I was the son of George & Ada Stallwood nee Nottingham who were general shop keepers and they lived at 57 Easton St, High Wycombe. I had one sibling, my little brother Alfred who was born in 1887 but sadly he died aged 18 in 1905.
I was employed for nine years with Messrs. Goodearl Bros, chair manufacturers of Mendy Street but I also worked for two years for a well known firm over in Ireland. Back at home I was the Honourable Secretary of the Wycombe & District Cricket League. I married Fanny Eliza Friend and we lived at 259 Desborough Road, High Wycombe, and then later at 49 Hughenden Rd with our little family. We had 1 daughter and 4 sons between 1907 and 1916.
During the Great War I became Private 17520 of the 1st Battalion of the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. I was sent to Iraq in the Persian Gulf. Here is an entry from the Regimental Chronicles written by Lieutenant Heawood:
"Several dry but anxious days passed, and then one night we saw the flood coming on at the rate of about a yard an hour. I watched it on and off from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. It advanced quite steadily, and was on far too wide a front to check; so, when it reached our barbed wire, I sent a message to Brigade Headquarters describing our danger of being flooded out, and asking for instructions. I was authorized to evacuate if the worst should happen, but that I would receive a visit from the Field Engineer of the section in a few minutes. We got everything ready for leaving, and put ammunition, bombs, rockets, etc., on the highest possible spots, when the Field Engineer arrived and examined the water with me. Although it was inside our barbed wire, it appeared now to be changing direction, and passing away to lower-lying ground, where there were trenches of another section. We warned the people there of the approaching danger, dammed up some portions of the Redoubt, and thought that we were safe for the present. But the Field Engineer had hardly left us to make his report to General Hoghton when suddenly, at a spot which we had never suspected, in burst a torrent of water, which nothing on earth could stop. It swept away two trench dams almost before we saw it coming, and it was over our ankles immediately. There was nothing for it now but to clear out."
So what with the weather, poor food, pestilence and disease, we had a pretty miserable time of it. On the 20th March 1916, when we were 25 miles from Kut, I suffered a bullet wound to my head and died almost instantaneously. I was 31. I was laid to rest that same evening in the presence of some of my comrades and am buried in the Basra Memorial Cemetery in Iraq.
Researched by Margaret Anderton, Flackwell Local Area History Group and Sally Scagell, Lost the Plot.
