Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Sidney Charles Kent

1896 –1944

A labourer who fought at Gallipoli with the Herts Yeomanry in WWI

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Sidney Charles Kent (1896-1944)

Sidney was born in 1896 in Newport Pagnell, Bucks, the son of Maria Charlotte and George Kent. His father was a “confectioner’s assistant” and Sidney was their third child and second son.

In 1901 the family was living at 3, Chesham Road, Berkhamsted. His father died in 1906 when Sidney was ten and by the time he was fifteen he was employed as a gardener’s labourer.

During the 1^st World War Sidney served as a private in the Herts Yeomanry Dragoons. He enlisted in March 1915 when his height was recorded as being 5’ 9½”  and his physical development “satisfactory”. He was sent to the Mediterranean and fought at Gallipoli. Luckily surviving that unscathed, he was then posted to the Western Frontier Force in December 1915. “To the west of British-controlled Egypt, Arab and Berber tribes were being agitated by German and Turkish propaganda, fuelled by German money. Various hostile acts began to be committed against the frontier posts… On 11 December 1915, a hastily collected Western Frontier Force, composed of units currently stationed in Egypt and not employed on the Suez Canal, began to move out from Mersa Matruh under command of Major-General A. Wallace.” ¹ (A full description of the action, with maps, can be found in the rest of the article: link at foot of page.)

Sidney suffered a wound to his hand in 1917 which led to blood poisoning. Then he contracted smallpox and was admitted to hospital in February 1918 “seriously ill.” He was sent to India “on leave” in May but was admitted to hospital in India in July, which led to him being taken off the strength.

He returned to England and was admitted to Bath War Hospital in June 1919 with dysentery. From there he was moved to Addington Park War Hospital in Croyden and was finally discharged in September 1919.

In Sidney 1921 was living with his widowed mother, his two younger sisters and two younger brothers at 3, Chesham Road. His health had recovered enough for him to be employed as a labourer at East & Co’s saw mills.

In early 1927 he was living in Chesham Road with his mother and youngest brother, but later that year he married Dorothy Elizabeth Baker in Berkhamsted. Their son Alan Charles was born in 1930.

In 1939 the family lived at 4, Beech Drive. Sidney was still working as a sawyer.

He died in early 1944.

Dorothy married again in Berkhamsted in 1958 to Walter Willmore, was again widowed, and died in 1982. She is buried in Amersham.

¹ www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/western-frontier-force-and-the-campaign-in-the-western-desert-1915-1916/