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Pickering

Elsie Gertrude Victoria Pickering

Civilian

Date of Death
  • Died: 11/10/1940
  • Age: 43

Died: Injured in a bomb blast on 8 October 1940, at 17 Charmouth Road. Died in Woolwich and District War Memorial Hospital
Address / Local links: 17 Charmouth Road, Welling
Family / Relatives: Wife of Robert Pickering

Tuesday 8th October 1940 was a cloudy, windy night…” After the usual morning patrols and reconnaissance flights, two formations of fifty and 100 aircraft penetrated inland from Dymchurch and approached London via Kenley and Biggin Hill at 8.30 a.m. Bombs fell on Charing Cross Underground Station, Horse Guards Parade, the War Office and the Air Ministry’s Adastral House. Tower Bridge was also hit and so was the BBC’s Bush House. Two hours later a second attack with thirty aircraft developed on London. An hour later another twenty attacked and at 12.30 two formations of twelve took up where the others left off. Fighter Command scrambled 639 sorties and lost four machines. Fourteen German aircraft were destroyed.”

It was a fatal date locally, for mother and son Elsie Gertrude and Robert George Pickering and a tragic one for the husband and father, Robert.

Born October 1896, in Dover, to Alfred James and Elizabeth (Bessie) Wellstead – Elsie’s  father seems to have had various jobs, including a miner’s assistant and an ironmonger.

In December 1921 she married, in Dover, Robert Pickering, and they had one son, Robert, born in 1928, and by 1939 were to be found living at 17 Charmouth Road, Welling – Robert was a laboratory assistant at Woolwich Arsenal.

Injured by a bomb on 8 October 1940, at 17 Charmouth Road, she died at Woolwich and District War Memorial Hospital (pictured) 3 days later on the 11th. Three days after that, she was buried, along with her 12 year old son, at St. Michaels in East Wickham.

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If anyone is able to add any extra information, provide more family details, or suggest any corrections, please let us know – also, if anyone has any more photos of this individual listed on our memorials, please get in touch. Thank you.

Commemorated

This story has been researched by volunteers. We have taken every effort to ensure its accuracy. If you are related to Elsie Gertrude Victoria Pickering, or if you have any further information, please do get in touch.