Sidney Hurcom
Memorial: Tormarton - St Mary Magdalene's Church
Regiment: Gloucestershire Regiment
Medals: 1914 Star and Clasp, British War Medal, Next of Kin Memorial Plaque 1914 - 1921, Victory Medal
Rank and number: Private 7368
Parents: Leonard and Mary Hurcom
Marital status: Single
Pre-war occupation: Soldier
Date of birth: 1880
Date of death: 29/10/1914
Buried/Commemorated at: Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Ref: Panel 22 & 34), Belgium
Age: 34
Further information:
Sidney Hurcom was born in 1880 2nd quarter – Baptised St Mary Magdalen Church Tormarton 16/05/1880.
On the 1881 Census, Sidney (age 1) was living in Tormarton with his parents and older brother Albert, but his father Leonard died a year later.
By 1891 he was still living in Tormarton (he was at his Grandmother’s house with his brother), and his mother was a laundry maid on the Dodington House estate. She married James Strange in 1892 and they lived in Tormarton, but she died in 1899. They had one daughter Alice born 1893.
In 1901 he was a boarder in Cardiff and was an apprentice Wheelwright. I have not traced him on the 1911 census. It is likely that joined the Army around that period, as he would have been a serving soldier at the outbreak of the war.
Sidney served with the 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. The soldier’s effects were paid to his half Sister Alice Strange later Alice Packer, and the entry also states that Sidney was missing presumed dead.
Sidney Hurcom is remembered on the Ypres Memorial on the Menin Gate (Ref: Panel 22 and 34), Belgium. Sidney is also mentioned on the Chipping Sodbury and District War Memorial Cottage Hospital board, now at Yate and District Heritage Centre under Tormarton.
By kind permission, this information is based on the following source(s):
Yate and District Heritage Centre.
Forces War Records.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Findmypast (Soldiers Died during the Great War, 1901 & 1911 Census etc), Volunteer Researcher John Davis.