Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Sidney Charles was the fifth child of timber merchant and one time Newcastle City Councillor Edmund Ward Robson and his wife Maria (nee Sanzenbaker) a member of the Newcastle German pork butcher family. Edmund and Maria had married in 1878 and their first son, also named Edmund was born the following year whilst the family were living in Grosvenor Place, Jesmond. Also born here were Mary Helen, Lily Gertrude, Ernest Ward and Sidney Charles born on 5th December 1891.

Sidney attended West Jesmond Council School and by 1911 had moved with his parents and younger brother Ernest to live in Marine Avenue, Monkseaton. As well as working as a clerk to a coal exporter Sidney was also a volunteer with the 6th Northumberland Fusiliers.

On 7th March 1913 Sidney arrived in Canada, having sailed from Liverpool on board the SS Grampian, the ship’s manifest stated that he was making for Swift Current, Saskatchewan and was seeking work as a clerk. He ended up travelling further west into Alberta, where he settled in Lethbridge and found work as a bank clerk with the Merchant’s Bank.

On 23rd November 1914 Sidney enlisted with the Canadian Field Artillery in Lethbridge, becoming Gunner 87232 in 20th Field Battery. At the end of June 1915, just as he was about to sail for England with a reinforcing draft, Sidney received news of his mother’s death in Monkseaton. He arrived back in England on 6th June and was posted to camp at Shorncliffe, Kent. In September he was posted to the 26th Battery, 7th Artillery Brigade and went to France with them as a Bombardier.

With the reorganisation of the Canadian Field Artillery units in March 1917 Sidney was transferred to the 17th Battery where he reverted to the rank of Gunner at his own request, but was again promoted to Bombardier in February 1918. Granted leave in December 1918 Bombardier Robson rejoined his unit in France four weeks later, returning to England in mid March and then n to Canada, sailing n the SS Minnekahda from Tilbury Docks. Sidney was demobilised from the CEF on 26th May 1919 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

16th July 1919 saw him marry local girl Dorothy Charlotte Bentley in St Augustin’s Church, Lethbridge and then depart for a short honeymoon in Banff, before returning to live with her parents on 13th Street South. Their son Sidney Bentley Robson was born on 18th June 1922, but was killed whilst serving with the RCAF during World War 2. Sidney worked as a bank manager retiring to Vancouver in the early 1960s.

Dorothy died in 1979 from heart failure and Sidney Charles Robson from kidney failure on 1st August 1983, and was cremated three days later.

Sidney Cecil Robson is remembered in Jesmond on J1.21 and in Newcastle upon Tyne on NUT159