Names on the Stockwell War Memorial: Christopher Dartnell

I recently received an email from Sheila Dartnell, a great-niece of Christopher Dartnell, one of the men whose name is on the Stockwell War Memorial. She gave me some fascinating material on her great-uncle, who died in 1917, just one casualty in a war that claimed 9.7million military personnel and 6.8million civilians.

See panel on left for A-Z guide to names on the war memorial.

CHRISTOPHER DARTNELL

Christopher Dartnell, a Lance Corporal in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry from Stockwell, died in 1917 at the age of 21.

Information from the CWGC and Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919

C. Dartnell
(Christopher Dartnell)
Service no 19561
Lance Corporal, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, 6th Battalion
Killed in action on 16 October 1917
Enlisted at Camberwell
Remembered at Hooge Crater Cemetery, Belgium

A memory of Christopher Dartnell

Sheila sent me the words of a letter from her great-aunt Ethel Florence Humphreys (born 1903), Christopher's sister and the youngest of the 12 Dartnell siblings, to her daughter. The reminiscence was written in 1980, shortly before she died.

“...My next vivid memory was War being declared in August 1914. My brothers, Roger, Jim and Fred were called up and transported to France and India. My father was called to repair the Hospital ships and was often in France for a month at a time. His trade was plumbing. It was frightening when the Zeppelins came over and dropped bombs and you wondered if you might be killed when they came your way. We very often stayed and sheltered in the underground where the trains were stationary until All Clear was sounded.

Next to be called up was my brother Chris, when he was 18. He hated war and violence and often wished he was not in the Army. When he had leave from France he never wanted to go back after his leave and the last break he had from the trenches he didn’t go back until after another day had passed. That was in 1917 (May). We then had a telegram to say he was killed in action in October – he was just 21. We all were very shocked because of this and the news that my brother Bill had been wounded in German East Africa and was on his way home having been shot in his right hand and had lost a thumb and was also wounded in the right hip. So he was out of soldering for good. He became a Commissionaire for a firm in the City of London.

My last brother, Reg was called up when he was 18 in January 1918 and sent to France for the big push in May 1918. We had a couple of cards from him the first few weeks and then no more news until August that he was a prisoner of war.

Thank goodness they all arrived home except Chris, safe and well after the war ended in November 1918.

Then Armistice was declared in November 1918 and we were told to go home at lunchtime. I remember going to see the masses of people gathering in the Strand, London and felt lost in the crowd. People dancing and cheering and drinking. I had to walk home as there were no buses running. When I reached my house my Mother was crying because her son, Chris, had been killed and would not be returning and my other brother Reg was still a prisoner of war and we were still waiting to hear if he was still alive."

Sheila also kindly sent me the two photos of Chris, above. "In the second," she says, "I think he looks rather 'shell shocked and bewildered' in comparison to the other photo. I believe he was wounded at one stage and after he recuperated was sent back to the front."

Hooge Crater Cemetery and the Stockwell War Memorial

Chris Dartnell died at Sanctuary Wood during the third Battle of Ypres and is buried at Hooge Crater Cemetery not far from there.

This photos shows the cemetery. As Sheila says, "It's just one of many cemeteries across Europe which shows that they are highly maintained - not like some of the memorials here."

Sheila Dartnell is in correspondence with Lambeth Council on the state of the Stockwell war memorial - the stone is crumbling and the names are becoming less legible. There will be more on this in a later post, as well as more information on the Dartnell family in Lambeth.