Friday, 1 May 2015

Joining up from Hackney

On the 1st May 1915 Alfred Walter Read Lewis (my Great Grandfather in law) enlisted with the Army Service Corps at Holloway, North London.

He was 28 years old, 5 foot 6 inches tall, with blue eyes and dark hair and a tattoo on his left forearm. He lived at 3 Kelvin Road, Highbury Park, North London with his wife May (nee Alice May Adams) and their 3 children Doris Mary (aged 4), Alfred Weymouth (aged 3) and Jessie Lily who was only 1 month old.

Alfred was born on the 21st November 1889 in Spitalfields, Whitechapel. One of ten children, he had six sisters and three brothers. His parents were Harry Bertram and Emily Rebecca Lewis (nee Read) and Alfred like his father was a butcher by trade. The family had moved from Spitalfields to Hackney in 1901, but Alfred was away at the Ardwick Green Industrial School, Ardwick, South Manchester.

By 1911, the Lewis family were living at 91, Windus Road, Stamford Hill. Hackney but on the night of the census Alfred was listed as a visitor with Weymouth & Elizabeth Adams and family, including his future wife Alice May Adams at 129, Packington St, Islington. Alfred married Alice, a dress maker on the 10th October 1911 at Islington Register Office.


Alfred was tested by the Army Service Corps Butchery section and proved himself to be a fair butcher, but was not tested at slaughtering, he was assigned as a butcher to A company of the Army Service Corps Depot.

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