Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born in Pensbury Street, Darlington on 29th March 1891 Sidney Fawcett was the first child of stationer’s clerk George Fawcett and his wife of just over a year Hannah Sowerby. George died in 1903 and Hannah remarried in 1907 and by 1911 Sydney was working as a railway clerk and lodging with the Johnson family in Seaton Carew.

Emigrating to Canada in October 1912 Sydney arrived in Montreal on board the SS Tunisian making for Toronto and employment as a clerk. Two years later he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Toronto and became Private 57763 of the 20th Battalion, which was made up of volunteers from the militia units of central Ontario.

The Battalion arrived in England on 15th May 1915 on board the SS Megantic, and just six weeks later Sidney married a childhood sweetheart Alice Maude Waddington at home in Darlington, and for a short while before being posted to France acted as Company Sergeant Major at the camp at West Sandling. Arriving in France on 15th September 1915, the battalion was assigned to the 4th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division and posted to the front line on the Ypres Salient, near Messines, and they spent the winter in a routine of 18 days on the front and 6 days in the rear; in March 1916, steel helmets were issued to all ranks for the first time. Surviving the battle of St. Eloi, in September 1916 the Battalion moved to the Somme and on the first day of the fighting Private Fawcett was wounded in the hand, and bruised on his back in a shell explosion and spent five days at #4 Canadian Field Ambulance Station.

From July 1917 Sidney was attached to the staff of the Assistant Provost Marshal, 2nd Canadian Division for traffic control duties, a job he must have been successful at, as he was transferred to the APM staff the following year and remained with them until returning to England in March 1919.

Sidney took his discharge in England on 19th May 1919 and remained in Darlington where he raised his family, a daughter Dorothy born in 1921 and a son George in 1923.

The 1939 Register shows that Sydney had a change of career as he and Alice, along with their two children, moved to live in Blaydon where he was a Police Inspector. They moved back to live on Grange Road, Darlington on George’s retirement and he died there on 27th May 1964.

Sydney Fawcett is remembered in Darlington on D40.077