Edmund Clifton Stoner, 1899-1968

Abstract

Edmund Clifton Stoner was born on 2 October 1899, at 4 Marshall's. Cottages, Pemberton Road, East Molesey U.D. in the district of Esher in the County of Surrey. His birth was registered in that District, Book 33, page 66. His surname Stoner was that of his father's foster-father, named James Stoner, who, with his wife Henrietta ( née Palmer) brought up their foster-child from the age of a few weeks. James Stoner lived at Streatham, where he had a china shop and a smallholding. While at school the foster-child was known as Arthur David Hallett, but on leaving school his foster-father asked the boy to take the name Arthur Hallett Stoner, which he thereafter used. There is no reason to doubt that he was born on 11 May 1870, or that his father’s name was Hallett, but he had no other knowledge of his parentage or ancestry, or of the circumstances of his adoption, and there is no other reliable information concerning his father. James Stoner died a few years after his wife and a few months before Edmund Stoner was born. As registration of birth was not compulsory before 1875 the lack of knowledge of more details of Arthur David Hallett’s birth is readily understood.