Alexander was born in Bow on 23rd August 1894 and attended Ilford County High School between 16th September 1907 and 3rd February 1911. He had previously Dudley Road, Ilford, and studied at Christchurch Road Elementary School. Before he left school, he passed the Oxford Junior Level examination.
His father, John, was an elementary school teacher and his mother, Amy, owned and managed a tobacconist shop in East Ham’s High Street.
In the 1911 census, Alexander is recorded as a 16-year-old junior clerk for the Port of London Authority. He was the only son and youngest of three siblings. One of his older sisters, Amy, worked as a telephone operator in 1911.
He enlisted at the outset of war in 1914 and was recorded on the school’s first Roll of Honour. The Autumn 1916 edition of Chronicles (the school’s magazine) reported that Corporal J Murdock of the Civil Service Rifles had died of trench fever.
Research by Andrew Emeny, History Teacher at ICHS
Sources:
Ancestry.com
ICHS school records and magazines
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Note
Ilford County High School started life as the Park Higher Grade School in 1901 in Balfour Road, Ilford. It was renamed Ilford County High School (or initially County High School, Ilford) in the years after the school’s management was transferred from Ilford School Board to Essex Education Committee in 1904.