Sidney Abbotson was born in 1889 in Strood, which was then part of the city of Rochester. He spent much of his childhood at 84 Temple Street in Strood. In 1909, he married Esther Missen, and they had two children, Kate and Sidney, who were 2 years old and 7 months old at the time of the 1911 Census. The Abbotsons appear to still have been living in Strood in 1911, possibly lodging with Sidney’s older sister, Harriet. In 1911, Sidney was working as an engineering labourer.
During the First World War, Sidney joined the Royal Engineers as a Sapper – Sappers were soldiers whose role involved building and maintaining key military infrastructure, like roads, bridges, wireless communications, and railways. Sidney served with the 27th Light Railway Company of the Royal Engineers. Sidney died shortly before the Armistice, on 30 October 1918, in the 7th Canadian General Hospital, which was then in Boulogne in Northern France. You can find a link to a photograph of his grave here, and Sidney’s page on Every Man Remembered here.
References and links:
Local archives and objects:
City of Rochester Roll of Honour
Friends of Medway Archives, De Caville Index
Ancestry.com sources:
1891 Census Class: RG12; Piece: 653; Folio: 134; Page: 40; GSU roll: 6095763
1901 Census Class: RG13; Piece: 720; Folio: 145; Page: 40
1911 Census Class: RG14; Piece: 3874; Schedule Number: 158
FreeBMD. England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
Peter Singlehurst; The War Dead of the Commonwealth Etaples Military Cemetery Etaples, France the Second Part Sailors, Soldiers and Civilians from the United Kingdom A to Costa in Ancestry.com. UK, Commonwealth War Graves, 1914-1921 and 1939-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
National Army Museum; Chelsea, London, England; Soldiers’ Effects Records, 1901-60; NAM Accession Number: 1991-02-333; Record Number Ranges: 937001-938500; Reference: 576 in Ancestry.com. UK, Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Military-Genealogy.com, comp. UK, Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: British and Irish Military Databases. The Naval and Military Press Ltd.
Research by:
Kate Bradley, 2016