Private Stanley Harrison Latham

Stanley Harrison Latham is the son of Joseph and Isabella Latham, who were living with five of their children at 59 Devonshire Road (previously called Hawthornedene) at the time of the 1911 census. Joseph Latham was a varnish maker and manufacturer whose family had run a successful business in Western Road, Merton from the early eighteen fifties. Stanley’s grandfather had started the business and by 1891 his father had taken it over from his uncle, who had retired to Croydon.

Stanley, born in 1892, was the youngest of seven children. By 1911, at the age of 19, he was employed at his parents’ varnishing works together with his siblings Mabel (32), William (29), Arthur (24), and Ethel (21).

At the time of his death Stanley was serving in the 1st/7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. There are no service records relating to Stanley’s attestation so it is not known when he joined up. Nor, like other men with service numbers close to his, whether he had been transferred to the 1/7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers before going overseas.

Mid-November 1916 saw the final battles of the Somme offensive in an area called Butte de Warlencourt. This ancient artificial mound, which dates from the Roman times, was strongly fortified by the Germans and withstood successive fierce attacks by the British 47th, 9th and 50th Divisions in October and November.

Warlencourt was a battle that brought a heavy loss of life for Private Latham’s battalion. The official history of the Great War (entitled ‘Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916, 2nd July 1916 to the End of the Battles of the Somme’) records the events of 14th November 1916, the day Private Latham died:
“The 1/7th Northumberland reached Hook Sap but German machine-gun fire from the butte was so severe that communication was cut off and the attackers disappeared in the mist. Suspected counter-attacks were engaged by artillery and machine-gun fire. At 11:00 p.m., a counter-attack by the three battalions of Guard Grenadier Regiment 5 and the divisional storm company was made on both flanks and at midnight, parties of the 1/4th and 1/5th Northumberland were repulsed on the right flank. Next day the British tried to bomb along Gird Trench but the mud was so bad that the attempt was abandoned due to exhaustion. A German bombardment began at 3:00 p.m. on 16 November and an attack followed two hours later which swiftly recaptured Gird trench.”
The battalion’s war diary records that in the period from 13/11/16 to 19/11/16 two officers were killed and 6 wounded; nine other ranks were killed, 101 wounded and 103 missing – a total of 227 men in just 6 days. The Butte was eventually held by the Germans and the British only gained it when the Germans abandoned this position in their 1917.

In the summer of 1920 Stanley Latham’s remains were found at location 57c.M.17.d.5.1 which is close to both ABBAYE and SNAG TRENCH. His body was exhumed and brought to the Butte de Warlencourt cemetery, which was made late in 1919 when graves were brought in from small cemeteries and the battlefields of Warlencourt and Le Sars. An exhumation and reburial document is on record.

When Stanley was reburied at the Warlencourt Cemetery his mother arranged for his headstone to be inscribed ‘Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. Mother.’

Private Latham left £200 in his will. His grave ref at the Warlencourt British Cemetary is III. J. 1. He is remembered on the memorial at Christ Church in Colliers Wood.