Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Corporal Sidney Medlock of the Royal Field Artillery 4^th Reserve Brigade passed through Peterborough East Station on 13 September 1916.

We have not been able to trace a Sidney Medlock (service number 4393), but we have traced William Sidney Medlock whose service record signature is a good match to that in the visitors’ book.

However, we have found three service records for William Sidney Medlock.  The first states that he attested on 22 August 1914 and joined the West Yorkshire Regiment (Service Number 10560), but was discharged on 29 September 1914, due to misconduct and in the Army’s view was unlikely to become an efficient soldier.

The second record indicates that he joined the Army Service Corps (service number 015752), attesting on 6 October 1914, and subsequently deserting on 13 November 1914 with no indication given of him being traced.  The Army wrote to his wife in 1916 asking for any knowledge of his whereabouts, but the letter was returned marked “return to sender”.

The third service record has William Sidney Medlock joining the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (service number 26996) attesting on 3 April 1915.  He was discharged on 17 June 1915, with the reason given as “an alcoholic subject and not fit for service”.  All three service records give his address as 8 Gun Street, Friar Street, Blackfriars and his wife’s name as either Madelaine or Hazel.  In 1916 he was named as a deserter from the Remount Depot in Swaythling, Southampton on the Police Gazette List of British Army Deserters and Absentees.

If William Sidney Medlock is the correct person, he was born in Southwark in 1880, and was one of nine children born to Henry John and Mary Ann.  He lived in Southwark all of his life and he married Madelaine Hazel Irene Smith on 12 May 1900 in the Parish of St George the Martyr, Southwark.  They had six children Frederick (1900), Sheila Lilian (1901), Nora (1904) John Lawrence (1906), Albert William (1910) and May (1913).  He listed his occupations variously as an iron dealer on his own account, a general labourer and a carman.  William Sidney died in Camberwell in 1920, at the age of 40.

It would appear that if William Sidney Medlock was indeed our man, in September 1916, he had signed up for a remarkable fourth time!  What do you think?

Please get in touch if you can help us to confirm the identity of William Sidney.