Subject

Leading Fireman killed as a result of an air raid on Plaistow Road, E15 on 19 March 1941. 

Stanley Short was born on 1 November 1904, the son Henry John Short (1873-1956) and Charlotte Short née Harland (1880-1944). He and his mother travelled from Cape Town, South Africa, aboard the Union Castle Mail Steamship Co Ltd's 'Gloucester Castle' arriving in Southampton, Hampshire, on 28 September 1912. In 1926 he married Hannah Beatrice Youngs (1906-1993) in Greenwich and they had two sons: John Richard Short (1927-2011) and Henry J. Short (1928-2004). They divorced in 1934 and in 1936 he married  Florence Lilian Bates (b.1910) in Deptford. Their son, Alan Short was born on 27 May 1934. The 1939 England and Wales register shows them living at 94 Addington Road, West Wickham, Kent and his occupation was listed as a Warehouseman-Elevator.

He joined the Auxiliary Fire Service and was attached to Coney Hall Auxiliary Fire Station, West Wickham. He was killed, aged 36 years, on 19 March 1941, together with four other colleagues who were aboard a pump, one of a convoy, that was travelling to a fire in Silvertown and that was obliterated in a land-mine explosion in Plaistow Road, West Ham. He and his four colleagues were buried in a communal grave in St John the Baptist Churchyard, Layhams Road, West Wickham, BN4 9HN. Administration of his estate was granted to his widow and his effects totalled £820.

He is also commemorated in the Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour 1939-1945 located just outside St George's Chapel at the west end of Westminster Abbey. His name is also shown on the National Firefighters Memorial, Sermon Lane, London, EC4 and in the Firefighters Memorial Trust's Book of Remembrance.

We found the information relating to his parents and his divorce in the same ancestry.co.uk public family tree that supplied the image. We have no reason to believe them to be inaccurate, but we could not trace any UK records about this aspect of his life and so we cannot verify those particular details.