A life cut short: Great-Uncle Stanley 1900-1916

This is my great-uncle Stanley David Nickolds, who died in the First World War.   He was killed on the Somme on 12th September 1916.   He was just 16.

He must have lied about his age when he enlisted.  On the war grave stone in France and on a family headstone in Enfield Highway century, his age is given as 18.       RIP.

Stanley enlisted as a rifleman in the London Rifle Brigade.  He was from Enfield, son of Thomas and Louisa Nickolds - he had 13 brothers and sisters and lived at 11, Totteridge Road.  His father was a well-known local figure, an engineer who became a senior manager at the Royal Small Arms Factory and died in 1903.   His mother had died only in 1915.   One Stanley's older brothers was Charles, my maternal grandfather.