Photo: Jim Busby

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born on 25th April 1897 Sydney was the only boy among the four children of house painter William Johnson and his wife Emma (nee Baxter), whom he had married in Hartlepool in late 1892. By 1901 the family had moved to Stockton-on-Tees and by 1910 the children were orphaned after the deaths of both their parents. Lillie, his oldest sister, found work as a servant while the two younger girls, Lydia and Mildred, went to live with relatives.

Sydney became one of over 100,000 children, orphaned or otherwise, who were sent to Canada as part of the child emigration movement. He arrived in Quebec on 9th July 1911 aged 14 having sailed from Liverpool on the SS Tunisian as one of a party of 24 boys of the same age in the charge of Rev. A.B. Hunt, and he was then sent onwards to the Gibbs Home in Sherbrooke, Ontario where within days or weeks of the children's arrival in Canada, they were placed on farms to work for their keep.

Four years later when Sydney enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force he gave his address as Brandon, Manitoba. Aged just 18 Sydney became Private 700197 in A Company, 3rd Platoon, 101st Regiment when he signed his attestation papers in Winnipeg on 9th December 1915 giving as his next of kin his sister Lydia still living in Hartlepool, and his occupation as a labourer.

In June the following year the battalion sailed for England on the SS Olympic and was posted to East Sandling, Kent. Once there Sydney was posted to the 17th Reserve Battalion and then at the end of August was posted to France with the 16th Battalion as part of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Canadian Division, and joined them at Albert, going straight into the trenches and fighting at the Somme.

Private 700197 Sydney Johnson was reported missing in action, presumed dead, between 25th and 28th September 1916 near Courcelette, although he was not confirmed as killed for another two years.

Sydney Johnson is remembered in Stockton-on-Tees possibly on S138.39 and at West Hartlepool on W111.55

He is also remembered in Canada on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Johnson