Leonard Wilford CULVERWELL
Regimental No. 2/2804
18 July 1895 - 21 October 1918
When Leonard CULVERWELL was born on the 18th July 1895 his family lived in Plumstead, south east London, an area of two-up, two-down terrace houses which had expanded rapidly in the 1880’s to house workers at the Royal Arsenal in nearby Woolwich. According to UK Census records Leonard’s father Charles was an engineer/fitter/turner who probably worked at either the Woolwich Dockyard or at the Arsenal itself, both of which provided employment for large numbers of men with skills in the engineering field. Charles’s family had lived in the Plumstead/Woolwich area for at least 30 years, as the family is recorded in the UK Census records for 1871, 1881, and 1891 at various addresses around the area.
Leonard’s mother’s name was Alice Mary, and he had a brother, Charles Edward, who was four years older, and a sister, Alice Maud, older than Leonard by two years.
In 1901, when the Census was taken on 31st March, the family were living at 40a Rectory Grove, Plumstead. Many of their neighbours were engineers, carpenters, labourers, shipwrights, and reference is made to employment at the Royal Military Arsenal. The Culverwell’s appear to be sharing their address with two other families, unlike their immediate neighbours who were in single family dwellings.
In 1904 another son, Stanley Grenfell, was born in Woolwich. Sometime after his birth the family packed up and sailed to New Zealand. The reasons for their emigration, and the date on which this happened are not known. However, by 1907 Leonard was attending Mitchelltown School, where he distinguished himself by winning a Navy League prize for an essay on ‘The British Navy during the Stuart Period’, with prizes handed out at a ceremony on Trafalgar Day (21 October, 1907). Trafalgar Day, the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805,[i] was then still assiduously remembered by the Navy League but is now a day known to few.
By 1911 the parents were registered as voters in and their name and address was recorded for the first time on the New Zealand Electoral Roll. They were resident in Highbury Road, Mitchelltown, and Charles was an engineer’s turner. In 1914 their details were the same.
Leonard also attended classes at the Boy’s Institute and in November 1910 won a drawing prize, and prizes for attendance and for “Night School Most Improvement”. Leonard was keen on rifle training and by 1910 was Lieutenant-Corporal in the Wellington Guards, after which he served in the territorials. He was also sporty and enjoyed, for example, hockey and harriers.
The whole family were musical and performed in concerts, at soirees and at all sorts of public entertainments. They were deeply involved in the Mission for Seamen, with the father Charles singing regularly at entertainments for seamen in port.
When war was declared in August 1914 Leonard was 19 and employed as an indentured apprentice compositor at the Empire Box Company in Douglas Street, Mt Cook. In July 1915 Leonard turned 20 and was old enough to join up. On 16 November 1915 he did so, being posted as Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery. His military personnel file at National Archives in Wellington doesn’t record how long he was in camp, or when he sailed from New Zealand, but it does record that was in Etaples, France on 24 April 1916. From there he spent a short time in the field then was hospitalised with influenza. He then seems to have been in the field until in May 1917 he went to England on leave, which must have been much needed after more than 12 months serving at the Front.
While on leave he was hospitalised with over-rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), unusual in a young man and dangerous, since it can increase the likelihood of stroke or heart attack. For the next 5-6 months he spent time in hospital, progressing from Walton-on-Thames to Brockenhurst then to Hornchurch until finally being discharged in November to Aldershot where he remained until returning to France on the 5th April 1918.
In June 1918 Leonard was sent to the School of Instruction, presumably to attend a gunnery training course. In July he became ill again and spent several more weeks in various medical facilities in France, and then again towards the end of August he was sick once again, this time with diarrhoea. He seems to have finally recovered sufficiently to have been discharged to the 1st Brigade on 21st September 1918. Only one month later Leonard was killed in action, on 21 October somewhere near a small French village called Le Cateau. On this date the artillery were being deployed as part of the extensive actions to break through the Hindenburg Line, Allied Forces having been joined to US troops.
Leonard was still only 23 years old when he died. He was eventually buried at Saint Souplet British Cemetery where he is the only New Zealander amongst the nearly 750 casualties of the 1914-18 war commemorated in this site. There were no family announcements of Leonard’s death in local newspapers during the rest of October or in November, nor were there any In Memoriam notices during the next few years.
Leonard’s brother, Charles Edward Culverwell, is also named on the Aro Valley memorial, listed amongst the who served and survived.
