Alexander was the youngest of 19 children, born in the Coronation year of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, after whom he was perhaps named. He joined the regular army aged 16 (lying about his age), married while based in Dorset, later being a Prisoner of War in Germany during WW2. Records of his life after the War are scant, but let’s see what we can find.

The youngest child

Alexander was the youngest of 19 children born to my 2xgreat grandparents James Thomas Stocking and Alice Mary, nee Wales. He was born on 15 October 1902, and baptised at St Philip’s, Avondale Square, a month later.

Extract from parish register (Ancestry)

He was just four years old when his mother died, aged 49, in 1907. He moved from the family home at 44 Herman Road, Camberwell, with his father and some of his older siblings to 16 Beechfield Road, Catford, a street where several of his much older brothers and sisters and extended family lived.

He would have been in his early teens when WW1 broke out, and several of his older brothers and brothers-in-law went off to fight. He was 15 years old when his brother Aaron Archibald Stocking was killed in action at Bourlon Wood in France at the end of 1917. This does not seem to have deterred him from signing up with the Royal Tank Corps when still only 16 years old, on 2 July 1919. FindMyPast has a digitised copy of the Tank Corps’ enlistment records (extract below) which shows that he lied about his age, giving his age on attestation as 18 years, eight months. Six years later, on 29 July 1925 he had agreed to complete 12 years’ service with ‘the colours’.

Extract from service record at FindMyPast

His Army number was 7870242 and his civilian occupation was ‘fitter’. At the time of the 1921 census, Corporal Alexander Edward Stocking is based at 1st Depot Tank Battalion, Bovington Camp, Wareham, Dorset. His age is shown as 20 years and eight months.

On 9 February 1924, he married Florence Carlow. The marriage was registered in the Lewisham District, and the 2^nd page of the enlistment record above shows that they married at Perry Hill, Catford. FreeREG has a transcript of the parish register entry which shows that he was a Lance Sergeant, RTC, at the time, aged 22. His bride was 21 (although born the same year as him), daughter of Henry Carlow, a Carman. They both give their address as 14 Beechfield Road. The witnesses were EC Carlow and HJ Monk.

There is also a record at Ancestry from Dorset marriages which shows the same couple, and a date of 20 January 1924; this may be a banns record. He may still have been serving/living in Dorset so banns would have to be called there as well as the place they married.

Florence Carlow was born in Bethnal Green, London, in 1902. In 1921, she was living in Bethnal Green with her widowed mother, siblings (including her sister, Emily Charlotte Carlow, later a witness to her wedding), nieces and nephews and working as a Clerk for the firm of Henry Borton & Co of Bethnal Green.

Their only child (as far as I know), a daughter, Joyce Florence Stocking, was born on 29 July 1925 in Wareham, Wiltshire. This date is also shown on page 2 of the above record, but is also alongside the date he extended his service. He continued to be registered to vote at 14 Beechfield Road, Lewisham, listed there in 1931 and 1936 as ‘a NM’ – absent, Naval or Military Voter. At the time of The 1939 Register, as WW2 was declared, Florence Stocking was living at 18 Brooklands Road, Kingston-Upon-Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. There is a redacted record, the only other person in the household, presumably their daughter who would have been ten years old. Alexander Edward Stocking was still serving in the Forces, or had recently re-joined, and his wife and daughter were presumably living nearby to his camp.

Alexander’s War 1940-1945

According to The Royal Tank Regiment | The British Army, The Royal Tank Regiment (Royal Armoured Corps) is the oldest Tank Regiment in the World, established during WW1. Tanks were first used in the Battle of the Somme, and formation of the Regiment occurred shortly afterwards. Wikipedia’s overview of the history of the Regiment indicates that around 1939, a number of Yeomanry regiments (Territorial Army) were converted into RAC (Royal Armoured Corps) battalions.

Both FindMyPast and Ancestry have WW2 military collections which show that Regimental Sergeant Major 7870242 Alexander Edward Stocking of the RAC, 1^st East Riding Yeomanry, was posted as missing in action in ‘casualty’ lists in 1940. Other records show him being captured in German occupied territory at Watteau, France, on 29 May 1940. FindMyPast has a record showing him as PoW at Stalag Hohenfels. Ancestry has a digitised copy of the questionnaire which all returned PoWs had to complete after the War. RSM Alexander Edward Stocking gives his home address as 18 Brooklands Road, Kingston-Upon-Hull and the date of his original capture as 20 May 1940 in ‘Watto’.

It seems that he was held Prisoner of War in a number of German prisoner camps for the duration of the war.

Extract from PoW Questionnaire (FindMyPast)

What is interesting, but possibly a coincidence, is that WW2 records (FindMyPast) also show his brother-in-law Albert James Golder (or, at least, a man named A J Golder) as a Squadron Sergeant Major in the RAC, Army number 7875449, who was also believed to have been a PoW. He was the husband of Alexander’s sister Violet Rose May Ivy. They weren’t in the same battalion, and Albert was believed to have been fighting in Libya, whereas Alexander Edward Stocking was captured while fighting in France. Did Albert James Golder, who was about the same age, sign up to the RAC in the footsteps of his brother-in-law, who seems to have been a career soldier? Maybe, maybe not. The Stockings were living in Yorkshire by the outbreak of WW2, while the Golders were in London.

Later lives

Released in May 1945, Alexander Edward Stocking eventually seems to have returned to live in London with his wife and daughter. In electoral registers from 1947, all three are registered to vote at 37 Kilmorie Road, Lewisham; living with them is James A Monk. The latter was his nephew, son of his sister Lavinia Monk.

I do not know whether he returned to working as a Fitter or took up some other occupation. The family continued to be listed as registered to vote at 37 Kilmorie Road, Lewisham, throughout the 1950s. Their daughter Joyce Florence Stocking married Michael T Rowson in Lewisham in Spring 1954. A year later, the couple is registered to vote with her parents at 37 Kilmorie Road.

FreeBMD records suggest that they had two children, a son in 1956 and a daughter born in 1959, both in Lewisham. However, I have not ordered birth certificates to prove this. They are all still at Kilmorie Road in 1963, but by 1964, the Rowsons have moved to 40 Stillness Road, Lewisham. With just over a mile between the two addresses, they had not moved far.

After the 1960s, Alexander Edward Stocking disappears from electoral registers at Ancestry, his next official appearance being in the death indexes and probate records of 1971. According to the latter, he died on Boxing Day 1971 at 37 Kilmorie Road. He left an estate valued at just over £9k. His widow may have died in the Chelmsford area of Essex in 1989. There is a death index entry and probate record for Florence Stocking, of 12 Shelley Close, Maldon, Essex. The death index record shows her date of birth as 4 May 1902, the same as on her 1939 Register entry. She was 86.

I have not found an obvious death index entry for their married daughter Joyce Florence Rowson. It is possible that she either died or was divorced from her husband before 1983, as there is a marriage index entry for a man of that name in Colchester, Essex, in the Apr-Jun quarter of that year. Electoral registers at Ancestry also show a man of that name at 4 Mersea Avenue, West Mersea, CO5 8JL between 2012-2014 when, if it is the ‘right’ man, he would have been nearly 80. Again, I have not found a reliable death index entry for him, and have not been able to prove the above.