at that address, occupation: Builder. By 1959, however, Helena is no longer registered to vote with him and his parents. Another divorce perhaps occurred.

In 1960, he marries for a third time, to Betty Strawford (a cousin, or former wife of another relative?) in Dartford. Electoral registers show this couple living next door to his by then widowed Mother Jane Strawford at 85a Woolwich Road. Bernard Strawford died in 1987, his widow in 1990.

So, what happened to Kathlyn Mabel Stocking and her former husband and his wife? She continued to live at 99 Crutchley Road – on her own according to electoral registers. This was not far from where I grew up, off Verdant Lane, near Hither Green Cemetery. By the time of his second marriage, the three eldest Stocking children were in their late teens/early 20s, but the two youngest girls were barely teenagers and may have stayed with their mother.

Stanley Aaron Archibald Stocking died on 3 November 1993; his death registered in Greenwich. He was cremated there on 15 November 1993. He was 75 years old. His first wife, Kathlyn Mabel Stocking, did not remarry, and died aged 85 in Lewisham in the Summer of 2005.

The son of Aaron Archibald Stocking never knew his father, who was killed in WW1. He appears to have separated from his first wife and married a divorcee whose first husband also married several times. While I have traced something of his children’s lives, some of them and their descendants are still alive, so not named here.