Named for his older sister’s husband, Alfred was the 17th of my 2xgreat grandparents’ children. He followed his brothers into the Army in WW1, and was the second in the family to be awarded the Military Medal. Despite a shotgun wound to the face, and a work accident that damaged his shoulder, he lived a long life, with two sons and several grandchildren.

Alfred’s Childhood and war years

Alfred was born on 16 December 1898 while his parents and older siblings were still living at 44 Herman Road, Camberwell. He was named after the husband-to-be of his much older sister Harriett Elizabeth Stocking, who married Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop in 1899. His mother Alice Mary (nee Wales) died when he was eight years old, having had 19 children in all. He would still have been at school when his father moved his younger children to live next door to his eldest son, my great grandfather James Aaron Stocking, at 18 Beechfield Road, Catford.

Aged 17, he signed up to join the army reserve on 28 October 1916, and transferred to the regular army on 20 February 1917, as did several of his brothers and brothers-in-law. His civilian occupation is Fitter’s Mate, so he had followed in the family building trades tradition from an early age. His service records at Ancestry are amongst the ‘burnt papers’, so some pages are difficult to read.

It seems that he was initially given regimental number 9120773, superseded by no 48226 and 41219. He was only 5’ 3” tall, but the rest of his description is illegible. He was wounded in action on 2 September 1918, receiving a shotgun wound to his face; his records show him being treated in hospitals in various parts of France, including Calais and Rouen, and his Military Medal appears to have been awarded after the end of the War, in January 1919 (date of the announcement in The Gazette). He was still only 21 years old. His older brother Aaron Archibald Stocking had also been awarded the Military Medal, but had been killed in action at the end of 1917. In faint handwriting on his service record is the annotation in the medal section saying that he was awarded the Military Medal. A separate record at FindMyPast also records the MM award.

Medal index card from FindMyPast

He had served in the London, Norfolk and Bedford Regiments, and was also entitled to the British War Medal and Victory Medal. He was promoted permanently to the rank of Lance Corporal in 1919 after a period of temporary appointments (unpaid and then paid). When he applied for his medals in 1920, his address was still 18 Beechfield Road, his rank Acting Corporal, 15^th Battalion, Essex Regiment.

Married life

After the war, he returned to civilian life and 18 Beechfield Road. His father died in 1920, and the 1921 census shows that he is living with his married sister Catherine Alice (Kate) Hall and her family. He is working as a House Decorator in the family firm of W Stocks & Sons, 224 Sumner Road, Peckham, presumably unhindered by his war wound.

Towards the end of 1923, he married Ada Delcie Styles in Lewisham, and they had two sons: Anthony Stocking, born in 1925 and Brian George Stocking, born in 1932. Electoral registers of that time see him registered to vote at 27 Park Road, Honor Oak Park, London.

In 1938, he was working as a Builder’s Jobber for A Mullinger and Son, of Brownhill Road, Catford, when he sustained an injury to his shoulder. The Lewisham Borough News of 2 July 1940 reported that he had been raising a ladder when his shoulder was damaged, and he had been paid 30s compensation per week ever since. At Woolwich County Court, a settlement of £600 plus costs was finally made to him two years later, as reported in The Lewisham Borough News, 2 July 1940 (see left).

At the time of the court case, Alfred Edmund Ilott Stocking was living at Kilmorie Road, Forest Hill, where the family were already living when WW2 broke out.

It seems that his injury didn’t stop him from working, as he is described as a Carpenter (Building Trade) ‘Heavy Work’ in The 1939 Register. His wife is with him, undertaking unpaid home duties, but neither of their sons are listed, and there are no redacted records. I found the boys both together at 6 Elm Cottages, High Street, Reigate in Surrey, living with a Mr and Mrs King. Perhaps they had already been evacuated to the countryside; I haven’t found any connection between the families.

Alfred and Ada continued to be registered to vote at 17 Kilmorie Road until at least 1965.