Research undertaken by Elizabeth Plumridge and Barbara Mulligan
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Day
Regimental No. 2/2804
18 July 1895 - 21 October 1918
When Leonard CULVERWELL was born on the 18th July 1895 his family lived in Plumstead, south east London, an area of two-up, two-down terrace houses which had expanded rapidly in the 1880’s to house workers at the Royal Arsenal in nearby Woolwich. According to UK Census records Leonard’s father Charles was an engineer/fitter/turner who probably worked at either the Woolwich Dockyard or at the Arsenal itself, both of which provided employment for large numbers of men with skills in the engineering field. Charles’s family had lived in the Plumstead/Woolwich area for at least 30 years, as the family is recorded in the UK Census records for 1871, 1881, and 1891 at various addresses around the area.
Leonard’s mother’s name was Alice Mary, and he had a brother, Charles Edward, who was four years older, and a sister, Alice Maud, older than Leonard by two years.
In 1901, when the Census was taken on 31st March, the family were living at 40a Rectory Grove, Plumstead. Many of their neighbours were engineers, carpenters, labourers, shipwrights, and reference is made to employment at the Royal Military Arsenal. The Culverwell’s appear to be sharing their address with two other families, unlike their immediate neighbours who were in single family dwellings.
In 1904 another son, Stanley Grenfell, was born in Woolwich. Sometime after his birth the family packed up and sailed to New Zealand. The reasons for their emigration, and the date on which this happened are not known. However, by 1907 Leonard was attending Mitchelltown School, where he distinguished himself by winning a Navy League prize for an essay on ‘The British Navy during the Stuart Period’, with prizes handed out at a ceremony on Trafalgar Day (21 October, 1907). Trafalgar Day, the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805,[i] was then still assiduously remembered by the Navy League but is now a day known to few.
By 1911 the parents were registered as voters in and their name and address was recorded for the first time on the New Zealand Electoral Roll. They were resident in Highbury Road, Mitchelltown, and Charles was an engineer’s turner. In 1914 their details were the same.
Leonard also attended classes at the Boy’s Institute and in November 1910 won a drawing prize, and prizes for attendance and for “Night School Most Improvement”. Leonard was keen on rifle training and by 1910 was Lieutenant-Corporal in the Wellington Guards, after which he served in the territorials. He was also sporty and enjoyed, for example, hockey and harriers.
The whole family were musical and performed in concerts, at soirees and at all sorts of public entertainments. They were deeply involved in the Mission for Seamen, with the father Charles singing regularly at entertainments for seamen in port.
When war was declared in August 1914 Leonard was 19 and employed as an indentured apprentice compositor at the Empire Box Company in Douglas Street, Mt Cook. In July 1915 Leonard turned 20 and was old enough to join up. On 16 November 1915 he did so, being posted as Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery. His military personnel file at National Archives in Wellington doesn’t record how long he was in camp, or when he sailed from New Zealand, but it does record that was in Etaples, France on 24 April 1916. From there he spent a short time in the field then was hospitalised with influenza. He then seems to have been in the field until in May 1917 he went to England on leave, which must have been much needed after more than 12 months serving at the Front.
While on leave he was hospitalised with over-rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), unusual in a young man and dangerous, since it can increase the likelihood of stroke or heart attack. For the next 5-6 months he spent time in hospital, progressing from Walton-on-Thames to Brockenhurst then to Hornchurch until finally being discharged in November to Aldershot where he remained until returning to France on the 5th April 1918.
In June 1918 Leonard was sent to the School of Instruction, presumably to attend a gunnery training course. In July he became ill again and spent several more weeks in various medical facilities in France, and then again towards the end of August he was sick once again, this time with diarrhoea. He seems to have finally recovered sufficiently to have been discharged to the 1st Brigade on 21st September 1918. Only one month later Leonard was killed in action, on 21 October somewhere near a small French village called Le Cateau. On this date the artillery were being deployed as part of the extensive actions to break through the Hindenburg Line, Allied Forces having been joined to US troops.
Leonard was still only 23 years old when he died. He was eventually buried at Saint Souplet British Cemetery where he is the only New Zealander amongst the nearly 750 casualties of the 1914-18 war commemorated in this site. There were no family announcements of Leonard’s death in local newspapers during the rest of October or in November, nor were there any In Memoriam notices during the next few years.
Leonard’s brother, Charles Edward Culverwell, is also named on the Aro Valley memorial, listed amongst the who served and survived.
Research undertaken by Elizabeth Plumridge and Barbara Mulligan
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Day