Name
Sidney Charles (poss. Sidney James) Burton
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
Parish and census records suggest that there were two Sidney Burtons; Sidney Charles (census records) and Sidney James (baptism records). However, despite the difference in middle names, they are both recorded as the son of David and Rose Fanny Burton (née Walker)(*1) and the same age. So they must be one and the same person. The listings of Sidney Charles outnumber the listings of Sidney James (and Sydney), so the former is likely to be correct and is therefore used here.
Sidney appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school and was born on October 25th 1883, so he would have been thirty at the outbreak of war. When he was born, his parents were running The Red Lion PH in Crabtree Lane, near the entrance to the church. Later the family moved to Great Green, where they had a smallholding. The 1901 census records Sidney as seventeen and a stable helper groom, presumably on his father’s smallholding. He had three siblings, Fred (b 1888), Thomas (b 1886) and Beatrice Ruth (b 1881). By 1911, he had left the family home and does not appear in the Pirton census.
His father died on February 28th 1916, aged fifty-eight, followed by his brother, Serjeant Fred Burton of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment, who is recorded on the Village War Memorial, and was killed in France on December 2nd 1917. To complete a sad triple tragedy, their mother died on December 22nd 1917. This was only a few days after learning of her son Fred’s death. She was only fifty-eight and perhaps she was another, indirect, victim of the war.
The Hertfordshire Express of December 22nd 1917 reports Sidney as ‘in hospital in Bristol with a broken ankle sustained at the Front through falling down a disused trench.’ The Parish Magazine of November 1918 records Sidney as being a casualty, suffering from a ‘trench accident to the foot’. The difference in dates suggests a second accident.
*1 Recorded as Rose Mary on Sidney’s baptism record, but Rose Fanny in the 1901 census and on the family headstone in St. Mary’s churchyard.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
