Recorded as Leslie Emerson Graves in the Ilford County High School admissions register, Emerson was the seventh student to be recorded on 1st July 1901. Aged 13 years and 11 months, he was one of the oldest students to join. Previously, he had attended Trafalgar Square School in White Horse Lane E1. He left the school on 25th July 1902 and the cause is recorded as “Civil. S. Coach” meaning that he was being trained to enter the Civil Service. By the 1911 census, he was working as a commercial clerk for a book and paper seller.
His family, headed by Thomas Graves, a schoolmaster, lived at 34 Wellwood Road in 1911 in 1901 the family were living in 32 Devonshire Road in Leyton. He was an only son of Thomas and Mary and had one sister, Evelyn, who worked as a school teacher.
He enlisted in December 1915, aged 28, but was not accepted for service until March 1917. He was one of the few old boys of the school who was married when he enlisted. He had married Josephine Sandermann in December 1911. They had a son, Leslie Philip Emerson Graves who was born in Leyton on 12th October 1916.
He served in the 24th Labour Company of the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) and his service number was 49220. Later he was transferred to the 686th Area Employment Company Labour Corps (No. 78784). He died a month after being discharged with a certificate of disability on 10th February 1919 and was buried in Woodgrange Park Cemetery in East Ham.
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.