In 1947, their eldest son Anthony Stocking married Winifred Elsie Summers in Deptford, where she grew up. They had two children: Paul Anthony Stocking, born in Poplar in 1953 and Adam Nicholas Stocking, born in Woolwich in 1956. In 1953, he suffered an unfortunate accident while riding his bike in Stanstead Road, Catford, as reported in Lewisham Borough News on 20 October that year (right), not long after the birth of his eldest son.

The clipping shows that he was 28 years old, and was living at his parents’ address, 17 Kilmorie Road, at the time of the accident. He was taken to hospital, but fortunately was not badly injured.

The Croydon Times and other local newspapers throughout the 1950s record brothers Brian and ‘Tony’ Stocking as members of the Norwood Paragon cycling team, with both frequently finishing long-distance races in the top three.

A year after his second son’s birth, Tony Stocking is recorded (as Anthony Edmund Stocking) as a passenger on board Merchant Vessel The Accra, bound from Liverpool to ‘the West Coast of Africa’. He was described as a Technical Superintendent, travelling from Liverpool to Takoradi in Ghana, departing on 15 June 1957. His UK address is 10 Kilmorie Road, a few doors along from his parents’ home.

Sekondi-Takoradi is the capital twin cities of Western Ghana, its leading industries – apart from fishing – described by Wikipedia as “timber, cocoa processing, plywood, shipbuilding, its harbour and railway repair.” The former British colony gained independence in 1957, so Tony Stocking would have been in the country during the lead-up to and in the period after this political sea-change for the country.

The passenger manifest shows him travelling alone, but his permanent residence was to be in Ghana. Two years later, and incidentally, two years after independence, on 29 January 1959, he and his wife Winifred Elsie Stocking, and their two young children, are listed as passengers on board Merchant Vessel Aureol. They are travelling from Ghana to Liverpool. Anthony Edmund Stocking is again described as a Technical Superintendent, and they are said to be visiting the UK for four months before returning to Ghana. Their UK address is 10 Kilmorie Road.

Most of the men on board are engineers or have some kind of technical occupation, while some of the women were involved in nursing and medical services. They were mostly travelling with their families, the purpose of the journey from Takoradi shown as ‘visit’ to the UK. It seems likely that they were all employed by the same company, and such journeys back to the UK were part of their conditions of employment.

It seems that, at some point after their permanent return to the UK, they moved to Staffordshire. There is a report in The Staffordshire Newsletter on 6 November 1970 that Paul Stocking, aged 17 of Platt Bridge, Eccleshall crashed his motorcycle, injuring himself and his passenger.

The family must have been well-established in Eccleshall in the 1960s, as there is also a pictorial, from The Staffordshire Sentinel of 1 September 1967, capturing Paul and Adam Stocking riding horses at The Eccleshall Show.

Anthony Edmund Stocking died in Staffordshire on 7 October 1997, aged 72. Electoral registers for the 2000s show his widow Winifred Elsie Stocking living at Croxton, Staffordshire until at least 2015. There is a probate record for a woman of that name at FindMyPast, who died on 17 May 2015. She would have been 87.

Alfred Edmund Ilott Stocking’s second son, Brian George Stocking, married Pamela Doreen Cook in Croydon in 1956. In 1957, he and his wife are registered to vote at 17 Kilmorie Road, Lewisham, along with his parents, his brother and sister-in-law and his maternal grandfather George Harry Styles. I believe from birth index entries at FreeBMD that they had a son and daughter, and may later have moved to Norwich as they seem to appear in electoral registers there (Ancestry).

Pamela Doreen Stocking died in Norwich on 27 December 2008, followed very quickly by Brian George Stocking, who died there on 31 December that year.

Alfred Edmund Ilott Stocking died on 11 June 1978 in High Wycombe. His wife predeceased him. Ada Delcie Stocking died in Staffordshire in 1976. Perhaps the couple had moved to Staffordshire in the mid-1960s to be with their eldest son Anthony Edmund Stocking on his return from working in Ghana. Alfred may still have been living there, but visiting grandchildren in Buckinghamshire at the time of his death.