Name
Sidney Walker
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
Sidney appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school. An undated newspaper cutting from the village scrapbook reports him as one of four brothers serving, whose parents had died.
Parish and census records confirm that they were the sons of George and Sarah Walker (née Odell), who both died before the war. The family lived in Bury End, near Great Green. In all it would appear that four brothers served, of whom three survived - refer to Frederick Walker for more family details.
By 1911 he had a wife, Susan. They had been married for three years and had two children: Edith Sarah (b c1909) and Ivy May (b 1910). They were living around Great Green and he was a cowman on a local farm. By the time he went to war he was married and a father.
An undated but war time newspaper cutting confirms a third child. It also reports that before the war they had moved to Knebworth, with Sidney working as a cowman on Lord Lytton’s Estate. However the family, with Sidney away at war, moved back to Pirton.
Sidney is recorded in the Parish Magazine of July 1916 as enlisting between October 21st 1915 and March 2nd 1916, and serving in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He would have been about twenty-seven years old.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
