| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Sydney was born in Beverley 16 Jan 1897, the youngest of three sons of Richard Robert Bell and Kate Eleanor Bell (nee Westerdale) who married in Sculcoates in 1885. The family home was at 4 Norwood Dale. Robert was a master tailor with a shop at 41 Toll Gavel, Beverley called “Bell Bros”, which was later run by his eldest son, Francis Reginald born 1888. Sydney attended the Wesleyan School in Spencer Street between 1903 and 1911 and served as an apprentice draper at the Mackrill drapery shop in Saturday Market.
Few of Sydney’s army documents survive but his army career can be gleaned from articles in the local press in 1916 and 1918. He served in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps as a rifleman/private and later reached the rank of lance-corporal. Initially he was in the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion, they went to France in May 1916 and were involved in the actions at Flers-Courcelette on the Somme in Sep 1916. It was there that Sydney was seriously wounded and repatriated to hospital in Manchester with unknown injuries. Upon recovery he joined the 4th Battalion of the KRR and served for twenty months on the Salonika Front north of Greece. In 1918 they returned to France. After leave in Beverley in Sep 1918 Sydney was once again seriously wounded in the hand and left shoulder between Cambrai and St Quentin on 3 Oct 1918 and hospitalised in Glasgow. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
In 1939 Sydney had a gentleman’s outfitters business at 19 North Bar Within, living over the premises. He married Doris, born in 1898, and had four children. He later lived at 55 Manor Road in Beverley. He died 18 Sep 1984. His brother, Francis, ran the family business whilst his older brother, Herbert, later worked as a “draper’s traveller”.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |