Private Albert Frank Stopher

Albert Frank was the second son of John and Lucy Stopher. His father John, who was a cattle dealer, had moved from Suffolk to Mitcham by 1881, where he met and married Lucy Hilliard in 1891 at Christ Church in Mitcham. Albert Frank was born in the second quarter of 1893 and baptized on the 30th July 1893 at Mitcham.

The 1911 Census, reveals that his mother Lucy Hilliard Stopher was now a widow, her husband, John had died in January 1900. At the age of 17 years, Albert Frank was now employed as a grocer’s assistant in Mitcham.

Albert Frank’s service record is not available through Ancestry.

His mother Lucy, lost 2 sons to the Great War, Horace Frederick Stopher, was also killed in the war and is commemorated on the Mitcham War Memorial

HISTORY
During the First World War, the area around the small fishing port of Etaples was the scene of immense concentrations of Commonwealth reinforcement camps and hospitals. It was remote from attack, except from aircraft, and accessible by railway from both the northern or the southern battlefields. At its peak, 100,000 troops were housed there with Commonwealth army training and reinforcement camps and an extensive complex of hospitals.

In 1917, 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals, which included eleven general, one stationary, four Red Cross hospitals and a convalescent depot, could deal with 22,000 wounded or sick. In September 1919, 10 months after the Armistice, three hospitals and the Q.M.A.A.C. convalescent depot remained.

The cemetery is the final resting place of 20 women, including nurses, army auxiliaries and civilian volunteers of the YMCA and Scottish Church Huts organisations. They were killed in air raids or by disease.